Thank you for being here tonight.
Take a breath with me.
Inhale through the nose.
Let it stretch across the ribs.
Exhale through the mouth,
Slow and easy.
Drop your shoulders.
Let the noise of the day fall away for a minute.
This one's about seeing clearly.
Alright,
Let's talk.
There was once a man who kept a mirror on his wall.
Over the years,
As he worked,
Worried,
And rushed through life,
Dust began to gather on the glass.
At first,
He noticed a blur.
But he told himself it didn't matter.
He still had bills to pay.
Deadlines to meet.
People to please.
Every morning,
He glanced at his reflection.
Seeing only shapes and shadows.
One day,
While searching for something he had lost,
He brushed a mirror with his sleeve.
A small patch of light appeared.
For the first time in years,
He saw himself tired,
Unshaven,
Real.
He wiped a little more dust away.
The clearer the mirror became,
The more his heart began to ache.
Then it hit him.
The dust had never been the problem.
It was his refusal to look.
So he stood there,
Hand trembling.
Tears falling.
He cleaned the glass until he could see everything.
The weariness.
The beauty.
The truth.
Suffering is the dust that gathers when we stop looking at our lives with honesty.
Mindfulness is the courage to wipe the glass clean.
To see ourselves not as broken,
But as human.
Awakening begins the moment we stop pretending the mirror isn't dirty.
In America,
We've renamed suffering with softer words.
Burnout.
Anxiety.
Depression.
Exhaustion.
But there are deeper names too.
Corruption.
Greed.
Division.
Illusion.
We live in a time where capitalism wears the mask of progress.
Selling distraction as purpose.
Calling exhaustion success.
Our systems reward shouting instead of listening.
Our feeds reward outrage over wisdom.
Our culture rewards accumulation over awakening.
But the Buddhist truth still cuts through all that noise.
Suffering isn't punishment,
It's feedback.
It's life showing us the imbalance between what we think we need.
.
.
.
.
.
And what our hearts truly long for.
To be American and awake is to see through the illusions.
To stop mistaking noise for freedom.
Only then can we understand dukkha.
Not as a flaw,
But as the doorway to compassion.
Once a day,
Pause and ask.
Where has dust gathered on my life today?
Take one conscious breath for it.
Whisper inwardly.
May I see this clearly.
May I meet it kindly.
Then notice.
Does the mirror inside feel just a little clearer?
The dust of suffering will always return.
That's life.
But so will the light.
That's the first noble truth.
Love.
Not despair.
But the courage to see what's real.
Stillness is rebellion.
Compassion is a weapon.
Carry both.
