Hello and welcome back to practicing human the podcast where every day we're getting a little better at life. I'm your host

Corey Musgara and today is our three month anniversary.

Yes, it's February 5th, and we started this podcast

on November 5th.

So happy three months to you. We've had over 250,000 downloads in those three months,

which is just crazy to think about in over 100 countries. And yeah, it's just been a lot of fun for me to put this together to hear your feedback and to be

co-creating this experience together. I love the mission of practicing human and I love

watching it evolve so I continue to give me that feedback so we can make this the best experience possible and something that can really be impactful in your life and in other people's lives.

I'm very excited to see what the next three months hold.

In today's episode, I'm going to share a quote

that I took with me while I was on my extended silent retreat in Burma that

really helped me stay true to the practice and to also rise up when things got very difficult. More to come on that in a moment, but first let's

settle in as we always do with the sound of the bells. I'll ring them and follow the

sound all the way until it dissolves into silence. So I consider the work of presence, mindfulness, of meditation, to be a very noble work,

even though it can sometimes seem like a selfish practice,

you sit by yourself and focus on your breath.

It can almost feel like naval gazing

or a self-oriented kind of thing that we're doing to cultivate

our own happiness.

It's actually much more cultivating your mind for compassion, for goodness, for selflessness.

So this thing that we often perceive as selfish,

all of that effort going inward is actually to cultivate a mind and heart that is more giving and open, expansive, attuned, caring to other people, other beings in the world around us.

...