Meditation comes alive through a growing capacity to release our habitual entanglement in the stories and plans, conflicts, and worries that make up the small sense of self, and to rest in awareness. In meditation, we do this simply by acknowledging the moment-to-moment changing conditions—the pleasure and pain, the praise and blame, the litany of ideas and expectations that arise. Without identifying with them, we can rest in the awareness itself, beyond conditions, and experience what my teacher Ajahn Chah called jai pongsai, our natural lightness of heart.