Namaste and good evening.

There is one teaching that really is at the center of our practice that you've probably

noticed. There is a theme or the stream that moves through, which is that it doesn't

matter what is happening. All that matters is how we're relating to it. It really doesn't

matter what the diagnosis we get or what happens with the job or the relationship.

We will suffer if we relate to the changes in our life with reactivity. We won't suffer

if we arrive right here in presence. When I say a rough in presence, there are depths

of presence. I don't mean like a glancing blow at presence. We really, really arrive.

Let me say this. Do you pay regular visits to yourself? Do you pay regular visits to yourself?

Don't argue or answer rationally. Let us die and die and reply. I like the inquiry. Do you

make regular visits to yourself? What does he mean by let us die? In my way of understanding

in order to arrive here at home in this moment, there is always a continual releasing or

surrendering of the fixation and to thoughts. We're dying to the trance. We're letting go

of this conceptual reality, this virtual reality that we hang out in, the story that we

hold tight to give us an orientation. We're dying to the small self that we're identified

with in order to arrive in a sense of being in this, our wholeness. It's over and over

again. I mean, to really visit ourselves, to really come home into the moment, there's

a letting go. One of the first retreats I was at, I think it was a very first retreat,

very early on, someone gave that classic kind of zen-like setting of a man is chased by

a tiger and he kind of plunges over the edge of a precipice and he's hanging onto this

vine and he calls out, help, help, is anyone there? There's a voice that says, yes, and

he goes, God, yes, help, I'll do anything and God says, let go. The guy goes, is anyone

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