January 29 – The path we’ve travelled
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 2 – Mindfulness is… – I presented my definition of mindfulness – in the course of this month, how have you refined your understanding of mindfulness? 3 – How did the rose ever open its heart? – kindness is an essential part of our mindfulness practice, allowing us to open to our inner goodness, and to meet experience with less resistance 4 – Taking your seat – some posture pointers for meditation 5 – Exhale and inhale – mindfulness of breathing 6 – Embodied awareness – bringing mindfulness to the body in…
January 10 – We must risk delight
Dear Friends, There’s a poem by Jack Gilbert called “A Brief for the Defense” that has this reflection: We must risk delight. … We must havethe stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthlessfurnace of this world. To make injustice the onlymeasure of our attention is to praise the Devil. Jack Gilbert, “A Brief For The Defense”https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-brief-for-the-defense/ The twenty-four hour news cycle is built on highlighting much of the injustice in the world, but what they don’t show is at the same time, some parents are beaming as their baby takes their first step; someone successfully defended their thesis after years of work; a frontline worker gets their first dose of the COVID vaccine; a dog wags their tail gleefully as their person walks in the door. Tuere Sala, a teacher at Seattle Insight, was a guest on the Ten Percent Happier podcast last fall, and she talked about mudita,…
January 30 – A family of qualities
Dear Friends, As this month of reflection draws to a close, I’m going to circle back to the beginning of the book, where Christina Feldman presented how these practices work together to support one another: Kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity are a family of qualities that support, strengthen, nourish, and balance one another. Immeasurable kindness teaches us a way of being in this world that is no longer defined by ideas of friends and enemies, by likes and dislikes, preferences and demands for reciprocation. Boundless friendliness is the root of compassion and protects it from despair and partiality. Kindness guards equanimity from falling into indifference. Compassion protects kindness from falling into sentimentality or becoming only a state of elation, always recollecting the reality of the immensity of sorrow in the world. Compassion, rooted in kindness, becomes selfless and protects joy from forgetfulness. Compassion extends the remit of kindness and turns…
January 24 – I delight you are here
Dear Friends, The practice of muditā is an empathetic joy that celebrates the good fortune, happiness, and joy of others. Oren Jay Sofer describes it this way: This is mudita: feeling the happiness of another. The capacity for empathic resonance is innate. When empathy meets the happiness and the success of another, when there’s no craving or constriction, the natural response is to rejoice. The Dalai Lama once said that when you count other people’s happiness as your own, your chances for happiness increase by 6 billion to 1. The cultivation of this quality starts to dissolve the boundaries between self and other. We touch a space that’s more expansive and connected. https://www.orenjaysofer.com/blog/resilience-joy There are many ways to cultivate muditā. One is the use of phrases. I love the Sinhalese text that Christina Feldman shares: How wonderful you are in your beingI delight you are hereI take joy in your…
January 23 – Confidence and Gratitude
Dear Friends, We’ll look at another couple of ways we can incline our hearts towards joy – confidence and gratitude. Confidence There was some level of confidence that brought you to the practice of meditation – maybe you met someone who inspired you, or read about it, or some other way that sparked your interest. You’ve probably experienced at least a few moments of easing of reactivity, and that can give us a bit more confidence and courage to continue. Christina Feldman says, “There is joy in discovering we are just a little less judgmental, impatient, or agitated. … Confidence in the path we are walking brings joy, aspiration brings joy, and to know that every moment of care and compassion truly matters brings joy.” (pages 102-103) As a practice, Christina encourages us to reflect on our aspirations and values and recall moments when we have embodied these. Meg Gawler…
January 22 – Contentment
Dear Friends, There’s a poem that Susie Harrington often recites at retreats I’ve attended. It has become a bit of a touch-point for me – anytime I need to reconnect to the “why am I doing this”… Bhuta Thera: No Greater Contentment When the thundering storm cloud roars out in the mist,And torrents of rain fill the paths of the birds,Nestled in a mountain cave, one meditates.— No greater contentment than this can be found. When along the rivers the tumbling flowers bloomIn winding wreaths adorned with verdant color,Seated on the bank, glad-minded, one meditates.— No greater contentment than this can be found. When in the depths of night, in a lonely forest,The rain-deva drizzles and the fanged beasts cry,Nestled in a mountain cave, one meditates.— No greater contentment than this can be found. …Devoid of fear …, one meditates.— No greater contentment than this can be found. When one…
January 20 – Cultivation of joy
Dear Friends, Christina Feldman reminds us, “Life brings many joyful moments, yet if our hearts are closed and contracted, these moments do not touch us.” (page 87) Part of our practice is remembering to open our hearts to whatever is present. Nature is a great teacher in this regard, as are moments of stillness. Richard Wagamese has some lovely reflections on both of these in his book Embers. As snow is falling while I write this email, this passage resonates with me right now: Started my day shovelling eight inches of fresh overnight snow, and it’s still falling. The beauty of that is the quiet you fall into through a deliberate, conscious act, the mindful joy of watching your energy change things, of feeling your spirit come alive in the effort and the sheer bright-white light of joy that comes from seeing a clear and open path to your home—the…
January 19 – The place where our heart rests
Dear Friends, Chapter three of Christina Feldman’s Boundless Heart delves into the heart quality of joy. She explains that joy can be cultivated, that joy can be a place where our heart rests. One master of describing joy was Mary Oliver, a poet who managed to capture in words the beauty and wonder of this world. In honor of her recent passing, I’ll share a few snippets that bring in some elements of Christina’s introductory words on joy. Christina mentions that many times joy comes without us planning for it – “joy can take us by surprise, born of the simplest of life experiences.” (page 83) Mary Oliver described such moments of unexpected joy, and why we should experience it when it arises: If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are…
January 27 – Seven positive qualities (part 2)
Dear Friends, I’m on retreat until Tuesday afternoon, but I’ve queued up some emails to keep you inspired while I’m away. Yesterday, we looked at the first three of the seven factors: mindfulness, investigation, and energy. Today, we’ll look at the next three: joy, tranquility, and concentration. Joy As our mindfulness deepens, we investigate, and then that rouses energy. When the energy is strong, joy arises. Bhante Gunaratana describes five types of feelings of joy: minor joy – makes our body hair stand on end momentary joy – like lightning flashing moment after moment showering joy – descends on the body and then disappears, like waves breaking on a seashore uplifting joy – lifts the body (perhaps even literally) all-pervading joy – suffuses every part of the body He says this joy is not the same as pleasurable feelings of everyday life. You may have experienced moments like this type…
January 21 – Appreciative joy
Dear Friends, When the Buddha was giving instructions to his son, Rahula, one of the teachings was “Develop the meditation of appreciation. For when you are developing the meditation of appreciation, resentment will be abandoned.” This is the heart quality of muditā. In her book, Lovingkindness, Sharon Salzberg tells us that this practice of muditā is a way of eliminating boredom: Boredom is based on a sense of separateness and a turning away that we feel when we experience certain degrees of aversion. When we stop paying attention to the little things in life, and the little things in our meditation practice as well, we find ourselves in a state of boredom. By reconnecting to the little things, we awaken again to a delightful kind of openness. Taking the time to marvel at a little flower as it creeps up through a crack in the pavement, we can feel joy,…
January 31 – Month end recap
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! It’s been a busy month, with lots of opportunities for exploration. I hope you’ve found some practices that resonate with you. Today, I’ll briefly recap some of the key points and practices that we’ve covered. Start with intention – we started (and ended) the month by exploring intention; it’s a great thing to reflect on – at the beginning of the day, at the beginning of a meditation, whenever. Complete the day/meditation/whatever with a review or dedication. It’s a way to affirm the skillful things you did, and to reconnect with our…
January 15 – Gratitude makes us joyful
Dear Friends, A few years ago, Brené Brown shared a quote on her blog from Brother David Steindl-Rast: The root of joy is gratefulness. We tend to misunderstand the link between joy and gratefulness. We notice that joyful people are grateful and suppose that they are grateful for their joy. But the reverse is true: their joy springs from gratefulness. … We hold the key to lasting happiness in our own hands. For it is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful. In Uncovering Happiness, Elisha Goldstein describes a study where participants were split into three groups – one group counted five blessings a day, one group five burdens, and one group neutral things. The study found that the group who counted blessings experienced less stress and enhanced well-being. In last Sunday’s email, I mentioned Adrianne Ross’s talk on joy. In that talk, she mentioned an…
January 13 – Sustainable joy
Dear Friends, Yesterday, we reviewed a common occurrence when trying to bring mindfulness to daily activities – we start off with good effort and results, but then the novelty wears off, and we stop being so mindful. I related this to two short-lived types of joy that Chade-Meng Tan discusses in Joy on Demand: the joy of novelty and the joy of perceived agency. Meng also discusses two sustainable types of joy, so it’s only fair to share those with you too. Before I do that, I want to tie into something Jeanne talked about on Wednesday evening: wisdom. She shared that there are different levels of wisdom: the wisdom from hearing or reading about something, the wisdom that comes from reviewing and contemplating that which we have heard or read, and then the wisdom that comes from an embodied knowing through our own experience. Jeanne went on to discuss conditions that lead to wisdom,…
January 12 – Getting curious when the novelty wears off
Dear Friends, In Joy on Demand, Chade-Meng Tan describes four sources of joy, two of which he says are short-lived, and two which are “very important and highly durable.” The two that he describes as short-lived are the joy of novelty, and the joy of perceived agency. The joy of novelty is the excitement of experiencing something new, and the joy of perceived agency is “discovering that what you initially thought was totally beyond your control is something you can make some choices about.” The joy of novelty quickly wears off because the new thing quickly becomes not so new any more (e.g. ask anyone who got a new smart phone a year ago). The joy of perceived agency dissipates because we get used to being able to do it. As an example of these two types of short-lived joy, Meng told a story from when his daughter was about 3 months…