Today I guided my students in meditation to the quiet and peaceful place within that resides at the centre of who we really are, each one of us. Some of them visited that place for the first time in their lives. Some of them recognised for the first time how beautiful they really are, how bountiful their inner quiet centre is, how beauty and silence reside at the centre of who they really are. We could learn together how silence and noise share space and how by being inviting to everything that happens you arrive to the most beautiful place within. We listened to the low burning sound of the fire and the silence in the room occurring at the same time. We listened to the fleeting sounds of distant barking dogs, singing birds, passing cars, the cock-a-doodle-doos of the neighbour’s rosters, a ringing mobile phone in somebody’s jacket at the door, the tick-tack of the clock and all shared space with the inner quiet of our breaths. We recognised how we allowed these fleeting sounds to share space with our inner quiet, rather than choosing to disturb our inner quiet. Then we listened to the sounds within, fleeting thoughts, fleeting images, in the same manner as we did with the surrounding sounds and stayed present to our inner quiet.

We talked about how in nature quiet and noise share space and how by directing your attention you may experience a deep sensation of silence. Nothing in nature is presented in pure form, things occur in synchronicity and it is your attention that describes the reality that you experience. We talked about a place we all agreed as having a deeply moving quietness about it; Bosque Balsera, and observed how the silence of this place shares space with the crackling of the trees, the singing of the birds, the sound of the sea licking the pebbled beach at playa de Oleiros, the neigh of the horses passing by, the sound of children playing. It is us allowing for what it is there to exist in its fleeting form what creates a deep feeling of connection, beauty and peace.

So by going to Nature we arrived at our deep Nature, which is the same thing, and we witnessed the beauty of everything that we are occurring in harmonic synch. I have been blessed with the immense privilege of teaching these students, three days a week some for 8 years now, I have been blessed with the softness of their love, with the permission they have granted me to guide them through this journey within, I have been blessed with their faces of discovery at the end of every class, with the amazing way in which they fully give themselves to their practice. After so many years we can begin to harvest the fruits of our mutual dedication. My teaching to them is an act of love, happiness and trust and this comes back to me multiplied in every class. I have been blessed with meeting this people and humbly becoming their guide; I do not really know how did I get to live in this village and when will the north winds tell me to go again but for as long as I live I will carry this love for you within. Namaste