Hello and welcome back to Practicing Human, the podcast where every day we're

getting a little better at life. I'm your host, Cory Muscara, and in today's

episode we're going to talk about not delaying your happiness and enlightenment.

More to come on that in a moment. First let's settle in together with the

Sound of the Bells.

I'd like to start this episode by sharing a poem by Dana Falds called Awakening

Now. Why wait for your awakening? Do you value your reasons for staying small

more than the light shining through the open door? Forgive yourself. Forgive

yourself. Now is the only time you have to be whole. Now is the sole moment that

exists to live in the light of your true nature. Perfection is not a prerequisite

for anything but pain. Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain.

Please, oh please, don't continue to believe in your stories of deficiency and

failure. This is the day of your awakening. You know, a big part of my practice

these days is not getting caught up in the goal-centric method of practice, which

is common in certain meditation traditions, including the one that I practice in

Burma. There's an idea that you are working toward enlightenment, wholeness,

integration, whatever you want to call it, awakening freedom. And that when you do

the practice over a period of time, you're eventually moving closer to that

state. It's something you're developing. And on one level there's obvious truth

to that. We're building, we're growing into something. But there's another

perspective that could be taken that's equally valid, which is that your fundamental

nature is inherently whole, inherently awake, enlightened, free. And we just need to

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