Day 28: The End is Only the Beginning

 


Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. In practicing meditation, we’re not trying to live up to some kind of ideal – quite the opposite. We’re just being with our experience, whatever it is. - Pema Chödrön

Here we are at Day 28, the end of this particular meditation experiment. The coronavirus pandemic has made it a much more practical experience for coping with the unknown. I thought I was doing this for the collective you, but now I realize it was mostly for myself. It is one thing to know something intellectually, and quite another to have an embodied experience. I learned that this practice is enormously useful in times of trouble, and that peace comes from accepting this moment, as it is, warts and all. As we sit today, consider what you have noticed over the past four weeks. Does it feel different to be in your life? Did your practice grow corn?

Beyond our resistance, doubt and judgement, there truly is something in us that guides the way if we can be quiet and listen. This is all just life. People are just people. There is nothing wrong, and nothing to fix. We sit down and are quiet in this moment, and it becomes the only reality. All we need to do is practice, be good to each other and live our lives, as Krishna Das pointed out. After this 28 day commitment, I hope that we each got a taste of what it is like to identify more with the watcher of the thoughts, than the thinker.

I have really enjoyed sharing this with you and I am going to keep going! As Yoda said, "There is no try. Do or do not." The 28 Day Meditation Challenge is here for you. I hope you return to it often and continue to make meditation part of your everyday life.

I wish you many blessings that meditation, self acceptance and a peaceful heart can bring. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you have food to eat. May you be safe and feel loved. Keep going. ❤️

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