Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness.

Today I'd like to talk about the

deeper dimensions of mindfulness.

So many of us come to mindfulness because

we're perhaps curious about the benefits.

We may want to, for instance,

feel less stressed or anxious or

improve our focus or our mood.

And so we try it out and we

begin the journey of mindfulness.

And I think what we find is that

as we continue along the path, we

start to discover that mindfulness

can actually be a path of

profound, personal transformation.

We begin to see that the mindfulness

part is really about waking up.

It's about waking up from identification

with the mind and waking up to the

deeper dimensions of who we are.

And to awaken, we need to slowly

release the mental habits of

greed, hatred, and delusion, and

cease trying so hard to prove

ourselves, learn to accept ourselves.

We release more and more of our

judgments about how we think

we, others than life should be.

And we stop trying to control everything

and begin to embrace reality as it is.

Over time, we let go of our usual

defenses, our masks, our personas,

our agendas, and we learn to

flow with the current of life.

We learn to become one with it.

And awakening is not

always easy or comfortable.

Sometimes it can feel a little scary

to give up our old ways of being

because they feel familiar or safe.

But it's only when we let go of

our conditioning from the past that

we can wake up to what's available

to be discovered in the now.

As we awaken, we begin to see things

more clearly, experience life more

fully, and we become more wise,

compassionate and wholehearted people.

Gradually we find more and more

degrees of freedom and peace of mind.

So as always, thank you for your

practice and your presence here with us.

And let's now settle in

for today's meditation.