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, can bring us back into the present. From this presence, we are able to 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… to soften our resistance to life’s problems and to bring into our lives greater ease.

What we call “mindful intelligence” is a wakeful sensibility not acquired rather something already preserved inside of us all… a quiet, steady, open, and curiously inclusive readiness to experience our life and humanity as it is. If willing to come back home within, we may realize our boundaries of selfishness and selflessness- we may know where we stand as one being that survives, adapts, and thrives the light of a shared and interconnected existence. Coming to our senses and to our mindful intelligence is a caring and disciplined way of understanding the nature of a highly conditioned mind and its effect in our human interactions- a “felt” sense of separation and connection.

Living and passing through life detached from our own interiority 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 from a relatively fixed and rigid existence- externally driven and internally reactive- we need to loosen our grasp on forces of habit that are deeply entrenched in our own 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 of being are indeed profound- and mindfulness can be a very powerful medium for our own realization, transformation, and healing.

Our kinship to one’s self- to others- and to life itself is an open and direct relationship. It requires heartfelt 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” directly, openly, and compassionately… in darkness, in shadow, and in light.

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