“You can pick all the flowers but you can’t stop the spring.” – Pablo Neruda
Dear friends,
Something within us knows that we’re connected to the vastness of the world. There grows with wisdom a sense of trust that we’re part of something bigger, as a famous Ojibwe saying goes, “Sometimes I go about pitying myself when all the while I’m being carried by great winds across the sky.”
What you most deeply long for is who you are, is coming back to your own heart, to your own beauty, your own wellbeing that you were born with, to that secret beauty. To meditate, more than anything, is an invitation to remember, to quiet ourselves, to touch back in to this truth, this reality beyond the busyness, fears, and confusion. We all have these because we’re human, but what we are is so much deeper.
Meditation and spiritual practice is not meant to be a grim duty, it’s meant to be a rediscovery of the love and secret beauty that’s within you. Through practice we begin owning with gratitude the fact that we are here alive in this beautiful, mysterious human incarnation.
Your job, then, is to be fully present for your life, with it’s 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows. It’s not to get something. You have enough. If anything it’s time to give some of that stuff away, it’s true. But it’s to understand that actually what you most deeply long for is who you are, is coming back to your own heart, to your own beauty, your own wellbeing that you were born with, to that secret beauty.
When we rediscover this in ourselves, we begin to see the secret beauty everywhere and in everyone. Instead of making others, ‘them,’ we become an island of generosity, we become the seed planters of the world, we become a force of connection and love. The only force that can meet the force of terror and violence and match its power is the force of love. Nothing else comes close.
Metta,
Jack
*This article is from my podcast, Heart Wisdom – Ep. 268: Rediscovering Your Secret Beauty. Watch/Listen on Apple, Spotify, Youtube, Be Here Now Network, or JackKornfield.com
