Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness.

Today, I'm going to talk about

happiness versus fulfillment.

So there are times when we experience

things that are pleasant in life, right?

Maybe pleasant emotions like elation

or contentment, or we have pleasant

experiences like eating an ice

cream or getting something we want.

Other times we might

experience unpleasant emotions.

Pain, we don't get what we want.

And we might feel unwanted

emotions like sadness or anxiety.

So pleasant and unpleasant come and go

constantly in the flow of our lives.

By allowing the pleasant and unpleasant to

arise and pass through our lives without

chasing clinging or fighting with them, we

discover true freedom, true fulfillment.

So what I'm talking about out here is

a fulfillment that lies beneath the

passing emotions of happiness and sadness,

a fulfillment that lies beneath the

constantly changing flow of pleasant

and unpleasant events, situations,

and circumstances in our lives.

If you think about it, there's simply

no way, even on a day-to-day basis

that we can get everything to be

pleasant and always feel the emotion of

happiness and push away all the sadness.

We just don't have that

kind of control over life.

And there is a part of ourselves that's

there when we're happy and it's there

when we're sad, it's there when things are

hard and it's there when things are easy.

It's the ever present awareness

that's deeper than emotion, deeper

than thoughts, deeper than anything

that arises and passes away.

And if we touch into that deeper

dimension of ourselves, whether it's

in meditation or in everyday life,

we can begin to familiarize ourselves

with that sense of wholeness, calm

and fulfillment, that doesn't depend

on anything outside of ourselves.

So the invitation for today is this.

Rather than chasing happiness and

trying to hold onto it, rather than

trying to fight off sadness or escape

the unpleasant, see if you can meet

them both with a kind of grace, a

sense of equanimity and acceptance.

And just keep resting back into

presence, back into awareness itself.

And in doing so cultivating a deeper form

of lasting contentment and fulfillment.

So I encourage you to really experiment

with this and notice how it feels for

you, each time you let go of clinging,

let go of trying to push anything

away and just resting in presence.

Enjoy today's practice.

And as always, thank you for

doing this work in your life.

And now let's settle in

for today's meditation.