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Greetings friends. The following talk and reflections are on the pathway to inner contentment and well-being.

And before formally beginning, I want to name that I'm offering this at a time when many of us and many around the globe are experiencing real challenges of uncertainty and loss.

And for some it's extreme. Today, as I speak, I am grieving for friends in Afghanistan who are terrorized by the takeover the Taliban and have much heartbreak for those in Haiti who are experiencing the devastation of earthquake and storm.

I'm sure many of you feel just the same. And what I want to share is that even in the midst of grief and heartbreak and fear, even when we're feeling storm of anger or passion or even when we're facing the loss of our own life.

We can know an inner freedom. It's a timeless space of stillness and acceptance and okness.

And really, this is the intrinsic well-being that's the gift of spiritual practice that we can ride the waves of life with an inner refuge that gives us peace and contentment and well-being in the midst.

So it's in that spirit that I really hope you find these talks helpful. Thank you.

Welcome and Namaste. It is good to be with you. It's nice to be recording again from home.

I thought I'd start by saying that I saw a cartoon a while ago with two mice and each is on its own spinning wheel. And one is running furiously, you know, just wheels and motion.

The other's just sitting at the bottom of the wheel looking deeply relaxed and happy and at peace. And the caption says, I had an epiphany.

So the question is, what did that mouse realize? Can we see in our own lives, you know, the ways that we're kind of on that spinning wheel that we're addicted to running away from discomfort, from pain, from whatever is bothering us, how we're addicted to spinning and chasing after the next fix of pleasure or approval or accumulation.

And mostly can we sense how rare it is the moments that are really just purely contented, you know, that we're fine with the life of the moment just as it is.

And I heard a story that speaks to this. There's a researcher, Daniel Cardaro, I want to make sure I've got his name right. And he did a in 2014.

I went with his team to study one of the last three uncontacted villages on planet earth. And this is 200 families who have been living as no match in the Himalayas.

And who knows how long. But it was part of this five year study to identify the human emotions that are universal across all cultures.

And it included a long list from shame to joy to embarrassment. And they wanted to see if these emotions could be recognized by people with absolutely no experience with the outside world, no electricity, no internet, no cell phones, etc.

So when they showed the villagers dozens of facial and vocal expressions, they recognized a majority of the emotions, but there was one emotion that stood out from all the others, that emotion was contentment.

And the guide who is translating said that in our culture, this knowledge of enough is considered very special. It's the highest achievement of human well being the knowledge of enough this moment is enough just as it is.

So it really means contentment is this capacity to rest in the moment as it is really sensing that it's okay. It's like the purity of OKness, regardless of what's going on outside us.

And for Daniel Cordaro, he said it gave him chills when contentment was flagged because in all the cultures he had studied, they all revered contentment as one of the highest states to cultivate in life.

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