Dear Friends, In Afternoon Instructions – Mindfulness of Mind, Jill looks at different mental processes and leads a reflective practice for the participants. Jill speaks again about the “wheel” model of how body and breath are related to getting lost in proliferation. It might look something like this: Here’s how Jill explains this: To continue exploring the model… Read More »
Dear Friends, DaRa continues the exploration of mindfulness of mind states in the talk on Working with Emotions. She starts by giving a bit of a tour of the tools covered so far – sitting, walking, body, including all the sense experiences and breath, feeling tone (pleasant/unpleasant/neutral), working with thoughts, and heart practices of goodwill and compassion. And… 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, Difficult emotions aren’t easy to deal with some days. It can be hard to respond in a skillful way at times, partly because the rational areas of the brain get “turned off” when we get activated. The amygdala is a part of the brain that is designed to look out for danger and threats, and when… Read More »
Dear Friends, As we sit in meditation and start to observe emotions as they arise and pass, we may start to notice tendencies and trends in what comes up most often and how we relate to them. Pema Chodron describes our usual tendencies when it comes to uncomfortable emotions, and how we can learn from them: Generally speaking,… Read More »
Dear Friends, In meditation, we usually start with turning attention to the body – breathing, sitting, standing, walking, … As we experience the body in this mindful way, we begin to see some basic ways the body responds to what’s happening – some things are pleasant, some unpleasant, and some (possibly most) is a neutral blur. And we… 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 »
