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Speaker: Tomas Downey. Tomas relates how the practice of "allowing" enriched his Dharma practice. One way to connect to the Dharma and to progress on the path is to "fake it till you make it." While some people find this approach useful, Tomas discovered he benefited more from focusing on how loving kindness, compassion, and joy are already part of his nature. Instead of making an effort to arouse these qualities, he shifted his perspective and used an approach that simply allowed them arise naturally from his own experiences. He describes how warmth, peace, joy, awareness and awakeness arise naturally if we allow them to. He also notes that this perspective of allowing, which emphasizes our enlightened nature, is also a helpful way to approach Vajrayana practices that may initially appear strange or foreign.