We’ve been remembering in the Online Gatherings. We’ve been returning to the very beginning of our practice, remembering what we bring to this—what we begin with.

We begin with a felt sense of the ground upon which our practice and our lives take place. This ground is basic brilliance: a constellation of qualities—clarity, stability, tenderness, and so on—that are built into who we are, fundamental to our being.

We begin with the atmosphere that rises from this ground and envelops us: a sense of confidence, trust, and faith. While we may not yet know what is to come in this life, we have what we need to discern the next step in our journey.

And we begin with a sense of community, a recognition that we are inexorably woven into the web of being that threads its way through all creation. We begin our practice well-resourced and not alone.

But this is not all we begin with. We also bring a sense of what we’re doing to meditation: resting in embodied experience that is inclusive and alive, resting with a sense of curiosity and appreciation.

We bring a sense of why we’re doing this: to deepen our relationship with basic brilliance, so these qualities become more available in our personal lives, and so we can share them— share the affirming view they manifest – with others.

And, of course, we bring a sense of how we do this to each and every meditation session we engage. We bring a sense of our basic practice.

We slow down. We let our minds and bodies slow down. As we do, we become more sensitive to the pull of somatic mindfulness – itself one of those radiant qualities woven into who we are. We allow ourselves to surrender to this pull, to be absorbed into this embodied instant, and to settle.

We settle into the subtleties of this embodied moment, which include the apparently bounded personal body; the energetic body of relationship and connection; and the all-inclusive body of time and space. And then we stay. We stay. We stay.

Personally, it’s very easy to come to practice with the attitude of, “Okay, here I am. I’m doing my practice and that’s that.” What we’ve been doing in the Gatherings over the past number of weeks is remembering that, in fact, we come to our practice—and to our lives—with an abundance of riches.

We come with a ground, an atmosphere, and a community. We come with a sense of what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how. We come to our practice, and to our lives, abundantly resourced and utterly not alone.