There is an inquiry that a number of us find really helpful, we use it a lot in teaching

and with ourselves, and you've heard it, and it goes like this, it's this question

that we ask ourselves, what right now is between me and feeling free?

And you might just check in, and even in this moment sense, because it has a very radical

quality, it can be illuminating.

That is between me and being free, or being at peace, in this moment, and if we really

check in, perhaps we'll discover there is quite a lot of freedom, or we might discover that

we, just by asking that question, realize something we hadn't noticed, a certain kind of

tightness, or clench, or cloudiness, a quality of not really being here and open and awake.

Anytime we're suffering, whenever there's unsatisfactoryness, on some level in the body

mind there's some tightness, there's some holding, there's some resisting, it's some form

of contraction, and really unless there's a full freedom, that's the hindrance that's

going on, there's a contraction that's keeping us from resting in and knowing the fullness

of what we are.

So what I'd like to do tonight is continue with exploring these different, really these

universal energies that we tend to contract around, and solidify around, and I say universal

everybody mind on planet earth has the same makeup to experience wanting something that's

pleasant, to experience wanting to push away something that's unpleasant, we all get sleepy,

we all get restless, doubt.

So to the degree that there is a contraction around any of those energies, to that degree

we leave our wholeness and become small, so that's what I'd like to explore, but really

where I'd like to take it is, how do we awaken through that?

...