Dear Friends, Well… here we are, at the end of January, and thus at the end of this month-long adventure. I’ll close this month of sharing with a reflection on gratitude from Jack Kornfield: https://jackkornfield.com/meditation-gratitude-joy/ Gratitude is a gracious acknowledgment of all that sustains us, a bow to our blessings, great and small, an appreciation of the moments… Read More »
Dear Friends, In A Path With Heart, Jack Kornfield mentions a Tibetan practice called “Making Difficulties into the Path” and he shared a prayer that is recited before each step of practice: Grant that I may be given appropriate difficulties and sufferings on this journey so that my heart may be truly awakened and my practice of liberation… Read More »
Dear Friends, From Shantideva, an eighth-century Buddhist master: There’s nothing that does not grow light Through habit and familiarity. Putting up with little cares I’ll train myself to bear with great adversity. In chapter 5 of True Refuge, Tara Brach suggests a way of dealing with these “little cares” through a process she calls “light RAIN” – a… Read More »
Dear Friends, In Seeking the Heart of Wisdom, Jack Kornfield explains the first hindrance of desire as follows: The first hindrance is desire for sense pleasure: pleasant sights, sounds, smells, tastes, bodily sensations, and mind states. What’s the problem with desire–what’s wrong with it? Nothing, really. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying pleasant experiences. … But they fool us.… Read More »
Dear Friends, In her book, Happiness is an Inside Job, Sylvia Boorstein discusses a difficult scenario and different possible reactions one might have in that scenario. I’ve adapted her example below… Scenario: You walk out of your apartment and notice all the tires on your car have been stolen. You’re so upset you… a) walk to the nearest… Read More »
Dear Friends, The guided meditation I’m sharing today is from Guy Armstrong. https://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/79/talk/18343/ (~30 minutes. Guided meditation starts ~5:30. No ending bell.) The recording starts with just over 5 minutes of discussion on mindfulness of thinking. Guy says we may have “experienced thinking as something of an enemy because it is the one thing that carries us away… Read More »
Dear Friends, On Sunday evening, I was driving to the airport to pick someone up. I figured I had timed things reasonably well to arrive at the airport about the time the flight would arrive. But of course, there was “that driver” on the road. You know the one – drives slow in the fast lane, takes up… Read More »
Dear Friends, Tara Brach’s website has several suggestions on maintaining a daily practice, and she includes these tips that are likely relevant to most of us: If you miss practice for a day, a week, or a month, simply begin again. Don’t judge your practice — rather, accept what unfolds and trust your capacity to awaken and be… Read More »
Dear Friends, The Buddha gave advise on bringing mindfulness to states of mind (thoughts, emotions): “And how does a monk remain focused on the mind in & of itself? There is the case where a monk, when the mind has passion, discerns that the mind has passion. When the mind is without passion, he discerns that the mind… Read More »
Dear Friends, Google “how many thoughts per day”, and you’ll find quite a few articles claiming it’s somewhere between 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts! If that’s accurate, that means there’s about a thought per second. I remember one of the first times I tried meditation. I had this idea that, “I’ll just sit here and be quiet and calm.”… Read More »
Dear Friends, Did you try the 10 bite experiment? I tell you how it went for me. The first bite, I really savored the fresh bread and nutty and subtly sweet flavor of the cheese on the sandwich I made for supper. The second bite was still good. But I’m not sure I made it to three… I… Read More »
Dear Friends, Here’s a short exercise to bring mindfulness to the changing nature of feeling tone. Mark Coleman, in week 8 of the on-line course Essential Buddhist Teachings 1, said, “Another thing about pleasant experiences is how quickly we acclimatize.” For this exercise, he suggests that you eat one of your favorite pieces of food, and notice the… Read More »
Dear Friends, After yesterday’s email, Rod reminded me of one of my favorite Sesame Street mindfulness memes: “Today me will live in the moment unless it’s unpleasant, in which case me will eat a cookie.” ~~ Cookie Monster This ties in nicely to the second foundation of mindfulness – the pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral “feeling tones” (“vedana” in… Read More »
Dear Friends, Spirit Rock has an on-line video course with esteemed teacher Sylvia Boorstein called Everyday Life as Mindfulness Practice. In the videos, Sylvia takes us through her home and her daily activities and describes all the different ways she brings mindfulness into these “ordinary” things. She says “there isn’t any activity that isn’t a venue of training… Read More »
Dear Friends, This past week, I’ve been focusing on mindfulness of the body, so I thought for this “Heart Sunday”, I would look for a meditation that combined metta and the body. There are quite a few choices! I ultimately chose this guided meditation from Catherine McGee, called “Guided Metta Practice – easy person, self and body” (~45… Read More »
