Let Your Light Shine - A Winter Holiday Meditation

By Michelle Morrison

In Jack Kornfield's book Wise Heart, he recounts the story of a huge, painted clay Buddha housed in a temple in Thailand. The ancient statue had begun to crack and need repairs. A curious monk shined a flashlight into one of the cracks and was met with a burst of golden light. The clay statue was made of gold! The temple monks believe the statue was covered over long ago to protect it from detection and destruction during a time of conflict.

Like the golden Buddha, we have a gleaming treasure inside of us, which Jack refers to it as "original goodness," "inner nobility," or "secret goodness." Buddhists often call this our "Buddha nature," or "basic goodness" because at our core we are awake, wise, luminous, and loving beings. It's just that our awakened nature gets hidden - even from ourselves - by layers of conditioning, delusion, and confusion.

But, it is possible to access our inner goodness, reveal it, and make it manifest in the world around us.

This meditation begins by putting us in touch with the open and spacious nature of our awareness. Then, we reflect on how goodness is our birthright and we envision how we might bring more goodness into the world.