Friday, 31 July 2020

Your Awake Heart is Calling You

As individuals and societies, we are pulled by both the insecurity of our evolutionary past, and by our awake heart, our capacity for mindfulness and compassion. This talk explores the ways we can listen to and respond to the call of our awake heart, by training ourselves to open to vulnerability (our own and others) and widen the circles of compassion (a favorite from the 2017 archives).

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A Gentle Practice for Opening Up to Painful Emotions

This is a meditation that I sometimes rely on when I find myself feeling the reactivity that comes up from what’s happening in the news, what’s happening in our communities, what’s happening in our country, and what’s happening in the world right now. Whether it’s because of the pandemic, a shooting, or an unnecessary killing of a good human being—it happens too frequently. It happened to Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others. 

Pausing with all of these sorts of things that obviously are coming at us, especially because we are people seeking to move in the direction of the suffering, to work, and to alleviate it, through our actions and our engagements in the world.

So, this is a gentle practice that can provide support to you in remaining grounded as you open up to information that might cause you pain. 

A Guided Meditation to Ground Yourself

A Gentle Practice for Opening Up to Painful Emotions

  • 9:15

1. Noticing any of these kinds of reactivities coming up for you, you can, as always, just take a few deep and conscious breaths. And as you do so, you’re turning your attention in a very purposeful way toward these sensations that are coming up for you beneath the breath and in the body. 

2. Taking a long, slow breath in, and a gentle, even longer breath out. Continue to follow the flow of your breathing as best you can, resting your attention there.

4. On an in-breath, breathe in for a count of four. Hold your breath for a count of seven, and then release for a count of eight. We’re doing the four, seven, eight cycle here. So on the next in-breath, breathe in for four counts, hold for seven counts, and then release for eight counts. Repeat that four, seven, eight cycle of breathing in and out one or two times. Breathing out through the mouth, if at all possible.

5. Now settle into a natural rhythm and as best you can, maintain awareness of the quality of your breath—in and out. And rest as best you can, along the river of these sensations, resting in the long, broad, and deep now.

6. As you rest, gently call to mind your desire and the will you have inside yourself for peace that begins with you. For well-being that begins right here, right now, in your own body and being and spirit, for justice that begins here.

7. Perhaps on the next in-breath, consciously focus on the love and compassion that exists in your own heart. The peace that can begin with you right now—extending through you, right now.

8. And as you breathe in, bring greater awareness to this love. This warm, loving softness within you. Or other characteristics that you sense in your own experience, other ways you would describe your own warming heart and the will in your heart for justice and positive social community, for global change.

Allow yourself to completely feel the compassion in your being for everyone who’s suffering—obviously in a way that includes you, includes all of us.

And as much as possible, allow yourself to completely feel the compassion in your being for everyone who’s suffering—obviously in a way that includes you, includes all of us. And particularly those who are suffering the most in your community and in the world right now, wherever they may be.

9. So as you breathe in and out, breathing in the sense of awareness of the love in your heart, and breathing out very consciously, sending loving support toward all those you believe to be in need of it in this very moment.

Breathe in a sense of your own loving heart and what is well within you, and while breathing out, gently extending the wish for well-being from your own head to toe, and flowing out through you, to the communities you meet and touch and work with. And out as far as my reach can go, circling the globe.

10. As you bring this meditation gently to a close, take a moment to appreciate all that you are, all that you do. The body that is carrying you through this very life in all its perfect imperfections—just as you are. 

11. Call forth an intention for staying in attunement and holding with grace, your spirit, your being, and your energy for the work today.

May you be filled with loving-kindness. May you be well in body and in mind. May you be safe from inner and outer dangers. May you be truly joyful and free.

Thank you for practicing this engaged, calm, abiding meditation. 

Follow this practice and other meditations guided by Rhonda Magee on her SoundCloud. 

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Thursday, 30 July 2020

Meditation: A Witnessing, Kind Presence (19:55 min)

Starting with scanning through the body and awakening the senses, we then rest in presence, with the breath as a home base. The meditation invites an openness to whatever arises, and a gentle kind attention if we encounter physical or emotional pain.  We end with a prayer that includes our own being and all beings (from the 2017 archives).

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Taking Our Seat: Cultivating Strength and Stability

How can the concept of taking our seat serve us in the midst of our current challenges? Many of us are familiar with this phrase: A meditation teacher may say “Let’s start by taking our seat” to signal the transition into beginning our practice. But it can also be meaningful outside of seated, formal mindfulness practice. I have been considering this perspective of “taking my seat” as a metaphor for developing the capacity of how I want to move through the world, especially now.

In taking our seat, whatever that posture looks like for you, we begin by establishing a solid base, a foundation.  We cultivate some stability, strength, and a sense of being grounded. It is this steady base that forms the foundation for the rest of our practice and our capacity to cultivate calm, insight, and open-heartedness. Once our base is established, we can begin to open up with balance and equanimity to whatever is arising. In practice, as in life, it is crucial to cultivate this sense of balance and stability so we aren’t buffeted around by the difficulties in our lives and the world. We are developing the capacity to be steady amid life’s challenges.

The capacity to open and touch into our vulnerability is a key aspect of moving towards working with our experience in an open and loving way.

With this stability, we now have the framework to release and soften around that foundation. In softening and letting go, we begin to invite a sense of ease and calm. The inherent safety in the strength of the posture is supportive of ease, as we consciously cultivate calm through our practice.  This capacity to open and touch into our vulnerability is a key aspect of moving towards working with our experience in an open and loving way. As we move through the world with the support of a solid foundation, we can also now come to the edge of difficult experiences and emotions and begin to soften and open to the vulnerability.

And finally from the stability and support of the posture and the calm we have cultivated in body and mind, we begin to see more clearly as we open to what is arising in our moment-by-moment experience with more grace, compassion, and insight.

Here are some practical tips to support you wherever you are in this process:

Cultivating a Steady and Solid Foundation

Body-based practices can be useful to support a sense of stability.

  • Practice a body scan, moving slowly from the feet to the head, connecting with the felt sense of the body.
  • Bring attention to the contact points, the place where the body is in contact with something else (feet on floor, backs of legs on chair, hands on lap…). 
  • Try sensing into the experience of the spine rising up from your seated position. 
  • If you prefer visualization, picture yourself like a tree rooted in the ground or sitting strong and steady like a mountain.
  • These can all be done in formal practice, or at any time throughout the day, to cultivate stability.

Invite in Calm and Ease

This can be a simple as a conscious invitation to release and soften just a little more.

  • Mindful breathing practices can help to support calm and ease; feeling the breath moving in the body—just this in-breath and just this out-breath.
  • Try adding in words such as, in calm, out peace. Or use a visual such as in lake, out calm and clear.
  • A longer exhale can help to calm the nervous system. Try using a few silent sighs to release tension.
  • An additional way to support calm is directing your attention to any of the senses. One of my favorite practices is to close my eyes and just listen to sound. Simply letting sound come in and out of awareness.

Skillfully Open Up to What is Arising

  • Name the emotion and feel it in the body with kindness and compassion.

To support acceptance of whatever is arising, I sometimes add an inner smile as I give my feelings a nod and say, “ahh yes, I see you fear ….”. These are the first two steps of RAIN, a practice for working with difficult emotions. Recognize and Accept what is arising.   

  • Then, Investigate by feeling the emotion in the body and dropping the story.  I find gently asking a few questions to be useful. I may ask myself, “What does this feeling need from me or what is it trying to tell me or how does it want me to be with it?” No need to search for an answer, simply ask and then let it be.
  •  The final step of RAIN is Nurture. In opening to what is arising, especially with difficult emotions, it is most helpful to relate with self-compassion. I put my hand on my heart and say, “It’s okay, I am here for you.” Choose words and/or touch that feels comfortable and supportive, and encourages kindness toward yourself and whatever is arising.

May we all feel balanced and stable.
May we all live with ease and calm.
And may we move through life with wisdom and grace.

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Wednesday, 29 July 2020

How to Deepen Empathy and Reconnect with Your Estranged Child

Both in my capacity as a therapist and as a regular citizen, I’ve talked with adults who are struggling with the decision to cut ties with their parents, have already done so, or have recently reconciled with a formerly rejected parent. I’ve also followed the research that studies the feelings and motivations of these adult children. By all accounts, these folks take parental estrangement seriously. They feel weighed down by it. It hurts them profoundly to lose connection with a parent, even by their own choice.

Here’s what one estranged child wrote in response to one of my posts:

It is awful when you choose to end a relationship…especially when your parent doesn’t (maybe even can’t) understand what they did wrong. To turn away from them in order to move forward as a healthier person feels absolutely selfish and goes against my instincts to maintain that connection with my mother.

I’ve heard similar expressions of dismay from my clients, friends, and colleagues who reluctantly avoid their parents. Everyone wants to have parents they love, and who love them back, without chronic trouble or pain between them.

It Cuts Both Ways

Most parents don’t get to see the vulnerability and unhappiness in their distancing child. Instead, they’re presented only with heated rejection or chilly indifference. No wonder they’re sometimes ready to believe they created a monster.

We humans are at our most hurtful to others—our most “monstrous”—when we’re in pain ourselves. As the saying goes, hurt people hurt people. It makes sense that your child’s rejection, coming as it does from a place of pain, will also be hurtful to you.

You and your estranged child also share the task of explaining to friends why you won’t be getting together with the family for the holidays this year. Believe it or not, it’s the same awkward conversation for him that it is for you. Estranged adult children, for the most part, feel unsupported when they share the sensitive information that they’re estranged from you. Friends, relatives, and society all pressure them to reconcile.

It makes sense that your child’s rejection, coming as it does from a place of pain, will also be hurtful to you.

It’s clear that the vast majority of estrangers do not cut ties with their parents on a whim, for purely materialistic reasons, or just because someone else tells them to. So—please don’t let me lose you here—contact with Mom or Dad has to be pretty darn painful to be worse than no contact. Don’t worry: it’s not necessarily as bad as it sounds, and the situation can potentially be mended if you keep an open mind. Let me share some encouraging words from a mom who’s now reconnected with her formerly estranged daughter:

I didn’t know what to do, and couldn’t work out why my daughter was so angry and hostile towards me, and didn’t initiate any contact. I can now appreciate how complex the situation was, and feel able to look at our estrangement more from her perspective.

You and your estranged child are both in uncharted waters; he may not have the words to tell you what went wrong or what he’d like you to do about it. Even if he does, he might use language or examples that only confuse you and leave you feeling helpless.

The Healing Power of Awareness

Whether or not the estrangement is acrimonious, many parents become defensive when their adult children don’t want to maintain contact. Shame and defensiveness are the enemies of awareness. And unfortunately, there can be no movement, no change, and no healing without awareness.

Shame says, “I don’t want to know if I did anything to deserve this; it’s too painful to feel that bad about myself.” Awareness says, “I want to understand my part in this, even if it’s painful.”

In order to recover a relationship with your child, you must find a way to put shame aside and invite compassion into your heart. You need to tolerate looking at whatever your child may want to show you if healing is to occur. If there is something important for you to learn about the way your child experiences you, you won’t be able to see it through a cloud of shame.

In order to recover a relationship with your child, you must find a way to put shame aside and invite compassion into your heart.

You have no option for a considered response as long as shame and defensiveness have you in their grip. Breaking free of these can pave the way for a closer, calmer, and more honest relationship with your child.

This is from a reader of one of my blog posts:

I had many years of a very painful relationship with my mother. When I was thirty-five there was a breakthrough…she admitted in a letter that she had loved me, but with “white-knuckled love.” That moment transformed my life, as I was finally able to know that this deep truth I knew about her love, but could not admit, was true. I became much more able to feel sane!!

Your will toward self-awareness can not only thaw your relationship with your estranged child but can also help her understand herself better. Thus it can be a gift to both of you.

Excerpts are from the book Reconnecting with Your Estranged Adult Child. Copyright ©2020 by Tina Gilbertson. Printed with permission from New World Library.

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Relationships

How to Mend a Broken Heart 

When love falls apart, embracing your life as it is—agony, misfortune, and all—can help you heal. Try this three-step mindfulness practice to help you find stability and a little bit of ease. Read More 

  • Elaine Smookler
  • July 16, 2020

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Tuesday, 28 July 2020

Mindfulness and Protesting: How to Show Up Without Burning Out

Have you ever wondered about the societal impact of your personal mindfulness practice—especially now, in this moment we are collectively facing? How does sitting in individual meditation have an impact on your family, community, country, or the human race? Many meditations, such as loving-kindness meditation, directly focus on how you feel about yourself and others. Learning to be present with yourself during a moment of societal turmoil may not seem like it is directly influencing efforts to create societal change, but it absolutely impacts how you show up, speak out, and protest. 

The recent protests about police brutality against Black bodies have erupted in an already tumultuous social moment as we reckon with the public health and emotional effects of COVID-19. Taking the time to care for yourself in the midst of advocating for justice is not simply a form of self-indulgence but a vehicle to improve efforts in supporting social justice.

The practice of mindfulness has a lot to contribute to help you prepare for, be present for, and understand the significance your efforts have in creating change through protesting. Meditating on and about the subject you are protesting can deepen your awareness and experience of the subject. 

Understanding the Relationship Between Mindfulness and Protesting

1. There is a dialogue between your internal and external wounds

Protesting is a practice that allows public acknowledgement of societal wounds. Mindfulness meditation is a practice that allows an individual to acknowledge their emotional wounds. The relationship between the two is integral, as the degree to which you have been able to connect and engage with your personal pain increases your capacity to feel and be with the pain of others. Your capacity to notice feelings in your mind and body serve as a template for how you experience and understand the pain of others within our society. There is a reciprocal relationship between the pain you have been willing to face and acknowledge within yourself that allows you to open to the pain you can acknowledge in others and in society.  

Your capacity to notice feelings in your mind and body serve as a template for how you experience and understand the pain of others within our society.

By deepening into our own experience, fears, feelings, and internal dialogues, we discover what is true about ourselves. In this process, we connect to a sense of self that is able to acknowledge without judgment the difference between ourselves and others. 

2. Mindfulness helps you observe your experience with racism

The impulse to respond and react impulsively can feel reflexive when we routinely see acts of violence against Black people around the world. Joining in mass protests with others can feel cathartic as you come together with others to stand up to injustice. We watched as the United States rallied in the largest and most sustained protest in the country’s history. The temptation can be to move directly into mobilizing before or without connecting with yourself.

Grounding yourself in your own experience in this moment may be incredibly painful. It will also likely help you grow in your capacity to observe the emotions you feel about racism that you don’t have words for, the ones you feel in your body, or that you notice in your relationships. As you allow yourself to touch in with these deep emotions, you may find you can name them: fear, anger, compassion, or a desire to be of service. Being able to verbalize your experience will deepen your capacity to show up to protests with signs that speak your voice and with a relational readiness to contribute to the group conversation. The observation that leads to verbalization also helps you distinguish your pain from others. This distinction allows you to speak and show up from your depths and deepen the conversations in your community. 

3. Relating to your own emotions helps you learn from others

How we know and talk about our own experience provides texture to the landscape of how we hear and learn from others. The activities at protests offer many opportunities to share your personal experience and learn from others. Inside of and behind the collective voices chanting are millions of conversations happening between people who have gathered. It is encouraging to see people’s bodies show up to protests, and people come up with the most clever signs, but interfacing with the substance of their individual convictions meaningfully furthers the collective conversation. 

Feeling the weight of the subject, meaningfully connecting with others, and showing up as yourself will help you move away from temporary virtue signaling toward a more permanent commitment to justice.

Mindfulness meditation allows you to protest with greater acknowledgement of your feelings. It also helps you recognize the feelings of others you are marching with, talking with, and learning from. The potency of knowing your own story deepens your capacity to feel the story of others. 

It is not a magic solution to end racism, heal your pain, or assuage your guilt. However, feeling the weight of the subject, meaningfully connecting with others, and showing up as yourself will help you move away from temporary virtue signaling toward a more permanent commitment to justice. This integration of your own truth, within yourself and with others, will certainly help you show up authentically and keep from burning out. 

Protesting mindfully is neither a call for peaceful protest, nor a condemnation of that virtue. It is an invitation to show up in an integrated manner. Every protestor is showing up with a degree of mindfulness in their protest. When we cultivate the practice of consciously being mindful of what and why we are protesting, this helps us create the society we want to inhabit. 

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Well-Being

How We Can Thrive Within Discomfort 

Instead of turning away from what feels difficult or painful, mindfulness teaches us that we can learn much from leaning in to any discomfort we’re feeling. Read More 

  • Kelly Barron
  • July 9, 2020

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Friday, 24 July 2020

Love and Fear During Times of War: An Interview with Lama Rod Owens

The world is having a difficult moment. Each day we learn of a different conflict or crisis, which threatens the lives of so may people. It is easy to live with a lot of fear right now and it is even easier to react out of that fear was well. When we react out of fear we tend to create much more harm in the world.

This is a time of darkness and war and fear lies at the heart of much of the violence we are experiencing. How do we befriend our fear and offer it permission to teach us how to move through it into a state of freedom? How do we use our fear to connect to the fear so many other people are experiencing? Ultimately, how do we begin to love what is unlovable, especially our fear?

During their time together, Tara and Lama Rod call on the teachings of Buddhadharma as well as their own intrinsic wisdom to lean into fear with love.

This event was American Sign Language (ASL) interpreted.

Rod’s new book, Love and Anger: The Path of Liberation Through Anger. Love and Rage, is available now. 

More about Lama Rod Owens at: http://lamarod.com/

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Mindful Education for Anti-Racist Allies

In the “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man” video series, Emmanuel Acho sits down to lead viewers through the tough conversations white folks need to be having, in order to better understand struggles with racism and social injustice. In this first video, he discusses some frequently-asked questions around rioting, privilege, and the pain and hurt that Black Americans are feeling.

“In order to stand with us, and people that look like me, you have to be educated on issues that pertain to me,” he says. 

The whole video is well worth a watch—here are just three of the understandings Acho shares to help us increase our empathy so that we can act from deeper understanding and solidarity toward racial justice. 

3 Ways to Better Understand Racial Struggle

1. Riots are a last resort

To many, rioting is simply an act of senseless and destructive aggression, and the recent riots in many US cities appear to have come out of nowhere. However, it’s clearer why this has happened when we look at the long history of struggle for equity in the US.

Acho reminds us that “For years, Black people have tried peacefully protesting, going back to 1965 and before with the Selma march.” The riots that broke out in June 2020 were only one facet of this most recent wave of protests. Even after decades of primarily peaceful demonstrations, Black people still face many of the same struggles of violence, poverty, and unequal rights they have always faced in colonial nations around the world. In recognizing this, we can better understand the perspectives of people who feel rioting is the only way to demand change.  

Acho illustrates with a story of a time he was biking on a narrow path, and called out to a woman walking on the path ahead of him. “I want to notify her I’m coming, so she can change her course of action.” Though he continued to call out to her, the women didn’t hear Acho’s warnings, and they collided. “My goal was never to hit her, but because she had her headphones in, she didn’t hear me and she didn’t change her course of action.” Similarly, he says, riots are a result of white society’s overall failure to listen to Black voices and help create an equitable society for all. “Now, you see the collision that’s occurred in America,” Acho says. 

2. White privilege exists in real, tangible ways

We can see how white privilege works by thinking of it as a race, Acho says. Those with white privilege are empowered to run the race with no impediments, while people have been held back for the first 200 meters. “In America, we’ve simply said, ‘Okay Emmanuel, you’re free to run,’ and acted as though it was a fair race, when in all honesty, Black people were held back for hundreds of years.”

“White privilege is having a head start due to hundreds of years of systematic and systemic racism. It’s having the head start intrinsically built into your life.”

“White privilege is having a head start due to hundreds of years of systematic and systemic racism. It’s having the head start intrinsically built into your life. It’s not saying your life hasn’t been hard, but what it’s saying is your skin color hasn’t contributed to the difficulty in your life.” 

Not only has historic racism left Black communities greatly disadvantaged, Acho says, racial prejudice also impacts Black people’s daily lives through white people’s attitudes and beliefs that can endanger Black people. “If I’m on an elevator with a white person, I try to hit the button first and get off the elevator first, because I don’t want them to perceive me as a threat,” Acho says. In this way, white privilege is frequently weaponized against Black people. 

3. To understand calls for racial justice, we need to take an honest look at the current reality

An accusation sometimes leveled against anti-racist activists is that Black people care more about white-on-Black crime than Black-on-Black crime. First, Acho explains that research shows high rates of violent crime exist between all racial groups, not only Black people. Further, when the focus is shifted to Black-on-Black violence, it’s unhelpful because it ignores the kind of oppression where white people can truly have an impact by pushing for systemic changes.

“It’s the same issue as saying ‘All Lives Matter’ instead of ‘Black Lives Matter,’” Acho explains. “We understand that all lives matter, but right now, Black people are dying at the hands of white people, and I can’t change that. Only you, my white friends, y’all can change that.” 

“If you want to know how can you help, how can you stand with us, how can you stand with me? First, educate yourself, so you know exactly what you’re standing for and why you’re standing.” 

Anti-racist work is mindful work. Acho reminds us that understanding leads to empathy and compassion, which ultimately leads to change. In this video series, he offers a safe space to learn answers to common questions he’s heard from white people. “If you want to know, how can you help, how can you stand with us, how can you stand with me? First, educate yourself, so you know exactly what you’re standing for and why you’re standing.”  

In this moment, and as we move forward, it’s important to use every tool available to us for becoming effective allies for the fair and nonviolent society we all deserve. In learning more from Black people about their lived experience and knowledge, people with white privilege are asked to face difficult realities. The greater clarity, compassion, and calm that we can learn from a steady mindfulness practice all support us in showing up for this learning process with an open mind and a willingness to grow beyond old ideas. With these, it’s more likely that our actions—not least our conversations—can align with our social values.

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Daily Practices

Using Mindfulness to Break Racial Bias 

Anu Gupta, founder and CEO of BE MORE with Anu, offers five portable compassion-based tools to face and transform racial bias at work and in day-to-day life. Read More 

  • Anu Gupta
  • July 2, 2020

The Research On White Privilege Blindness 

Seeing the Truth of Inequality: We all want to believe that we’ve earned what we have, but true equality begins when we’re willing to see how the circumstances of our birth have helped us along. Read More 

  • Sharon Begley
  • August 20, 2019

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Thursday, 23 July 2020

Meditation: Gateway to Natural Presence (17:18 min.)

We enter a full presence through awakening our senses, and awakening to the awareness that is aware. This meditation guides us as we arouse an embodied presence, let go of any controlling, then discover the natural spaciousness and wakefulness that is the essence of what we are.

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A Meditation for Letting Thoughts Float by Like Bubbles

This practice is meant to help you become mindful of the mind as a process. Practicing awareness of the mind helps break our addiction to the contents of our  mind. When we meditate on the mind as though it is a process, as though each thought is like a bubble floating, we can experience the spaciousness of awareness. We can practice allowing each thought we have to pass without getting into the thought bubble and floating away with it. Most importantly, we practice being patient and kind with ourselves as we explore this practice. 

A Guided Practice for Letting Thoughts Float by Like Bubbles

Observing the Wandering Mind with Enrique Collazo

  • 26:38

1. Find a way to sit that feels good and grounded. Adjust your posture so that your spine is erect without being rigid or stiff. Allow the rest of the body to be relaxed around the upright spine, maybe resting your hands in your lap or on your legs. Allow your eyes to gently close if you haven’t done so already. Bring full attention to the physical sensations of your sitting. Allow the breath to be natural. 

2. Begin with a body scan. Scan from the crown of your head, all the way down to your toes, and as you scan through your body try to find any places where you are holding tension. See if you can soften and relax those areas, because you’ve probably been holding it for long enough. Begin at the crown of your head, making your way down, feeling every sensation and softening your forehead, the little muscles around your eyes, your jaw, and your tongue. Continue to scan down while relaxing your neck and shoulders. Continue down your body while feeling the rise and fall of your chest and abdomen. See if you can soften your belly, with each inhale and exhale softening it a little bit more. Make your way down the rest of your body, all the way down to your toes. 

3. Feel where your body is supported. Next, see if you can feel into the places where your body makes contact, whether it’s with the ground, a chair, a couch, or whatever you’re sitting on. See if you can feel the sensations of your body being supported, the pressure and weight of your solidity, and all of the sensations that make up the experience of gravity in your body. 

4. Bring your full attention to the present time and experience. Acknowledge the full range of what’s happening in this moment: Thinking is happening, hearing is happening, and seeing is happening (even if your eyes are closed). Tasting, smelling, physical sensations, and emotional sensations are all present. Allow all the experiences to be as they are, and redirect your attention to the sensation of your breath. Let your other senses fall to the background as you bring your awareness of the breath to the foreground. 

Taking a Moment to Focus on the Breath

5. Allow your breath to find its own natural rhythm. You don’t have to breathe in a certain way. Take a moment to investigate where you feel the breath most easily, or where you feel contact with the breath. Typically, this will be in one or two places; for example, in the rising and falling of your belly, or on the tip of your nostril. Find where you feel it the most and see if you can post your attention there. For the next few minutes, choose that one place to stick with, while maintaining your attention on your breath. Feel the sensations of the air entering and exiting your body. Notice all of the sensations that make up the experience of breathing in your body. 

6. Bring kindness to your practice. You may have already noticed that it is not so easy to keep sustained attention on an object, or on breath. In the beginning, while you’re training your mind in present time awareness of your breath, it’s really important to bring a quality of kindness and understanding to your practice. The mind is almost constantly wandering. See if you can try to be friendly toward your experience; of course your attention will wander. Try not to take it personally, as it’s not your fault. That’s what the untrained mind does. It will take time and perseverance to train the attention to stay with the chosen object of awareness. 

7. Place your kind attention on the mind. With that same kind of understanding attention you’ve been meeting the breath with, see if you can meet your mind in the same way, and place your attention on the mind itself. As you observed your rising and falling breath, you observe the rising and passing of your thoughts. When working with the mind, it’s really helpful to allow the awareness to be expansive. Try not to get caught up in the contents of thoughts; let go of the need to solve any problems or make any plans. See if you can relax into the present time awareness of thoughts coming and going. 

8. Try not to judge your wandering mind. Practicing this will begin to break the addiction to the contents of the mind, and break the identification with the mind. Meditate on the mind as though it is a process, as though each thought is like a bubble floating with the spaciousness of awareness. One bubble may contain plans, another may contain a memory, and another may contain a judgment or emotion. Allow each thought to pass without getting into the bubble or floating off with it. If you do become pulled into a thought or lost inside of a story, it’s not a big deal. It doesn’t matter where you went or how long you were there for, what matters most is how you return the attention back. Be patient and kind with yourself. Bring the attention back to awareness of the mind. 

9. Observe the process of the mind. In the beginning of this practice you’re likely going to get seduced by thinking over and over again, floating off into a plan or a memory that feels too important to let pass. All of a sudden you may have what seems like a very important revelation or inspiration. This is just a natural process of the mind. As you continue to practice you will continue to change your relationship to this process, eventually becoming less and less compelled to follow a thread of thinking, especially when you’re meditating. 

Allow each thought to pass without getting into the bubble or floating off with it. If you do become pulled into a thought or lost inside of a story, it’s not a big deal. It doesn’t matter where you went or how long you were there for, what matters most is how you return the attention back.

10. Notice what is happening in this moment. Whether you’re in your seat and your body watching the thoughts arise and pass away, or if you’ve gotten lost in a thought—Remember, if you’ve gotten lost in a thought it is not a big deal and is actually important to the process. Be easy on yourself. As soon as you notice this, you’re experiencing a moment of awakening. These moments of awakening are part of the goal. Once you notice that you’ve gotten lost in a thought, bring your attention back, and try to start over again. Whatever the object of meditation is, (whether it’s the breath, the body, a sound, or in this case the mind and thoughts), just continue to see the object for what it really is: just phenomena. Arising and passing, impersonal, impermanent phenomena. 

11. Come back to the breath. Before you end your meditation practice, let go of the attention in the mind and bring your attention back into your body. Bring your attention back into the feeling of the contact points, feeling the ground, the solidity, and the weight, and open up to the sensations of your breathing. Feel your breath rising and falling. Notice whatever you feel like, and see if you can allow these feelings to just exist. Right now it’s like this. 

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Tuesday, 21 July 2020

A Guided Practice to Connect with What Matters Now

I call this practice taking time for what matters. Life can be very distracting. It’s so easy to get caught up in a blizzard of our own thoughts, which are interestingly, sometimes the thoughts of others that have planted themselves in our brain. Like something we heard on the news or a passing comment that latched onto us like a stain on the carpet.

In this contemplative practice, we take a moment to drop beneath the chatter and appreciate the quality of our being—just being. So we’ll begin with a few minutes of basic mindfulness practice.

A Guided Practice to Connect with What Matters Now

Taking Time for What Matter with Barry Boyce

  • 21:24

1. First settle into your body. If you’re seated in a chair or on a cushion, feel your bottom touching the cushion. If you have to lean back in the chair, feel how the back of the chair is touching your body. Feel your feet or your legs touching the floor.

2. Feel the weight of gravity pulling you down—down onto the earth.

3. Your upper body is upright, but not stiff. Your eyes can be open or closed if you’d like. Your hand is slightly inclined and your chin is down in a gesture of humbleness. Your hands resting easily on your thighs.

4. Take a moment to feel the full weight of being here before doing any particular practice.

5. Now allow your attention to rest on the breath as it goes out. We’re going to do out-breath meditation. On the in-breath, not quite as much attention. Just let there be an open space. It’s okay to leave space. That’s part of the point here. The in-breath is a pause with no purpose.

6. Out-breath. Out-breath. Out-breath. Still feeling in the background, the weight of our body.

7. As thoughts arise, you don’t fight them. Just label them with a blanket word like thinking. And actually say thinking in your mind. In the very act of labeling it thinking, we notice it. And we gently glide back to noticing the next out-breath with bare attention. The kind of attention needed to pick up a glass or a pen.

It’s very light, simple attention. No need to intensely focus. We rest our attention on the out-breath. We’re going to do that for a couple of minutes.

8. Resting attention gently on the out-breath, labeling thinking, coming back to the out-breath, leaving space at the end of the out-breath and during the in breath.

9. If you go off in thought for a long period of time, when you notice, don’t recriminate, simply label it thinking. And gently, come back to the out-breath.

10. So now we’ll shift from the basic mindfulness practice to a contemplative practice, where we use our thought process to pay attention to certain aspects of our mind and our life.

11. In this case, we’re going to begin by contemplating our various roles and responsibilities in life. You may be a mother, a father, or a daughter who needs to take care of a parent, a trusted friend, or a sister. Bring to mind all of the roles and responsibilities that form and shape your life and give you part of your identity. So you would say I’m a mother, I’m a father, I’m an insurance agent, I’m an editor, I take care of my mom.

12. Now, imagine you set those down for a little bit. You’re not rejecting them. You’re not thinking there’s some kind of problem with them. You’re just taking some time to set them down. It’s as if you’re carrying some luggage and you’re going to set it down just for a period. If you’ve been carrying things, maybe you’re carrying a bunch of things, and you set them down, there’s a certain feeling of less burden.

13. So having set things down in your imagination, in your mind’s eye, take a moment to appreciate just being, grounding in your sense perceptions. And if you’re impaired in any of these sense perceptions, you’re not excluded. It’s about enjoying the entire sensory field.

Noticing Smell

14. You could start with smell. See what you can smell in the atmosphere. Maybe you’re in a area where there’s a rich sensory environment of plants, food just cooked, or maybe it’s just a very neutral kind of smell environment. Just notice the very capability of smelling and how it connects to you.

Noticing Touch

15. And now touch. In this case, we’re not picking anything up with our hands. But our feet or legs are touching the floor, our bottom is touching a seat, and the air is touching the pores of our body. Our whole body is sensing the temperature and through our pores, we’re exchanging with the outside. It’s the boundary of outside and inside.

Noticing Sound

16. You’re hearing. There’s an entire soundscape. You can even hear your own breathing. You can hear things that are near, things that are farther away. It’s an entire environment that you exist within.

Noticing Sight

17. If your eyes are not open, open them please. Notice the sights and how there’s something that’s in focus and something around that that’s less in focus. And then notice the whole periphery, up down and all around, that forms a world of sight. See where there are just some things altogether, but maybe some things that you identify like a tchotchke on your desk. Your phone may be nearby. This is the atmosphere of sight.

18. So we have smell and touch and sight, now taste. Taste is interesting. If you’re not actually eating something, you can feel the capability to taste in your mouth. If you have something handy that you could put in your mouth and chew and swallow, that’s fine too.

But you can also just have the basic taste of tasting. You could imagine tasting something.

19. We talk about five senses: smell, touch, hearing, sight, taste. You also have a kind of a sixth sense, imagination that puts that all together. So you can see something in your mind’s eye. This is the quality of being. Just being. It’s there no matter what. No matter what role you play, underneath it is this sense of being, which we could call well-being.

20. There’s a sense of fundamental healthiness that transcends whatever pains or difficulties you have. Simple well-being. So let’s just take a moment to appreciate ourselves as a sensing organism. Breathing, sensing, being, just being. Taking time just to be. Without a project.

21. Now, we’re going to extend that well-being by appreciating the feeling you have for others. You can think of specific people. You can also think of other living creatures, animals.

22. Contemplate how you would like them to be free of pain, limitations, and any way that they feel trapped, pinched, imposed upon, oppressed, unfree, un-open. You would like to free people of that just as you want to be free.

23. Feel the warmth in your body. The body is quite warm. Feel the warmth in your heart and throughout radiating out as well-being shared with others. Your warmth for the time being could free them of pain and limitation. Let them be. Let them experience the fullness and lightness of being, of being alive, of well-being. So there’s an atmosphere of well-being. Well-being, we’re suggesting, is what matters.

24. So now we’ll end the practice by returning to simple mindfulness practice where we’re resting our attention on the out-breath. As thoughts arise, we label them thinking. Whatever the thoughts are, we just noticed them, label them thinking, and come back to having bare attention on the breath as it leaves the body. And on the end of the out-breath and on the in breath, leaving open space, a pause with no goal or purpose. Out-breath. Out-breath. Out-breath.

24. Now we’ll conclude by dedicating the benefit of our practice, which means we think of our mindfulness and awareness practice as something we do, not just for ourselves, but so that it might benefit ourselves and also benefit others. And make the world a better place. So we can use a phrase like: may the benefit of our mindfulness and awareness practice bring benefit to all other beings.

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How to Get Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

I guided the meditation with fewer words, leaving ever more space. The air seemed to crackle with restless silence. Afterwards, several students said they prefer more guidance—otherwise, they felt they were floundering. I grew curious and asked the group, “What’s wrong with floundering?”

Floundering can make you feel excruciatingly vulnerable. It feels threatening and as if you’re out of control. It drips with embarrassment, weakness, a sense of being off-kilter. Everyone’s agreed then. Avoid floundering!

But since we’ve all had to grapple with many destabilizing factors, off-kilter is what’s on the menu lately. Perhaps floundering with grace and openness is the next big skill we must learn, to be resilient in the face of uncertainty and distress.

Floundering Toward Clarity

It’s inevitable that we’ll flounder when we can’t see the way forward. We flounder until we collect enough experience to proceed with more clarity. You might flounder in the face of what you’ve never had to do before and have to figure out in a hurry. Maybe you’re suddenly homeschooling your child, reorienting your job life, or choosing to listen and learn to allow the deep and necessary work of having conversations about racism to help change the world. You might be very smart and still flounder incompetently the first time you have to run a Zoom meeting or help your dad—or someone else’s dad—understand that the joke he just told is inappropriate. You might flounder when someone holds you accountable for something you thought was fine yesterday, but now you understand differently. Floundering can feel very awkward, so have some compassion for yourself. If you can stay with it, eventually you’ll likely find firmer ground.

We flounder until we collect enough experience to proceed with more clarity. You might flounder in the face of what you’ve never had to do before and have to figure out in a hurry

This is not to say that floundering forward is seamless. There’s no certainty that you will find anything solid, but this is also an excellent practice and it can yield amazing fruit.

Stay Present to Opportunities

Floundering is often how leading-edge thinkers and creators find the next big thing. They flounder around in the murky waters of not knowing where the heck to go from here until something shiny beckons, and curiosity pulls them forward, out of the murk.

Innovation requires the wisdom to flounder and stay present even when you want to cut and run. So hang in there, baby.

We Flounder, We Find It, We Fly

In The Art of War, the advice is to know your enemy. Sometimes, our most intimate enemy is our own ignorance, Once we recognize this, we find grace by courageously feeling the destabilizing qualities of floundering. This helps you fall more gently when your knees suddenly give out. Relax with what is beyond your control, but stay alert to opportunities, from job leads to better listening. Watch for what’s out there waiting to be discovered.

Mindfulness trains you to let go of habitual reference points and splash around in the creative space of not knowing until you find what you need. We figure things out by trying things out, floundering and finding it. It’s a master skill to trust that life coalesces out of formlessness. It comes from letting curiosity pull you from helplessness to mastery.

How to: Flounder, Find It, Fly

  1. Get comfortable with tolerating the flailing insecurities that are the fins of floundering.
  2. Flounder with presence and intention: Instead of resisting, check out what happens when you allow life’s inevitable moments of helplessness to be part of the picture. Learn and grow for the benefit of all.
  3. Remind yourself that floundering is a natural part of life. I’m not suggesting you invite floundering to your next party, but you can offer it some tea if it stops by. Flounder. Find it. Fly.

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Well-Being

How We Can Thrive Within Discomfort 

Instead of turning away from what feels difficult or painful, mindfulness teaches us that we can learn much from leaning in to any discomfort we’re feeling. Read More 

  • Kelly Barron
  • July 9, 2020
Well-Being

Making Friends with Difficult Emotions 

Cultivating a clear awareness of our inner world during moments of strong emotion is a powerful, portable way to step back from the activation, find our calm, and discover a right way forward. Read More 

  • David Rome
  • June 10, 2020

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A Practice to Welcome Gratitude with Sharon Salzberg

This practice, from Sharon Salzberg’s book Real Change, opens a doorway in your heart to gratitude and receiving happiness.

1. Sit or lie down on the floor in a relaxed, comfortable posture. Your eyes can be open or closed.Now bring to mind a pleasurable experience you had recently, one that carries a positive emotion such as happiness, joy, comfort, contentment, or gratitude. If you can’t think of a positive experience, be aware of giving yourself the gift of time to do this practice now.

2. Take a moment to cherish whatever image comes to mind with the recollection of the pleasurable experience. See what it feels like to sit with this recollection. Where in your body do you feel sensations arising? What are they? How do they change? Focus your attention on the part of your body where those sensations are the strongest. Stay with the awareness of your bodily sensations and your relationship to them, opening up to them and accepting them.

3. Now notice what emotions come up as you bring this experience to mind. You may feel moments of excitement, moments of hope, moments of fear, moments of wanting more. Just watch these emotions rise and pass away. All of these states are changing and shifting.
Perhaps you feel some uneasiness about letting yourself feel too good, because you fear bad luck might follow. Perhaps you feel some guilt about not deserving to feel this happiness. In such moments, practice inviting in the feelings of joy or delight, and allowing yourself to make space for them. Acknowledge and fully experience such emotions.

4. Notice what thoughts may be present as you bring to mind the positive. Do you have a sense of being less confined or less stuck in habits? Or perhaps you find yourself falling back into thoughts about what went wrong in your day, what disappointed you—these thoughts can be more comfortable because they are so familiar. If so, take note of this. Do you tell yourself, I don’t deserve this pleasure until I give up my bad habits, or I must find a way to make this last forever? Try to become aware of such add-on thoughts and see if you can let them go and simply be with the feeling of the moment.

5. End the meditation by simply sitting and being with the breath. Be with the breath gently, as though you were cradling it. Then when you’re ready, you can open your eyes.

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