“When we get quiet, or when we open ourselves by a walk in the mountains, or enter a cathedral, or sit at the birth of a child, we can step out of our ordinary separate sense of self and see, ‘Wow, what a mystery.’ And remember that I am part of this mystery.” – Jack Kornfield

Dear ones,

There is a great mystery at the heart of our lives. We spend so much time tending to our responsibilities, our plans, our worries, and our identities that we can forget to ask the most fundamental question: Who am I?

Most of what we call “me” is constantly changing. Thoughts come and go. Emotions rise and fall. The body itself changes through every season of life. Yet awareness remains.

In meditation, we begin to see clearly that we are more than the passing stream of experience. We are awareness, consciousness itself, born into these bodies. We are the loving awareness that can witness joy and sorrow, gain and loss, praise and blame, without being caught in them, present for it all while remaining connected to the reality that is vast and timeless.

As we open to this truth, the world begins to look different. We start to sense the sacred woven through ordinary moments—a walk beneath the trees, the face of a stranger, the laughter of a child, the night sky, the simple miracle of being alive. This mystery is not far away. It is closer than your next breath.

As you deepen into it, you realize that you are not this passing stream of experience, you are consciousness, the mindful loving awareness behind it all. Trust it. Rest in it. This is your home, who you truly are. May you always remember this.

With metta,
Jack