Getting up early in the morning is usually a struggle for me, and it’s been that way my whole life. It’s easy to think “Oh I just need more discipline,” or “ my vision or life purpose isn’t inspiring enough to get me out of bed,” or any one of a thousand stories. Today when my alarm rang (in a different room), I got up to turn it off with the usual nonsense going on in my head. “This sucks. I feel like shit. My body hurts. Too cold. Too hot. Not rested enough. Why does my head hurt? blah blah blah…” And then I had this moment of realization that I’m just making things 10 times worse by having these thoughts. I decided to just sit there, and feel the shit. Just feel my body. And just experience all the discomfort. And then all the sensations just became “matter of fact,” rather than a “matter of interpretation or thought” It’s almost like “the sky is blue” or “ the table is red.” “My arm is sore.” Anything beyond the sensation of sore were just overlays of thinking that were just adding suffering to a matter of fact. The thinking was just unnecessary. I could just experience the pain of being sore in my arm without adding suffering to it. Basically, the sensations became distinct from the complaining. I decided to just sit there for two hours, if necessary, just to purposely experience the soreness or discomforts of my body but without adding thought to it. Just experience the sensations of my body, through my body and what it feels, but without adding the activity of interpretation (and therefore ) complaining about it. I intend to make a practice out of this, wake up and allow myself feel icky for 2 hours, and be in my body. No other expectations.

I found the experience I had in the Ending Suffering Workshop very eye-opening and different. It offered a fresh way of observing what we call “thoughts,” and I found myself seeing how surprisingly not-real they are. Instead of treating them like precious collector's items, I began experiencing them as a passing activity — more like a habit than a truth. Ironically, the sum total of these habits is what becomes our personality, as well as our daily life and story. Even though I’m still early in The Book of Not Knowing and Ending Unnecessary Suffering, the workshop gave me an experiential foundation that clarified ideas I’d only encountered intellectually, and it even answered questions I hadn’t yet formed. I also want to acknowledge how accessible the workshop was. At a time when finances are severely tight for me, the fact that I could attend without stretching myself thin says a lot about the intention behind it. It was also because I was at this juncture in my life that I needed to question "what the heck brought me here," and this was a safe space to do so. It’s rare to find something this valuable offered at a price point that genuinely supports people. Thank you to @Brendan Lea and any other team members for creating such a thoughtful, honest space for exploration.