Daily Motivation 265

The Chenrezig Empowerment
At the end of this weekends teaching His Holiness bestowed upon us the Chenrezig empowerment (permission to do the practice), which is my own deity practice that I have talked about to you many times before, so it was extra extra special for me. I first received this particular blessing from the Karmapa back in 2005 in India so it very much felt full circle for me, plus a lot more powerful this time around (now that I have been doing the actual practice for 12 years).

On Sunday I got the opportunity to reflect on the changes between being in Karmapa’s presence this weekend compared to the first time in 2005. I have now evolved into the future self that 12 years ago I dreamt of becoming. Back then I was smoking, drinking, drugging and totally unsure about who I was and here today that is not the case. I know that the me of 12 years ago was dreaming of becoming the me of today, and wow! All the hard work really DID pay off! All of those hours I have spent on my cushion were worth it, and the promise that sitting still and focusing on the breath will change my life WAS TRUE.

My meditation journey has been a long one, from hating the end bit of the yoga class and rushing through the meditation or doing my shopping list during it, to itching to get on my cushion for an extended period.

I remember not attending the hour-long meditation sessions at the monastery because it was twice the length of what I was doing at home and literally couldn’t sit still for that long. It feels almost like that happened to someone else now, now that half an hour simply is not long enough.

What a gift it is to have these insights into your progress; to fully grasp just how far you’ve come 1,683 days into sobriety and however many thousands of hours I have sat in meditation.

I cannot recommend it enough
GET ON YOUR CUSHION!
Find a meditation teacher
Join me for 5, 15, 30 or 60 minutes each morning when I livestream my own practice
Get into the habit
Sign up to QS online programme
Come to a one day workshop to get a feel for the approach (if you enjoy these daily blogs then you are already connected to the technique)
For I GUARANTEE that you will notice the difference in the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years and decades ahead.

In the photo below, taken just after a Karmapa teaching in India in 2005 I was blissed out BUT that bliss was wiped out with the cigarettes and drinks I would have had later on that day, until I passed out unconscious from the excess.
But a seed had been planted
An intention had been set
I HAD taken myself, with the assistance of Karmapa, to the place that I dreamt of being for a short time. I KNEW what it felt like for a period, but back then I always returned to what I knew and what was ‘safe’ like a boomerang, yet it was in meditation that I touched in on the peace within that I inherently knew was possible.

Meditation is such a good partner for recovery (from substances, relationships, your ‘old’ life and way of being)
How in meditation we slow the mind down, begin to notice the gaps in-between thoughts, and in time these open up becoming longer and more stable.
These openings show us WHAT IS POSSIBLE so that we have something to aim for, a feeling that we remember and can take into our day. And then this feeling opens up more and more, the shift then occurs, and we live MORE in the gaps now and less in the struggle.

Pure magic happens
And the teacher is there in their strength to support YOUR journey
They know where you’ve been, what you are experiencing right now, and where you dream of going
Your soul recognises the journey
You instinctively know it is possible otherwise you wouldn’t be reading these words
So take this seed of possibility into your day and BELIEVE your dreams are real
….because they are

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