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December Audio Meditation
2023 May Meditation
This month, we expand the everyday relationships you have with the world around you. Imagine you go to a store–notice how it is to recognize that when you enter the store, you are immediately in relationship with it. You have joined the community of presences that comprises the store. Take a moment to offer gratitude and blessings to the store and to everything and everyone within it, acknowledging within yourself the inevitability of relatedness, of community, every time you move in and out of a particular space, be it a store, a park, a recreational environment, any building–anywhere at all…
Please remember never to listen to guided audio meditations while driving or using dangerous machinery.
If you’d rather see images of nature as you meditate, here’s link to the youtube version…
730th Week: Practicing Kindness, Living with An Open Heart
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”
734th Week: Meeting Violent Communication with Love
I just watched a Netflix video of Trevor Noah: Son of Patricia. I always enjoy Trevor’s humor, as it touches into cultural and racial issues that may be hard to talk about in other contexts. In this particular comedy routine, he spends a good bit of time around how he feels when people call him the “N” word. Apparently, in his mother’s language, this particular word, or the sound of it, means “to give”, so it can bring a warm feeling to him when people shout it at him.
As I watched this video, it got me to thinking about how violent some words can be and how we might respond to these words without adding to the violent energy behind them. Read More “734th Week: Meeting Violent Communication with Love”