In this session, a group member begins by sharing a return to practice and the intensity of emotions that surface when sitting still. Geshe-la responds by exploring how discomfort and resistance are not problems but gateways — signs that the practice is touching something meaningful. He encourages the group to stay with their experience, observing rather than reacting.

Throughout the dialogue, Geshe-la gently invites awareness of how deeply ingrained survival strategies — like the impulse to move away or fix — shape our relationship to discomfort. He speaks about how these strategies aren’t wrong, but when left unexamined, they can obscure a more spacious relationship to experience. Letting go of managing allows the system to self-regulate and heal.

As the session deepens, Geshe-la places emphasis on sensing support — through the body, the earth, and the field — and highlights the difference between “doing practice” and being present. He reflects on how even subtle goals or efforts to “get somewhere” can reinforce old habits of control. The group is encouraged to relax into what is already present, trusting that the unfolding intelligence doesn’t require interference.

Further themes include the distinction between awareness and identity, the function of narrative in distancing from experience, and the subtle desire to improve or transform states. Geshe-la encourages softening the view of “self as practitioner” and resting in the ground of awareness itself, beyond the need to manage or attain.

This conversation offers a spacious and honest look into the terrain of early and intermediate practice, where the heart of transformation lies not in effort or control but in receptivity, curiosity, and intimate contact with what is.