All week long I had the group shouting "I AM A GOLDEN BUDDHA!". What seems cheesy proved to be totally moving and transformational...what you think, you become. Shift your internal dialogue and you shift into a powerful space. I was inspired by this simple affirmation when reading the final chapter in Gabrielle Bernsteins' "May Cause Miracles". Yesterday in Rome, I got a necklace made up that read "Golden Buddha" and I wore it with a smile, thinking back on the amazing week that was had! 

Golden Buddha

In 1957, a group  of Tibetan monks was informed that they would have to move their sacred shrine because a highway was being built on that land. A focal point of their inhabitance was a huge clay Buddha, which also had to be relocated. Moving the Buddha was no small feat. The monks arranged to have a crane move the Buddha to their new location. The moment they started lifting the Buddha on the crane, the clay began to crack. To make matters worse, rain was pattering down, deepening and widening the cracks. To protect the Buddha from further damage after it had been moved, the monks covered it with tarps overnight. During the evening, the head monk went under the tarps with a flashlight to check on the clay Buddha. Upon shining light on the Buddha the monk noticed golden shimmers of light radiating from the cracks. He brought back his chisel and hammer to chip away at the clay and uncover the shimmer from within the Buddha's frame. As the monk chipped away at the clay Buddha, he realized that it was not clay after all– the Buddha was made of gold. Surprised by his discovery, the monks were eager to determine the heritage of the Buddha. They learned that many centuries earlier, their predecessors worshiped the Buddha in its golden form. These ancestral monks got word that the Burmese army was coming to destroy their community and attack them, so they covered the Buddha in clay to protect it. The monks were killed in the attack, but the army placed no value on the clay Buddha and therefor left it unharmed.

reason for this story… "Inside we are all Golden Buddha's, but we grew to believe we were made of clay. Our ego's false perceptions led us to grow into a belief system that covered our inner light. We've spent years, maybe decades, masking our truth. Now it's time to embrace our light and reconnect with our Golden Buddha within." – Gabrielle Bernstein

Cailin Callahan

www.cailincallahan.blogspot.com