Exposed.

We spend a lot of time and effort to make ourselves comfortable, secure, safe.  That notion of comfort and safety really pulls on our hearts and minds, maybe because we think we can do what we really want to do once we have it secured.

But there is something to be said for being exposed.

Raw. Naked. Vulnerable. Exposed to the elements. To pain and adversity.  There is something about being exposed that makes us feel alive.

I don't know if other people get the feeling that they want to be exposed to the raw elements. 

I know I do.

Do you?

 

A Love Song

Resting in the space of the Single Mother,
Without wavering from the presence of basic space,
One directly beholds the face of rigpa,
Completely naked and unadorned. 
With the meeting of these two, basic space and rigpa,
There is naturally arising great bliss,
A bliss so pristine you might just burst out laughing.
This indestructible awareness penetrates 

The world of appearances and possibilities in all her variety.
Soaring unhindered through the expanse of space,
Effortlessly benefitting beings in the all-pervasive sky

Through the compassion of the dynamic fierce mother. 
This is the sublime union of the dharmakaya

 Free from coming or going,
Without coming together or parting,
Abiding forever and always,
In the unchanging body of light. 

Naked

'Our life is shaped by our mind, we become what we think.'
Siddhartha Gautama

Stand naked.  For a moment today stand naked before the mirror, the mirror of our own mind.  

It is incredibly difficult to stand in the present moment.  It is too simple, too raw, too naked.  We are quick to reach for a towel, flex our muscles, correct our posture, pluck our eyebrows or cover up our blemishes.  It is very difficult to stand tall in our inherent goodness, the basic dignity of being who you are, right now. 

It is not just the embarrassment, shame, guilt or fear of our own bodies; it is also our feelings, our actions and our past.  We don't know how to work with all of that when we stand before it, it is often easier to get dressed and keep moving.  

But this is the battlefield.  This is the meditation.  The present moment is the ground upon which all the work is done and it is simultaneously the result of fulfillment. 

This ever-present moment, if we can learn to face our fears and the darkness that we hide in our hearts, opens up into the eternally youthful present- peaceful, content and free of elaboration. 

It is only by abiding in this timeless state of complete nakedness that we can come to appreciate the wellsprings of the Great Perfection.