For Night

Night invites us to slow down and sink quietly into its gentle peace.

It beckons to us to relax, release and rest.

It brings us the incredible gift of sleep.

Sometimes such a mysterious and generous gift can be hard for us to receive. Night can bring challenges. We may feel triggered with memories from nights in our history; we may associate night with something fearful; we may time travel into the past and not be able to receive night's gift of renewal.

So we start where we are each night, with compassion and warm-heartedness for whatever wants to be seen and held and loved inside of us. We bring our awareness and presence to whatever is here — perhaps a busy mind, a tense body, a lonely heart.

Ultimately all parts of our experience — past and present — want to be here with us for the gifts of this night.

May the teachings in this room support you and help create a safe holding space for you.

Slowly but surely we can become better friends with the energy of night. We can more clearly understand what we need to feel safe in this moment, and we can more clearly see what is being given to us right now in this night.

And then we can rest.