Many of you are struggling. You are using up what feels like your last ounce of patience, compassion and forgiveness. I am here to remind you that you are greater than your current depleted energy would suggest. This is a battle, if you will, between the Light and the shadow within.
Normally you are exposed to many things, events and people that lift you up, that give you some enthusiasm and energy for life, so that the amount of light coming from within is externally supplemented. You have ‘hooks’ that encourage you, that create enjoyment and anticipation.
Over the past year, almost everything that lifted you up and ‘enlightened’ you within the external world has been stripped from you. You have had to fall back on your own reserves, bolstered by those around you. For many of you, those around you were not able to lift you up, for they were drowning in the shadows they held within.
There has never been a monastery more challenging or difficult than the lockdown of the past year has been. Never. You have been thrown back to almost complete reliance on yourself, but you have lacked the training to know how to nourish and nurture your Light within, how to create emotional resilience in the face of many, many challenges.