January 2012 Audio Meditation

There is a Japanese philosophy called “wabi sabi”, which is about accepting and embracing that which is imperfect or flawed.  Most of you have probably seen kintsugi pottery, where gold is used to fill cracks that appear in a piece of pottery—a bowl, cup, vase.  One person who wrote about this said that kintsugi is how one can acknowledge the fact that the pottery object earned those cracks through the process of living and that filling the cracks with gold honors the fact of that experience.

Read More “698th Week:  Embracing What’s Imperfect”

This morning, Krista Tippett aired a 2015 interview with Mirabai Bush, a meditation teacher who became a corporate consultant teaching people mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and how to be more aware of how they move through the world.  Also this morning, a colleague sent me an article on the impact of kindness and how practicing it enhances our sense of well-being. Both of these practices invite us to orient to the heart, to our sense of connection with ourselves and others, and to a more spontaneous and available tendency to be kind.

I’ve mentioned the importance of cultivating heart intelligence and perception in many of these practices and it seems more important now than ever to do so.  All of us, on every side of any political, social, or spiritual/religious spectrum, wants the same thing—to be happy, not to suffer, and to be free from fear.  The Buddhist practice of lovingkindness specifically addresses this similarity within and amongst all living beings. Read More “730th Week:  Practicing Kindness, Living with An Open Heart”