Dear Friends, The next category of beings to whom we can extend our good wishes is rather blandly called the “neutral” person. These are people we encounter day to day but with whom with have have no real strong association. Christina Feldman aptly describes this category of beings with: “We know them by their function”. (page 41) When… Read More »
Dear Friends, Ānanda was a long-time attendant of the Buddha, and he’s one of my favorite characters from the suttas. He often asks the questions that we’d want to ask, or says the things that we’d say, and the Buddha gives a teaching to him – and by extension, to us. At one point, Ānanda says to the… Read More »
Dear Friends, Generosity is a favorite topic of mine. In studying and practicing generosity, I’ve learned much about qualities of the heart. Generosity is so much more than just a monetary exchange or giving a gift. There are many ways to give that we may already be doing – through our presence, and the way we are in… Read More »
Dear Friends, Galway Kinnell’s poem St Francis and the Sow starts: The budstands for all things,even for those things that don’t flower,for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing; though sometimes it is necessaryto reteach a thing its loveliness,to put a hand on its browof the flowerand retell it in words and in touchit is lovelyuntil it flowers again from within, of self-blessing… Read More »
Dear Friends, There are many ways to cultivate mettā. Many teachers will lead a practice with the use of phrases. I like how Christina Feldman describes the purpose of these phrases: “The conscious cultivation of metta as a meditative pathway employs the use of a few simple phrases that give shape and language to the intention of metta.… 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, Turn on the news, and you’ll likely read about some manifestation of hatred, aversion, ill-will, fear, or variations thereof. Wars, crime, violence. Maybe not as news-worthy, you might have your own internal messages that come from that same source – impatience, judging, blame, harsh self-talk, and so on. We can even have aversion to aversion! “I’m… Read More »
Dear Friends, Let’s move into chapter 1 of Christina Feldman’s Boundless Heart. This chapter is a deep dive into the first quality of heart. The Pāli word for this quality is mettā. Christina describes the roots of this word: The word metta draws on the Pali/Sanskrit word mitta, which translates as “friend.” In turn mitta draws on an earlier… 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, I’m on retreat right now, so I’ve scheduled this email to keep you company until I’m back to the land of emails and internet. I won’t be able to respond to your emails or posts until Tuesday afternoon. Feel free to share your thoughts below to inspire your fellow practitioners! A while ago, I pointed out… Read More »
Dear Friends, Kindness! That’s a good thing to reflect on in the middle of the week of the middle of the month! There are traditional meditation practices one can do to incline the mind towards kindness, sometimes called lovingkindness or metta. The Mindful magazine posted a brief discussion of the steps in the practice here: https://www.mindful.org/the-mindful-practice-podcast-loving-kindness-with-sharon-salzberg/ Outside of a formal practice,… 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 his book Meditation and Relaxation in Plain English, Bob Sharples gives this advice: Don’t meditate to fix yourself, to heal yourself, to improve yourself, to redeem yourself; rather, do it as an act of love, of deep warm friendship toward yourself. In this view there is no longer any need for the subtle aggression of… Read More »
