I have always thought of this writing space as a beautiful sanctuary that I am building for you to rest and read. The routines we have, can feel like a tempest at times – a ceaseless barrage of demands, distractions and urgencies swirling around us. We get buffeted by the incessant winds of work, family obligations, digital overstimulation and our own swirling thoughts. It’s so easy to get swept up in the frenzy and lose touch with any sense of inner calm or groundedness. In the midst of this storm, we desperately need a place of shelter and reprieve – a quiet inner sanctuary where we can take refuge, settle our beings, and rediscover the peace that is our true essence. Just like a snow globe, we require the ability to remove ourselves from the swirling turbulence outside and let the flurries gently come to rest so we can regain clarity.This metaphorical sanctuary is a place already within us, no further away than our next conscious breath. It is the still, silent space of pure awareness that lies beneath the choppy surface of thoughts, feelings, and sensations. A realm of vast, uncluttered presence that is our true abode.To access this inner sanctuary, we must become like skilled navigators or surferapists, riding the perpetual waves of experience without getting overtaken by them.
Rather than flailing against the rolling tides of thoughts, emotions and cravings, we learn to witness them arising and passing away, without judging, grasping or submerging into their undertow.Imagine yourself an old sea captain who has spent a lifetime riding out storms on the vast ocean. You have learned to read the patterns in the roiling winds and cresting waves. You know better than to blindly fight against their power or wish them away. Instead, you skillfully adjust your vessel’s sails and rudder, riding up and over the swells, allowing each rolling surge to sweep underneath as you remain centered and unperturbed.In this way, you cultivate a deep inner refuge – a place of unshakable poise and equilibrium no matter how wild the squalls become on the surface. From this space, you can take wise and grounded action, while never allowing the turbulence to unseat you from your core of abiding serenity.With practice, this sanctuary becomes a waking refuge we can enter anytime, day or night, no matter the external circumstances. A quiet fortress compound within our own being where the rampant monkeys of compulsion and restlessness are dethroned, and we are liberated into the open, spacious awareness that is our deepest nature.
From this liberated interior, we gain a grounded clarity and sovereignty over our lives. We become like still, unruffled pools reflecting the moon – able to bear witness to the magnificent dramas playing out across the waters, while remaining rooted to our essence as the depths beneath. Problems and difficulties no longer appear as crises to reactively combust over, but rather as emblematic waves to wakefully navigate with wisdom and aplomb.. The endless gyres of experience can churn as intensely as they may, but they cannot shake us loose from our moorings to the bedrock of serene being. For in reclaiming this inner sanctuary again and again, we awaken to our ultimate nature as life’s very cradle of stillness itself.