So we're talking right now about the pathways to cultivating the gold. The second pathways where we intentionally turn toward the gold. And just to say, most of you are familiar and understand our negativity bias does keep us from paying attention to goodness in ourselves and in each other. I often think of that young girl I've shared in that art class where she's immersed in her drawing and the teacher asked her, you know, what are you drawing? And she says, well, I'm drawing God. And Teacher says, you know, no one knows what God looks like.

And without looking up, the little girl says they will in a moment. And I think of that so often that we, that we get caught in the coverings. And we think that the divine is some distant, distant being or experience or whatever, when it's always, always right here. So to begin to remember, in addition to starting right where we are, to shift the attention to counter the negativity bias, we need to on-purpose look towards goodness. Which means we give love, we look towards receiving love, we pay attention to gratitude.

My friend, Rick Hanson calls this positive neuroplasticity. It starts training our, you know, neural pathways towards remembering the gold. And again, there's a powerful myth from the Buddhist tradition where Siddhartha goes through his night of awakening and he encounters all of Mara in all the difficult energies through that night. Greed, hatred, anger, delusion, craving, jealousy, and he meets them all, starts right where he is. He meets them with mindfulness and compassion.

Well. as the morning star rises, Mara throughout his final biggest shadow challenge, which was doubt, this mistrust that we have of ourselves, that was Siddhartha's biggest challenge. So if you feel like you get caught in mistrust, you know, you're in good company. And when that happened, his response, he didn't start right where he was. He turned towards love.

He turned towards belonging. He called on the earth goddess, which is the kind of whole net of living beings. You know, that, it's what he really belonged to, to affirm his goodness, to affirm his worthiness. And it's so interesting that this is the second pathway and the Buddha had to use it. He had to touch the ground and call on the earth goddess.

He had to purposely turn towards the good in order to wake up. And he assumed that that goodness was there, that it was possible. This is me acting like loving awareness is accessible. If we reach out, we'll find it's there, but we have to practice reaching out. We have to practice touching the ground.

So the heart practices, loving kindness practices, whether we're offering ourselves blessings or seeing the goodness in ourselves on purpose or seeing the goodness in each other, those are the trainings in positive neuroplasticity where we literally reflect, what am I grateful for. Or what do I appreciate about myself? Or what do I appreciate about you? It's so important. So necessary. Daniel Bayler says, "You are but a collection of atoms working together in temporary harmony, before being dispersed back into the universe, your true belonging. Your earthly task is to help those atoms radiate.

Imagine the simplicity. You need not achieve anything but a gentle glow." Let's just for a moment, this is one of those very short metta practices. Just for a moment. Again, let the attention go inward. Then if it helps to kind of move your body around a little and adjust, but then come into stillness.

And take a moment to bring to mind someone who you love. Ideally, a relationship that's not complicated. And it could be a dog. It could be, it doesn't have to be a human, but someone that you love. And sense the qualities that you love.

Intelligence, humor, kindness, vitality. But mostly picture that being loving you. Just be aware of their essence as good and wakeful and caring. And just picture them loving you, the way their eyes look, look on their face. And as you do, you might mentally whisper their name and the words, thank you.

And say, thank you again. And maybe again. And as you do, you might start feeling the tenderness of your own heart and sense is this is some of the taste of goodness in yourself. So bring attention to your own being. To this heart that wants to love and be loved.

This mind that wants to wake up and know truth. And sense what it is you most deeply care about, your deep aspiration., you know, what, what you really want this life to be about. And sense the goodness of that. And it's hard to really sense your own goodness. Look through the eyes of your future self, that what you're waking up to be at your current self.

Look through the eyes of someone you trust. And see your sincerity, that you want to heal and be free. You want to be able to love without holding back. Sense that you can honor that. Namaste.

Your earthly task is to help those atoms radiate. Imagine the simplicity. You need not achieve anything but gently glow. Taking a few full breaths. So we've talked about purposely this positive neuro-plasticity, seeing the goodness in ourselves.

And of course, the other part of our training is learning to see the goodness in others. And it's easiest when we can sense that spirit in children. We can sense the goodness in people often when they've already died. We can see it when people are happy or when they're loving, uncomplicated relationships. And of course, we know it's most difficult to see the goodness when the person's caused harm to us and to others, when the person's threatening.

Or when we're blinded by racial or other caste systems, very hard to see past cause others seem like objects. But the challenge in remembering goodness and really the training is not just when others are behaving in hurtful ways or our cultural biases and blindness to the degree we're stressed. We're going to be caught in our own coverings. I call it our kind of our spacesuit and we're just going to see other people's space suits. You know, it's like that story of the man who comes late to a meeting at the office and they asked him what, what took him? He said, well, outside, I saw a clown.

And one person asked him, was it a person dressed up as a clown or was it a real clown? You know? And when we're, when we're caught in ourselves, we see the space suit and that's the, that's who we think the person is. We're not seeing the real person. You know, if you think of somebody, when you're afraid of them judging you, what are you going to see about them? They're threatening. You're not going to see, you're in a place of stress, you're not going to see who they really are. Or if there's someone you're afraid of disappointing, the stress will stop you from seeing who they really are.

Or if it's somebody you want something from, you have an agenda for, or you want to see them change. It was like a family member or a child. You want them to change. I know this with my son, so many years of thinking he needed to change something. You know, he needed to put more time into class work or, you know, less time in video games, less partying, whatever it was.

In the moments I wanted him to be different, I wasn't seeing the gold. So it takes intention, friends. If we want to cultivate seeing the gold in others and not even talking about others that have hurt us, but just the familiar others, we have to be aware that our wants and fears, our agendas get in the way. We have to pause and we have to deepen our attention. And that means that we really sense, well, what does this person care about? You know, to imagine what their hearts really care about.

And you might take a moment just to bring one person to mind who's familiar to you. That's somebody in your household or in your closer circles that you may have some judgements around. You know, somebody you want them to change how they're acting in a certain way. Bringing them to mind. And then see past the coverings.

What does this person really most deeply care about? What's their hearts longing? What do they look like when they're happy, when they really feel loved, when they feel fully alive? Just sense their goodness. And sense who you are when you're aware of their goodness, how that opens you up to your gold. And since the energy it creates in the field when you're seeing your gold. Anthony de Mello says, "It's a sobering thought that the finest act of love you can perform is not an act of service, but an act of contemplation of seeing. When you serve people, you help support, comfort and alleviate pain.

When you see them in their inner beauty and goodness, you transform and create." So, if you want to journal at all, who am I when I'm seeing the gold in another? What would life be like when I'm trusting and seeing the gold in others? The basic theme is, if we start dedicating ourselves more on purpose to trusting who we are and trusting each other, if we start dedicating ourselves to sensing namaste, if enough of us do, it really ripples out. When you become a mirror of another person's goodness, you bring it forward. And then we start creating the world that we believe in. And, and that's our world so needs that energy right now to, to bridge the separations. So brief reflection and, and I'm, I just want to thank you for being part of it.

It touches my heart. You are my extended family community. And just to be with you really matters. We'll close with a, with a reflection. And this is quite simple that very much as we started, I'd like to invite you to let your attention go inward.

To take a few moments to relax through your body, to feel your breath. To take a moment to put your hand on your own heart and of what you see and appreciate in your own being. Some message from your own awake heart on what you can trust. And you to bring to mind someone that you see regularly that you care about in your circles of people. Take a moment to bring them close in.

It can be someone in your family, a friend. And take a moment to sense that being's goodness, Just sensing their aspiration, what their heart cares about. Just maybe imagine the, the light in that person's eyes, the intelligence looking through. When their hearts happy in a, in a wholesome way. Just they're aliveness and sense what you love, sense what you care about, what you appreciate.

And imagine telling them. Imagine letting them know something about your care, your love, your appreciation. And now notice how, what it's effect is. So that you can sense that very real connectedness that happens when we recognize another being's goodness and let them know. And take some moments to reflect on the goodness and bring to mind someone else.

It's such a powerful practice. Somebody else in your circles. So for all of us, we're bringing to mind someone, and we're really sensing that being, that their heart longs to love and be loved. That they want to know truth. They want to live fully.

And sense their goodness, their innate with Maritain calls their secret beauty, the divine that's shining through them, letting them know you're being a mirror. I see your goodness. I see your beauty. I see your soul shining through. And just imagine the impact.

Feel your heart opening in the way that you can feel heart space. Let that heart space include all beings. You might sense the possibility of moving through this world. Whether you're seeing an animal or a tree, non-human, animal, a tree, or human, really trusting that this world's a friendly place intrinsically. Seeing the gold.

Life is this simple. We're living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or fable. It is true. So we close in a simple way, just sensing our prayer that all beings everywhere may recognize and trust the gold, that sacredness.

May we live from this loving presence. A deep bow, namaste to each of you. Thank you so much for being part of it. And many blessings. May you live from the gold and enjoy these lives, these blessings.

Thank you.