Uncovering Bodhicitta

How are you?

No, actually, how are you feeling right now??

Cold? Hungry? Warm? Content? Restless? Confused? Thoughtful? Melancholy? Ecstatic? Scattered? Focused? Sleepy? Sexy? In your head? In your body?

(take a second and name how you're feeling to yourself)

Okay, cool.

Now.

HOWEVER YOU FEEL IN THIS MOMENT IS PERFECTLY GOOD.

I know, I know, it's hard to believe.

In a world built on the advertising of capitalism, you're constantly being told you have to fix yourself.

IMPROVE EVERYTHING, they say.

CHANGE EVERYTHING, they say.

YOUR (insert word) IS NOT WHAT IT SHOULD BE, they say.

If you know me at all, you know I looooove transformation.

So don't get me wrong.

That sh*t is awesome.

Growing and learning are my jam.

BUT.

They have to begin from a place of recognizing your already essentially good and kind and generous and miraculous self (Self).

That self is every person's natural state, it just has to be uncovered.

The 'growing and learning' are awakening to your bodhicitta.

You already are this.

And you're cultivating this.

And you're cultivating this for others.

Bodhicitta is self and selflessness.

If we can recognize this awakening as true for ourselves, we can recognize this awakened self as true for all beings.

Thus, bodhicitta becomes compassion.

If we can recognize the layers of ego we've built over top of this true self, we can recognize the layers of ego all beings have built over top of this true self.

Thus, bodhicitta becomes the loosening of "I"-centered thinking.

Bodhicitta becomes the recognition of our shared...everything.

Except bodhicitta didn't 'become' anything!

It always was and always will be.

Just like me.

Just like you.