Like a seed, we too have to soften and open in order to reveal and then release the inner essence. Conditions have to be right for a seed to crack and allow the potential inside to begin its expression; the same is so for us. And, the most favorable condition for a human being is a meditation practice with all it entails.
On the meditation cushion, we are supported by our decision to be present, to experience emotions and thoughts, sensations, insights, and even the barometric pressure just as they are. Getting familiar with the things that so often go unnoticed provides understanding of oneself like nothing else does. Then, familiarity with emotions, mental tendencies, preferences, and general state of being allows the subtle aspects of one’s presence and being to emerge. We are like a plant in that the germinating seed sets a primary root deep into the soil before it can begin to grow upward toward the sun.
Trungpa Rinpoche reminds us* that we generally are unfamiliar with the soil inside us. Distraction, dismissal, simply not noticing, or blatant denial of emotions and conceptual frames of reference that determine or undermine our personal reality are the common state. A meditation practice begins the deep foraging into this soil. Of course, the soil inside is replete with comforts, joys, relating, and such also; but these too can be limiting or dismissive of the inner essence as well. Like warm sunshine after the Spring thaw, meditation comes to the rescue!
To soften and open to the fullness inside will always begin with the fullness of the common inside our mind-emotion complex. That, and only that, creates the possibility of opening to the fullness of awareness-being.
*See his book, The Path of Individual Liberation.
