Dear Friends, In the penultimate track from this retreat, The Awakening Poem, DaRa reads a reflection which is sometimes attributed to by Sonny Carroll, although the wording on various websites isn’t always consistent. You can read a version fairly close to DaRa’s recitation here:https://www.michaelppowers.com/wisdom/awakening2.html The poem didn’t really resonate with me, though there are some useful life lessons… Read More »
Dear Friends, In insight meditation, we often practice cultivating four specific qualities of the heart: kindness (a.k.a. metta, loving kindness, goodwill, friendliness), compassion, joy (particularly joy in the joy of others, a.k.a. mudita), and equanimity (having a balanced perspective). In some circles, my fellow practitioners and I have discussed that this list could include a fifth quality: gratitude.… Read More »
Dear Friends, I think many of us come to contemplative practices like meditation and mindfulness from a place of suffering, discontent, pain, grief, disconnection. We are looking for some relief. At least that was true for me. And through practicing, I have found certain deeply ingrained patterns that contribute to painful states, and the body/heart/mind is learning different… Read More »
Dear Friends, A friend of mine welcomed a new granddaughter into the world on Saturday. And at the same time, her 95 year-old mother-in-law is in palliative care. This reminds me of a verse in Sarah Slean’s song “Cosmic Ballet“ Sick woman in a sick bed waitingLight fast fading in her eyesSomewhere else, another light is fallingTurning into… Read More »
Dear Friends, I have noticed a particularly sticky thought pattern. It’s the one that says to me, “You’re not good enough. You should be doing more. You always lose your keys – how can you be that disorganized. You’ll never be able to do that thing, so why even try.” And on and on. Mark Coleman wrote a… Read More »
Dear Friends, Thinking Don’t you wish they would stop, all the thoughtsswirling around in your head, bees in a hive, dancerstapping their way across the stage? I should rake the leavesin the carport, buy Christmas lights. Was there really life on Mars?What will I cook for dinner? I walk up the driveway,put out the garbage bins. I should… 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, The practices of mindfulness and meditation have been such incredible supports for me in the challenges of life, including 2020! That is what has motivated me to study and practice and share with others. This is the sixth year I have offered this daily email in January, and I’m honoured that you have chosen to join… Read More »
Dear Friends, Continuing with Sally Armstrong’s talk, “The roles of mindfulness, metta and equanimity in our practice“, and her discussion on mindfulness… Sally shares various definitions of mindfulness, but I really resonate with the definition that Jeanne Corrigal offers: Mindfulness is paying attention, with open, curious interest, to what is happening within and around us, with the intention… Read More »
Dear Friends, As we enter into the fourth week of our daily emails, our focus now moves to the fourth way of establishing mindfulness, mindfulness of dhammas, which can be translated as mindfulness of phenomena or “stuff”. As Mark Coleman explains in a lecture from Essential Buddhist Teachings, The other three [ways of establishing mindfulness] – we were… Read More »
Dear Friends, Chapter 9 of The Four Foundations of Mindfulness in Plain English is titled “Mental States”, and it delves into the specifics from the discourse, where we are instructed to know whether the mind is greedy or not greedy hate or not hateful deluded or not deluded contracted or distracted (or not) great or narrow surpassable or not… Read More »
Dear Friends, Mark Coleman has said that generosity often radial – it’s often easier to be generous with others but stingy with ourselves. He asks us to reflect: What would it be to practice more generosity to ourselves? What would you give yourself to be generous? For some, it might be more space, or more time. Maybe doing… Read More »
Dear Friends, Generosity is a quality that makes us feel happy, bright, and expansive – whether giving, receiving, or both. Yesterday, one of our participants shared a beautiful reflection about being on the receiving end of generosity. I think this is an important part of this practice of generosity – to be able to receive, with mindfulness, what… Read More »
Dear Friends, When it comes to generosity, we often have a limited sense of what generosity means – that it involves a monetary exchange or some grand act. In one of Mark Coleman’s talks on generosity, he says that our own presence and attention is a most powerful thing to give. In that talk he tells the story of… Read More »
Dear Friends, Here’s a short exercise to bring mindfulness to the changing nature of feeling tone. Mark Coleman, in week 8 of the on-line course Essential Buddhist Teachings 1, said, “Another thing about pleasant experiences is how quickly we acclimatize.” For this exercise, he suggests that you eat one of your favorite pieces of food, and notice the… Read More »