I begin with something that was emailed to me this week and it's a picture of a couple

watching their flat screen TV and the caption says this week on the amazing race to

enlightenment can Jim and Susie achieve right mindfulness and will barb and

candy be eliminated for relentless clinging to the self and what I love is it's

so in the culture now have you noticed I mean the New Yorker any any cartoon

there's just mindfulness everywhere and when I check around I you know ask

different teachers and so on what and I see here is that people are drawn for a

really wide range of reasons to practice and and for some which is completely

good and valuable reducing stress you know learning to calm down some to get

more calm to get more concentrated to clear the mind be less reactive really

really important and then it goes all the way to what the Buddha would

described as realization of true nature this this yearning to really to realize

and trust who we really are to to truly awaken to that awareness and and

boundless love that's our our essence and and it's the whole range for us I

sometimes call that true nature are our natural goodness not in contrast to

badness but that goodness which is the truth of our belonging of our wholeness

of being one Buddhist teacher Munindraji he's no longer alive was asked some

years ago by a student how come he practiced and his response I thought was

really important which is to live the life fully and and Campbell put it

similarly that we more than anything more than meaning more than anything we

really want to sense that we're we're living it fully and there can be an

undercurrent almost of despair when we feel like we maybe are skimming the

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