Billy Rosenbeck

One of my favorite spiritual quotes is not from a saint, a guru, or a lama, but from a stand up comedian named Pete Holmes who says, “The good news is that there are a lot of people that have devoted their entire lives to meditation and study and practice, and I don’t know one of them who doesn’t come back and say: you are loved, all good, f’ing relax.”

I often tell students that when I first started meditating, I didn’t want to tell anyone I meditated; I definitely didn’t plan on teaching meditation, or teaching teachers how to teach meditation; I didn’t plan on finding my way to the mountains of North Carolina or the foothills of Nepal to sit in silence for days and weeks on end, but rivers only flow in one direction. Or, as Hermann Hesse writes, “Whither will my path yet lead me? This path is stupid, it goes in spirals, perhaps in circles, but whichever way it goes, I will follow it.”

As a yoga and meditation teacher, my intention is to allow my students access to the wisdom of this path, not just as an idea, but through direct experience: whether we are aware of it or not, we are, in fact, home in any given moment, if we’re willing to pay attention. We’re at home in every moment, and when we slow down and find stillness, that truth becomes increasingly evident. With practice, it also becomes more possible to live this way off the proverbial cushion.

The late Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh says that “people usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle, [but that] the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.” Of course, in the modern world, that’s easier said than done -- and yet I know my life flows better when I am here, now, finding my way home to the present moment, over and over again. The more often I do that, the more often I realize that everything is as it should be, and the greater capacity I have to live from that place: I am loved, all good, f’ing relax.

Whenever I’m lucky enough to have students in front of me, my hope is to lead them to the present moment and to help them find their way back to their own inherent goodness.