  Motivated by natural inflation, we propose a relaxation mechanism consistent
with inflationary cosmology that explains the hierarchy between the electroweak
scale and Planck scale. This scenario is based on a selection mechanism that
identifies the low scale dynamics as the one that is screened from UV physics.
The scenario also predicts the near-criticality and metastability of the
standard model vacuum state, explaining the Higgs boson mass observed at the
LHC. Once Majorana right-handed neutrinos are introduced to provide a viable
reheating channel, our framework yields a corresponding mass scale that allows
for the seesaw mechanism as well as for standard thermal leptogenesis. We argue
that considering singlet scalar dark matter extensions of the proposed scenario
could solve the vacuum stability problem and discuss how the cosmological
constant problem is possibly addressed.
