Hello.
I would like to share with you about awareness.
The essence of meditation is awareness.
Awareness is the foundation and essence of all meditation.
I have made levels of the Joy of Living:
levels one, two, and three.
The main important practice of level one is awareness.
Maybe you're wondering…
Maybe some of you have finished Joy of Living level one.
And maybe some of you are very new,
so you have no previous ideas about meditation.
It doesn't matter if you are new or if you already have
some experience with meditation,
or if you have had
very profound experiences of meditation.
It doesn't matter. This is good for everyone.
I still practice,
and maybe you could say that one of my main practices is awareness.
So, everyone can practice awareness.
Now, you might be wondering, "what is awareness?"
Very simply,
awareness is a kind of consciousness that knows.
It is aware. It knows.
And you have this all the time.
One of the most important things is what we call “basic goodness.”
We all have basic goodness.
In other words, this is what we call “original purity.”
The idea is that the nature of all of us is wonderful and perfect.
We all have a very good nature.
Of course, when you hear that, maybe you cannot believe it
because we have so many concepts about ourselves.
You might be thinking, "I'm bad,"
"I'm not good enough to have this or that,"
"I'm not worthy," or many things like that. That's normal.
We all have this kind of monkey mind,
so don't worry, but accept it.
You should accept that it’s normal.
But the most important thing in Buddhist meditation
is that you are realizing your innate quality.
It's not that when you meditate
you're transforming something and you're getting something new.
It's not like that.
You are discovering yourself.
It's within you.
So, as you meditate,
there's an infinity of discoveries you can find within you.
This is such a nice experience.
It's a profound experience
with lots of wisdom, love and compassion.
It's like that.