Good morning beautiful family,

Besides considering the many reincarnations we have experienced, it is humbling to realize that we may have gathered much dust along the way, though different bodies, species, identities, heritage, covering up the long forgotten gems that dwell within our very being.

Slowly but surely practice makes perfect!

In everyone’s heart, we long to sail calm seas under clear skies always, if we could. But life as we know it, is not linear.

It teaches us the ebb and flow of the ongoing tides as we journey onward.

Soon, we discover there is something else, greater than our own dear thoughts and our carefully woven habits and expectations.

We learn to welcome the setbacks, the stumbles, the tryouts, the one-more-times. Each one, is an invitation to begin again; each one, a hidden gift in the unfolding of self- discovery, with the freshness of growth.

The plans we carefully made, the people, the places, the goals we mapped out for ourselves, may shift beneath our feet and we begin to let go. Life simply has something else, more aligned with who we are becoming.

Witnessing the present and steadfast in the now, we begin to move with grace and ease. And when the time comes to leap, we trust the net will appear beneath us.

Trust.

How liberating, how creative, how joyful it is to live from that space. Deep inside, we all know the feeling of joy: when joy arises within us just before the leap, and as we land into a place we hadn’t imagined.

We learn to let go. We keep on witnessing and trusting the process.

Trust is not a fixed state. It isn’t something we acquire authomaticaly and store away. It is a living, breathing organic thing, a part of who we are; it is the basis from which your practice flourishes.

We keep polishing the mirror, again and again. For, when we gaze into the mirror, the mirror of our own being, we see not only who we are, but also who we are allowing ourselves to become.

Witness.

We glimpse into infinite openness. We have released some of the dust of the past, realizing that in the now, dust doesn’t accumulate.

So let us stay the course, witnessing brings liberation, aliveness, and joy, all held together by the quiet power of unconditional love.

I am immensely happy that you are all doing so well.

With joy,

~Ven. Bao Co