Dear Friends, In the first recording from the retreat I’m using for inspiration this month, Jill Shepherd provides some general background that can create a useful context for the rest of our month together. The style the approach to meditation that we’re doing here is insight meditation or vipassana. Just as a very simple beginning definition of what… Read More »
Dear Friends, So now that we’ve zipped through four weeks of material, and we’re nearing the end of January, I thought we could take a step back and have a big picture of what we’ve been cultivating this month. 1 – What’s your why – setting an intention can help us stay oriented in our practice and life… Read More »
Dear Friends, Diana Winston wrote: Your body is the doorway to mindfulness. As you may have noticed by now, your mind can be anywhere at any time…. Your body, by contrast, is always in the present moment, so brining attention to it brings you automatically into the present. The task is to turn your attention to this reality,… Read More »
Dear Friends, For the next few days, I’ll be picking a few tidbits out of a talk by Sally Armstrong on “The roles of mindfulness, metta and equanimity in our practice” from the Equanimity and Awareness retreat. Sally mentions that it’s helpful to begin with basic teachings and practices of mindfulness. She highlights how mindfulness informs metta (kindness),… Read More »
Dear Friends, This weekend, I sat a retreat led by Jeanne Corrigal. The topic was “Coming Home: to dharma, to love, to ourselves, and each other”. It was a beautiful retreat that brought together teachings from Buddhist and Indigenous traditions. One of my key takeaways was in reconnecting to the wisdom that comes from an embodied knowing –… Read More »
Dear Friends, Yesterday, I shared Christina Feldman’s idea that with mindfulness, we “turn towards” experience, and then with kindness, we can “stand beside” it. (Some of us may remember Jeanne sharing teachings on this approach too.) With this attitude, aversion doesn’t have to go away – wow! Christina says, “we learn to bring an attitude of kindness to… Read More »
Dear Friends, A poem by Kabir: The small ruby everyone wants has fallen out on the road. Some think it is east of us, others west of us. Some say, “among primitive earth rocks,” others, “in the deep waters.” Kabir’s instinct told him it was inside, and what it was worth, And he wrapped it up carefully in… Read More »
Dear Friends, Today is the last day of the 5 day retreat with Adrianne Ross, so I’ll be back to the land of technology later this afternoon. I thank you for your patience! Meanwhile, here’s a reflection for today! I look forward to catching up with your responses. It’s hard to believe we’re at the end of January!… Read More »
Dear Friends, We’ve covered a lot of ground these past few days, so let’s take a moment to recap. We started by talking about intention – setting an intention for the year, the day, a meditation practice, a chore – and we also looked at closing the day, practice, etc. with a dedication. We reviewed a few different… Read More »
Dear Friends, At the SIMC practice yesterday evening, Bob led us through a body scan practice. Like mindful breathing, body scan has formal practices you can do – I’ve linked in some resources below – and it can be done informally, discreetly, anywhere or any time. One of my favorite places to do a quick body scan is in the… Read More »
Dear Friends, Another way to contemplate body, as specified in the Satipatthana Sutta, is in terms of the elements: And further, monks, a monk reflects on this very body, however it be placed or disposed, by way of the material elements: “There are in this body the element of earth, the element of water, the element of fire,… Read More »
Dear Friends, In the Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha mentions several postures for practice: “Again, bhikkhus, when walking, a bhikkhu understands: ‘I am walking’; when standing, he understands: ‘I am standing’; when sitting, he understands: ‘I am sitting’; when lying down, he understands: ‘I am lying down’; or he understands accordingly however his body is disposed. Thinking about lying… Read More »
Dear Friends, In the Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha set out the four foundations of mindfulness, the first being mindfulness of the body. There are many ways we can practice mindfulness of the body, including mindfulness of breathing, mindful walking, mindfulness of movements of the body in everyday activities (as mentioned yesterday), and through a body scan meditation. In… Read More »
Dear Friends, Andrea Fella led a series called “Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation” in 2012. Her week 5 talk included a handout on “Mindfulness Meditation Week Five: Daily Life Practice“. One suggestion from that handout is something I’ve picked for today’s “stealth meditation”: Choosing a Reference Point for Daily Life A main practice for daily life that helps to… Read More »
