As you might know, when we sit in meditation we notice a thought arise, and when we notice that we’ve been thinking, we can simply label it “thinking”.
Thinking.
And let it fade as simply as it arose.
Not pushing it away but not holding on to it.
As we practice this, we learn with a bit of time that thoughts arise in our mind, thoughts are literally thought, that is their nature.
And yet we are not these thoughts.
We learn to disidentify from these thoughts.
Whether they are bad or good, murderous or compassionate,
They do not touch our basic nature.
We can completely let go of the idea that our thoughts define us.
This idea, and it’s just an idea, that one particular thought is good, and that this other thought, oh, we are a bad person because we thought that thought.
We can instead give no weight to one thought versus another, they are all just the passing activity of the mind.
It is so joyful to release our attachment to particular thoughts as being worse than others,
and so freeing to realize that really these thoughts have little to do with what we are.
Just like a storm cloud passing through the sky.
Does that make the sky bad? Of course not.
So much of our world can be about controlling our thoughts, analyzing them.
“Am I a good person when I think these things.”
Or, one that was strong with me: “which things must I think in order to be a good person.”
We can let all of this go.
So what if you practice with that for a few moments.
Simply allow these thoughts to be, yes even the bad ones, the hateful ones, and simply notice that they really have very little to do with you.
They are happening in a much bigger space, a space that holds those thoughts, but is not affected by them.
And with that we begin to notice our basic goodness, this primordial nature of us, that is before and beyond all of our day to day thoughts about whether we’re good enough or not.
This fundamental, or basic, nature exists, it simply *is*, and it is our birthright.
We say it is primordial, because it is already there, it is unconditional.
We don’t reject the sky, the stars, the ocean, or the moon.
We simply accept them as existing.
And in the same way we can accept our basic nature as existing.
We are humans, people. We are of this earth.
Think about how the nature of an apple tree is that it apples.
If you zoomed out from the earth, you would see that it peoples.
The earth peoples, like an apple tree apples.
We’re not some outside entity dropped into a strange land in a strange universe.
We are grown from this earth.
In fact you are even made of earth.
You are animated earth suspended in a bowl of vibrating water.
You breath air and turn it into the electric fire of life.
Earth, water, air and fire.
You are elemental.
So with that in mind – take a minute to feel into your basic nature as a human, that belongs to this world.
As you sit, feel your feet.
Feel your feet.
Feel your feet ouching the ground.
Your feet connect you to the earth, physically.
You are physically connected to all other beings, to the trees, to the grass, to the tigers, the lions, the insects.
All are connected to this earth just as you are connected now, through your feet.
See if you can feel that connection down into the earth, and into all the trees of the world.
The breathing trees.
Breathing as you are breathing.
You are as needed as the trees.
Now take a few bigger deeper breaths. In and out.
Breath in powerfully. And breath out powerfully.
Feel the fire in your belly, in your chest.
Feel the energy, the life energy flowing through you.
This is called Lungta
A Tibetan word that means wind-horse.
This is the basic life energy that is basic goodness.
The wind of life, and yet also it’s a horse that we can learn to saddle and ride.
It’s not something we need to prove its existence, it is something we can directly touch and feel in our experience.
It doesn’t belong to us, yet it is our nature.
There are no exceptions – all beings are basically good.
All are made from this water, earth, fire and air,
All have lungta flowing through,
All beings are basically good.
All beings are basically good.
This joins us in a beautiful life force energy that runs underneath all our day to day contentions and emotions and actions and words,
beneath all of the things that we run around doing,
runs this deep ocean of basic goodness.
It’s a beautiful practice to dip below,
and tap into that ocean.
Feel yourself now opening your heart and diving into that deep ocean of tender basic goodness.
Below all your day to day concerns.
We can experience it when we open the window and suddenly we smell the smell of a flower wafting in on the breeze,
we can feel it when we stare at a blade of grass in wonder, with raindrops beading on its surface.
And we can feel it when we watch a loved one die.
We experience this in full color.
With no filters.
The dreadful beauty of impermanence of everything –
the impermanence that by it’s very finiteness creates the specialness of our lives.
We feel our Basic Goodness when we turn towards our life.
Towards
this life
in this world.
We turn towards life.
When we don’t turn away from some part of us – or from someone else – in disgust, or shame.
When we don’t numb ourselves with all the many distractions that are oh so very available if we choose them.
Perhaps now you can feel into your body, into your life –
are there areas you don’t like, you might prefer they were different than what is.
Perhaps it’s your body,
or a particular part of your body.
Perhaps it’s how you show up in your relationship with someone.
Maybe it’s your finances,
or your job.
Perhaps it’s your eating habits,
or the clutter in your home that you are ashamed of.
Instead of turning away, we can turn towards this thing.
We can feel the shame or disgust or discomfort that we feel, and we can bring love and gentleness to that feeling.
This is our Basic Goodness.
Underneath all of that we can look directly at our existence, our life situation, and simply see it.
For all its basic okay-ness;
There is nothing wrong.
You are as needed as the trees.
And however you eat,
no matter what shape you are,
what state your house is in,
no matter the angry words you speak to your partner or friend,
none of this –
None of this impacts your nature as fundamentally good.
None of this impacts your nature as fundamentally good.
Breathing in, and breathing out.
And from there we can start to leave the cocoon that we built up to protect ourselves,
we can start to experience fearlessness –
going beyond our fears.
Since everything is fundamentally okay, fundamentally good,
we can explore this world,
little by little, more and more.
We can look more directly at all aspects of our world,
And of ourselves.
There is no judge, there is nobody to say you are good or you are bad.
There is nowhere you need to look except inside yourself to see this fundamental goodness of what you are.
As needed as the trees.
We can spend decades searching for external validation,
but this beautiful life force inside you is so insanely special and magical,
there can be no question but that you are absolutely perfect as you are.
In this moment.
And in every moment.
As you breath in and as you breath out,
simply feel – feel – for that magical nature you are made of.
We question ourselves so much.
But if we just release that questioning,
release it for a while just like you release the thoughts in meditation,
and we look underneath,
we can see our more basic existence.
Our beauty.
Our basic goodness.
And our place in the teeming, writhing, exuberant, joyful panoply of life.
Like a litter of newborn pups, wriggling around in the pure exuberance of being alive.
There is no judge to say well this pup is bad, and this pup is good.
All are fundamentally good. Natural. Existing in accordance with natural laws.
And when you see that this is true for yourself,
so can you see that the same is true for all beings.
Or, if that’s hard but if you can see that it is true for all beings,
then so it must be true about you.
And from this place of knowledge of our basic goodness
we can experience true love and connection with anyone and everyone in this world.