Turning inward not away brings freedom to the courageously inspired.

If we are willing to see the ‘whole’ of our lives as practice, our awareness of the moments when we are not present, coupled with our intention to awaken, brings us into the present. From here we stand on the solid ground of our own experience- looking deeply into how we live and learning to care for ourselves while being truly alive to our living.

The slow yet deliberate movement into the interiority of our lives with a quiet mind and an open heart allows us to feel deeply and act wisely. What we call ‘mindful intelligence’ is not acquired, it is something universal to us all- already preserved within us … quiet, steady, open, curious, and ready to experience… this is our inheritance. When opening up to this natural intelligence, we can innately know our boundaries of selfishness and selflessness- we can know where we stand for ‘I’, ‘me’, and ‘mine’, as well as for others. Awakening, we come to realize our deliberate and careful attention is the foundation for healing relationships with both one’s self and with others. Coming to our senses and to our mindful intelligence we adopt a disciplined way of understanding the nature of mind and its effect in human interactions- the ‘felt’ sense of separation and connection.

Living and passing through life detached from our interiority only reinforces our entrapments in habits, assumptions, and long-held perceptions. Turning away from our direct experiences we cannot see our lives the way they truly are. To liberate one’s self from a relatively fixed (‘solidified’) and rigid existence- externally driven and internally reactive- one needs to loosen his/her grasp on forces of habit that are deeply entrenched in one’s being. Facing this revelation is not easy or comfortable- it is the price of wakefulness- the courageous spirit to break one’s conventional mode of existence outside of one’s true nature.

As we know it, we have but only this one life to live. Do we have the capacity- the will- the determination- and the devotion to take it back? Life renewed is not an easy road to follow. To honestly examine one’s ‘self’- to look deeply into the mirror and accept unconditionally the reflection back is no easy undertaking. The effort and the potential consequences of this ‘Way’ are indeed profound as mindfulness is a very powerful medium for realization, transformation, and healing. It is this wisdom- the ‘felt’ or ‘sensed’ intelligence of sentient beings living and experiencing directly and intimately with what occurs before them.

Our kinship to one’s self- to others- and to life itself is an open and direct relationship. It requires heart-felt trust to endure and stay connected to things as they are so that they may speak the ‘truth’ about what is happening and what needs to happen when one is ready to act with all their awakened and attuned senses. We must come to our senses if we are to fully engage in life without the fears or fixations so commonly entrained in our habits, assumptions, and long-held perceptions. To awaken renewed, we must come to reckon with all aspects of ‘self’… in darkness, in shadow, and in light.

Coming to our senses is awakening to our inheritance… to our whole-being, embodied awareness.

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