Hello and welcome to another episode of Mindfulness Plus. I'm your host Thomas McConkey. Thanks so much for listening in today. We have a guest, a special guest with us onlinefulness Plus today.

And I'm really excited because I actually feel a really powerful heart connection to this guest by the name of Locke Kelly.

Locke, welcome.

Thank you, Thomas.

It's really wonderful to be here with you.

We really appreciate you taking the time.

Let me just say a little bit about Locke. Locke has an extensive background, not just as a

contemplative, but just as a human being active in his community and in the world, which is

something that just feels so touching to me. And I hope we can talk about that a little bit later on

Locke. But, you know,

the basics, Locke is a meditation teacher and author of an award-winning book, Shift

Into Freedom, which is exquisite. One of the better books on meditation I've come across in the

last 20 years. It has a new book out, Effortless Mindfulness, that we're going to, you know, explore in some depth in this conversation.

Locke is also the founder of the Openhearted Awareness Institute, which I hope we can chat about a little bit as it comes up in the conversation.

But really, I can't say enough to recommend you to the audience, Locke.

Your work has been really moving to me.

And I'm really honored to, you know,

have the opportunity to meet you and talk to you here. Great. This will be fun. I'm looking

forward to it. Awesome. So, my thought is, you know, you strike me as a really unique teacher

in many ways, Locke, but your kind of direct path route to like, let's be awake right now.

You know, like it doesn't take 50 years on a misty mountain top in China to get there.

Let's just go there.

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