Daily Life Is A Meditation, The World Is Our Sangha, Life Is A Spiritual Retreat
Removing the veil of a separate doer from our eyes, we see that the activities of the body-mind happen, whatever they may be, as part of a natural rhythm. These activities are expressions of love, truth, and beauty. Every day, the body-mind awakens in the cathedral of our being. It is as if we have gone on holiday to a magical city and awaken with thoughts about what to do. Naturally, there are still practical thoughts of arising, washing, eating, etc., but also, because we are aware we are in the magical city, there is the pure beauty of being there. The very atmosphere is in the air of the city, expressed through its architectural forms, sounds, and smells. The gratefulness of our heart is that we have not forgotten the magical city we are in, and that very appreciation is happiness itself. The practical activities are just ways we can explore and experience its different aspects.
Life is like a magical city. Our being is life. Each day, the body-mind wakes up in the magical city of our being. We cannot see it, but we know and appreciate its existence, and it is this that gives us a sense of great fullness. All activities that arise are activities of this beautiful being incarnate and are as sacred as a priest walking around a monastery. There is the tending to practical matters, but all the time, the profound great fullness arises from the appreciation of our being. We are liberated from seeing each day as a matter of dull material objects we have to overcome and organise in order to feel this wholeness. Each moment is an expression of love appearing, even in the simplest of things. Quite naturally, our desire is to organise these days in appreciation of and devotion to the cathedral of our being in which it takes place.
Our physical activities support healthy, simple balance so that the joy of appreciation is continued. We work with the natural harmony of the body-mind, not against it, so it is not unduly stressed by the ravages of seeking happiness elsewhere. We see all other minds as the being we are, whether they know it or not, and all part of this cathedral of our being and love them as such. The superordinary becomes the extraordinary. Lack becomes enough. Dullness shines with beauty. Separation becomes love. We see the whole world as the manifestly formed cathedral that is an expression of the essential love it is made from. In this way, daily life is a meditation, the world is our sangha, and life is a spiritual retreat.
Love,
Freyja