WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:04.919 There is a kind of tiredness that has nothing to 2 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:10.560 do with sleep. It is the tiredness of carrying two 3 00:00:10.679 --> 00:00:15.000 things that pull in opposite directions, of knowing one thing 4 00:00:15.080 --> 00:00:19.480 and doing another, of wanting stillness and moving toward noise, 5 00:00:19.559 --> 00:00:22.760 of loving what you are, and somehow living as though 6 00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:27.399 you are not quite sure. Most of us have known 7 00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:30.160 this feeling for so long that we stop noticing it 8 00:00:30.199 --> 00:00:34.240 had a name. We simply move through our days with 9 00:00:34.320 --> 00:00:37.520 a low and familiar weight, the way a river carries silt, 10 00:00:38.079 --> 00:00:44.119 not burdened exactly, but never quite clear. Settle now, if 11 00:00:44.200 --> 00:00:51.520 you will, into a reevalu the world any new what 12 00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:59.560 it is solid patience, asking nothing of you. There is 13 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:04.439 no picular way to be in this moment. There is 14 00:01:04.480 --> 00:01:09.159 only the moment itself and you, and whatever quiet is 15 00:01:09.200 --> 00:01:14.680 willing to gather between the two. Think of a tree, 16 00:01:16.439 --> 00:01:19.840 not a tree in any particular season, simply a tree 17 00:01:19.840 --> 00:01:24.719 as it is. The roots do not argue with the branches, 18 00:01:26.239 --> 00:01:31.480 The bark does not quarrel with the leaves. The tree 19 00:01:31.519 --> 00:01:34.239 does not spend its mornings becoming a tree and its 20 00:01:34.319 --> 00:01:39.239 evenings wondering if it has managed It. Simply is what 21 00:01:39.280 --> 00:01:44.760 it is, entirely without internal negotiation. And yet we look 22 00:01:44.799 --> 00:01:49.599 at a tree and call it still. We do not 23 00:01:49.719 --> 00:01:50.120 see the. 24 00:01:50.159 --> 00:01:53.719 Slow and immense labor of it, the reaching down as 25 00:01:53.799 --> 00:01:56.519 much as reaching up, the drinking and the breathing, the 26 00:01:56.640 --> 00:01:59.719 years of becoming written into every ring of its heartwood. 27 00:02:00.879 --> 00:02:08.680 A tree earns its stillness not by effort, exactly, but 28 00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:11.439 by allowing all its parts to want the same thing. 29 00:02:13.280 --> 00:02:17.240 There is a moment, and perhaps you have touched it, 30 00:02:18.680 --> 00:02:24.000 when something inside you simply agrees, When what you believe 31 00:02:24.080 --> 00:02:26.879 and what you do are no longer strangers to each other, 32 00:02:29.080 --> 00:02:32.080 when the life you are living and the self you 33 00:02:32.199 --> 00:02:35.639 recognize in quiet moments are not two separate countries with 34 00:02:35.719 --> 00:02:37.759 a border between them. 35 00:02:38.080 --> 00:02:39.680 It arrives without announcement. 36 00:02:41.439 --> 00:02:44.560 It does not arrive because you pushed hard enough or 37 00:02:44.599 --> 00:02:49.120 wanted it with sufficient intensity. It arrives the way morning 38 00:02:49.199 --> 00:02:55.280 arrives gradually, and then all at once, and suddenly the 39 00:02:55.360 --> 00:02:56.680 world is simply lit. 40 00:03:00.159 --> 00:03:04.960 A river, when it has found its course, does not 41 00:03:05.120 --> 00:03:11.080 question its direction. With every bend it carries what it carries. 42 00:03:12.560 --> 00:03:16.800 It moves with the shape of the land. It gives 43 00:03:16.840 --> 00:03:20.319 itself without grief to the sea it has never seen, 44 00:03:22.439 --> 00:03:25.639 And somewhere along the way somewhere between the mountain and 45 00:03:25.719 --> 00:03:29.599 the mouth, it stops being water trying to become a river, 46 00:03:30.599 --> 00:03:37.719 and simply is the river, fully without remainder. This is 47 00:03:37.759 --> 00:03:45.719 not a grand transformation. This is something quieter. This is 48 00:03:45.719 --> 00:03:48.199 what happens when there is no longer a part of 49 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:54.240 you standing apart from you, watching with folded arms, unconvinced. 50 00:04:04.919 --> 00:04:10.719 We spend such tender years building arguments with ourselves, speaking 51 00:04:10.759 --> 00:04:18.040 in two voices, the one that knows and the one 52 00:04:18.079 --> 00:04:24.199 that hesitates to let the knowing change anything. And perhaps 53 00:04:24.319 --> 00:04:30.240 that was necessary. Perhaps the distance between who we were 54 00:04:30.279 --> 00:04:33.759 becoming and who we had been needed time to close. 55 00:04:36.160 --> 00:04:41.759 Perhaps the self is not reckless with its trust, even 56 00:04:41.839 --> 00:04:47.800 of itself. Perhaps we needed to circle the thing many 57 00:04:47.839 --> 00:04:53.319 times before we were willing to land. There is no 58 00:04:53.439 --> 00:04:57.759 shame in any of that. The bird that takes a 59 00:04:57.800 --> 00:05:00.480 long time to return to the brand is not a 60 00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:05.560 lesser bird. It is a bird that has been watching 61 00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:17.600 the wind carefully and know something about patience. But there 62 00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:21.360 comes a morning, and it may be this one where 63 00:05:21.399 --> 00:05:25.639 one not far from now, when the distance begins to 64 00:05:25.680 --> 00:05:30.360 feel unnecessary, when the voice that doubt it grows quieter, 65 00:05:31.439 --> 00:05:34.800 not because it was defeated, not because you argued it 66 00:05:34.839 --> 00:05:38.759 into silence, but because what you are living has become 67 00:05:39.079 --> 00:05:43.079 slowly and without ceremony, something it can find no fault with. 68 00:05:44.839 --> 00:05:47.360 You looked up one day and realized you were not 69 00:05:47.439 --> 00:05:51.920 managing yourself anymore. You were simply being yourself. 70 00:05:52.240 --> 00:05:56.720 The way rain is rain, the way the mountain is 71 00:05:56.759 --> 00:06:01.480 the mountain, through seasons, through storm, through all the long 72 00:06:01.560 --> 00:06:08.680 and ordinary years, not holding its shape through effort, but 73 00:06:08.759 --> 00:06:14.399 because its shape is what it is. This is what 74 00:06:14.439 --> 00:06:19.439 it is to live without internal conflict, not a permanent calm, 75 00:06:19.600 --> 00:06:24.839 not the absence of doubt or difficulty. Those remain, and 76 00:06:24.879 --> 00:06:29.920 they are human and they are yours. But something deeper 77 00:06:29.959 --> 00:06:36.800 has settled, some central thing has stopped arguing. The deepest 78 00:06:36.800 --> 00:06:38.920 part of you and the daily part of you are 79 00:06:38.959 --> 00:06:43.120 walking in the same direction now, and one is no 80 00:06:43.199 --> 00:06:49.519 longer dragging behind. And you notice in this a kind 81 00:06:49.560 --> 00:06:54.240 of spaciousness you cannot quite explain, as though a door 82 00:06:54.279 --> 00:06:56.759 that had been closed for a very long time has 83 00:06:56.800 --> 00:07:01.079 simply been left open, and the air is moving freely 84 00:07:01.160 --> 00:07:06.240 through the house of you, and nothing is locked, and 85 00:07:06.360 --> 00:07:11.959 nothing is hidden, and there is nothing you are trying 86 00:07:12.040 --> 00:07:15.279 not to be. This is not the end of becoming. 87 00:07:16.959 --> 00:07:20.240 The tree does not stop growing when its roots find purchase. 88 00:07:23.319 --> 00:07:26.920 The river does not stop moving when it knows its way. 89 00:07:27.639 --> 00:07:34.600 You will still change, You will still surprise yourself. There 90 00:07:34.639 --> 00:07:40.319 will still be mornings when the light falls differently and 91 00:07:40.399 --> 00:07:44.040 you see yourself from an angle you had not expected. 92 00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:52.360 But now the changes come from within a self that 93 00:07:52.519 --> 00:07:57.879 is not at war with itself. Now the surprises are 94 00:07:57.920 --> 00:08:06.199 the kind that deepen you, rather than divide. You let 95 00:08:06.279 --> 00:08:15.279 the settle without grasping it too tightly, the way mon 96 00:08:15.399 --> 00:08:20.519 night settles on still water, not by force, not by will, 97 00:08:23.160 --> 00:08:25.720 but simply because the water has grown quiet enough to 98 00:08:25.759 --> 00:08:31.040 hold it. You do not have to do anything with this. 99 00:08:34.639 --> 00:08:36.679 You do not have to become anything other than what 100 00:08:36.759 --> 00:08:42.039 you already quietly. 101 00:08:43.240 --> 00:08:56.200 Are. Somewhere, a lantern is burning in a distant window. 102 00:08:58.120 --> 00:09:04.080 It has been burning a long time, not to guide 103 00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:07.600 anyone home, not to signal anything, not to be seen, 104 00:09:09.200 --> 00:09:12.200 simply because that is what lanterns do when they are attended, 105 00:09:13.759 --> 00:09:16.720 and the person tending it is not anxious about the dark. 106 00:09:18.720 --> 00:09:21.279 They have simply made peace with the light they carry, 107 00:09:22.480 --> 00:09:26.240 and let it do what light does. And found in 108 00:09:26.320 --> 00:09:30.559 that small and faithful act that the evening is not 109 00:09:30.679 --> 00:09:36.440 so difficult to sit inside after all, Rest here a 110 00:09:36.480 --> 00:09:42.279 while longer if you wish. There is nowhere this moment 111 00:09:42.399 --> 00:09:51.720 needs to go. This was a ministry of mind guided meditation. 112 00:09:57.320 --> 00:10:03.639 I'm Simon. Thank you for sitting with me today. You 113 00:10:03.720 --> 00:10:11.000 came as you were not ready, perhaps not empty of thought, 114 00:10:13.519 --> 00:10:22.840 but here, and here was enough it always is. Join 115 00:10:22.960 --> 00:10:28.639 us next time. The silence continues.