7 Comments
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Jean's avatar

Your clarity always makes me smile. Such a gift carries your love, knowledge , kindness and devotion to my heart and I thank you.💜

Elham Sarikhani's avatar

What you write about presence feels true in a simple, human way, just the discipline of not abandoning yourself. I learned that in exile more than in any monastery… the moment attention returns, the noise loses its power.

Presence isn’t a gift, it’s a refusal to drift.

Virgin Monk Boy's avatar

Elham, that is beautifully said. Exile will teach you things monasteries try to copyright. You learn quick that presence is not some mystical download from the cloud. It is the moment you stop ghosting your own soul.

Elham Sarikhani's avatar

Exactly. Presence is remembered. Exile strips you down until there’s no one left to outsource your awareness to. What’s left is the quiet recognition that the soul never stopped signaling. Honestly, I was just too far from myself to hear it.

Kaja Sommer's avatar

Cynthia says that consciousness requires a choice. It’s like Jesus teaching that all you need to enter God’s Kingdom is just asking for it.❤️

Celia Abbott's avatar

Could you expand on #3. To use another art reference - are you saying to see yourself doing it rather than being engrossed in the doing?

Beth Ann Kepple's avatar

I feel like a kid when I was learning how to ride my bike without the training wheels for the first time. Thank you for the notes on practicing.

And the simplest openings.

And one sentence - itz the moment you stop abandoning yourself.

I’ve been doing that my whole life.

To stop doing it sounds impossible & the part of me that loves challenges so often feels sucked dry by Long Covid the past 5 years.

While also knowing itz a huge part of the healing i want.

Pause, Breath, Remember. I’ll take it from there, practice & see what happens 🚴‍♀️