Dear Friends, I’m so glad you will be part of this month-long adventure! We have a great little community that has signed up to be part of this daily email list. Many of you have returned after last year’s initial offering (thank you), and I’m glad to see we are joined by many new folks too (welcome!). The… 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, 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 »
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, If we’ve had a chance to do a joy practice together on a Wednesday night, you’ll know I have two dogs, Savanna (rough collie) and Reece (lab mix). So I really relate to the following quote from Pema Chodron, which describes developing the quality of steadfastness in meditation (and in any difficult situation in daily life):… Read More »
Dear Friends, Here’s a quick exercise from my set of “Cards for Mindfulness“. It’s called “Thank Me”. We really can give ourselves a hard time sometimes. Self-criticism and feelings of unworthiness are so common that it is really important to balance that out by remembering that fundamentally we are actually on our side. A good way to do… Read More »
Dear Friends, At work, we have monthly lunch sessions where we get together and listen to a TED talk together, and then we have opportunities to discuss the topic and how it applies in our workplace. On Wednesday, we listened to Brené Brown’s talk called The power of vulnerability (~20 minutes). I’ve listened to her talks several times.… Read More »
Dear Friends, One of Sharon Salzberg’s “stealth” meditations is Eat a meal mindfully, noticing the colors, the flavors, the texture of what you are eating. The first time I tried mindful eating was the “raisin meditation” in Jeanne’s MBSR class. Here are some instructions for that simple exercise (text; exercise takes ~5 minutes): http://hfhc.ext.wvu.edu/r/download/114469 Every time I try… Read More »
Dear Friends, Some advice from Elisha Goldstein and Bob Stahl in their book MBSR Every Day: … we have a portable and powerful resource that is with us at all times, inviting us to stop and just “be” with life instead of getting caught in the trap of ‘doing” so much. This is our breath. As we start… Read More »
Dear Friends, This past May, I had an opportunity to sit with Susie Harrington and Anne Cushman at the Lost Coast Retreat. As we neared the end of the retreat, Anne shared her tips on “How To Maintain A Daily Practice of Almost Anything“. The first step is “Set Your Intention.” Many of you are familiar with Jeanne’s… Read More »
