Tag: Mindfulness

The Healing Balm of Nature: Intimacy with Life

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With the seemingly constant barrage of news of political unrest, racism, violence, and climate emergency, amongst the everyday challenges and joys of our individual lives, how do we find steadiness within the midst of this life? As I’ve been exploring this question, it has brought insights and new practices into my world that I continue to experience as blessing.

As you know, our practice, as is true of all of life, is always a dance. It is fluid, not static. Some seasons we lean more fully into formal seated meditation, other seasons yoga or qigong may move to the front burner. There are times in which our practice may lean on mindfulness and times when lovingkindness practice feels most helpful. Over the past 17 years, I’ve learned what an intuitive process this practice can be, if we’re receptive to listening inwardly to what we truly need in this moment.

A couple of months ago, my son and I were out on the coast, enjoying a favorite hike to a replica of an indigenous village, a picnic in a meadow amongst the shelters, and time climbing around in fallen down trees. Between plentiful winter rains, the sun was out this day, and we could feel the warmth and much needed Vitamin D sooth our beings. But, what was truly different about this day is that we had plenty of time to hang out in this meadow as long as we wished. No rush to get home at a particular time, no “we better get going”. As they say on meditation retreat, we had “all the time in the world” to be with this. And, so, we sat on a fallen down tree in the sunshine, and just did nothing, nothing at all, except drink in the sounds, the touch of the light breeze on our skin, the trees, the bark and the sun, as long as we wished.

This “as long as we wished” probably ended up being about an hour and half, but the impact of this wide, open space of time was tremendous. I felt my nervous system, which had been experiencing low running anxiety the previous week or two, let go into gravity and re-attune to the heartbeat of tree and Earth and sun. We didn’t talk much, other than pointing out a Steller’s jay or the green moss. My son, seemingly in a dreamy state, played with a stick, running it along the bark, the sound particularly alive in our ears. I could feel his nervous system dropping in, too. This permission to “just be” with this moment in nature was a healing balm for body, mind and heart. We left that meadow warm, rested and refreshed. Clear. Present. And it was in that moment that I committed to making this a weekly practice for us, at least for a season.

How does intuition, perception of time and intimacy with the natural world play a role in your practice? What practices support you (or might support you) in staying grounded and centered within the midst of life? What daily or weekly rituals support you in avoiding heart shut-down and keeping the heart open, receptive, and kind? What practices help to soothe the nervous system, rest the body, and renew the spirit?

May the Earth and all Beings know safety, healing, joy and deep peace.

Liberation Through Love

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It is this way that we must train ourselves:
by liberation of the self through love.
We will develop love,
we will practice it,
we will make it both a way and a basis,
take a stand upon it,
store it up,
and thoroughly set it going.
-The Buddha

As we witness and experience the reverberations of change and conflict in our nation and the world, I’ve found clarity in one aspiration— my sincere intention to use my practice to help me to stand on, and for, love. I used the word “my” intention, but my deeper sense is that this aspiration is not actually “mine” but is part of the fruits that unfold as we practice mindfulness and compassion over time; the way the heart begins to naturally incline toward love. This does not mean, of course, that we feel caring and have access to compassion in every moment. (I surely don’t.) But, what it does mean, is that, in the moments in which we notice that the mind is lost in greed, aversion or confusion, we commit ourselves to doing all we can to pause, recognize and allow what is present, and NOT turn these mind states into actions. Said another way, we practice using our energy to re-direct the mind out of the spin of contraction and confusion and towards the steadiness of awareness and love.

In teaching about wise use of energy, Ajahn Sucitto shares:

“Regulating and directing energy has to do with establishing boundaries. We must consider what is unskillful, what leads to harmful results and should be left aside. And we must consider what is skillful, what channels our energy towards that which is supportive and nourishing… We can bear in mind the reflection: ‘Is this for my welfare, the welfare of others, and does it lead out of stress and towards peace?’ Instead of setting up a boundary between self and other, this reflection aims for a boundary between intentions and action. Then we can check before we cross that boundary…. The key point is that wherever your attention gets established then that’s where your energy goes. And that energy and focus becomes your world.” Parami: Ways to Cross Life’s Floods (2012), Ajahn Sucitto, p. 95, 97.

These teachings on skillful use of energy feel particularly relevant during times of uncertainty, when stress levels are high and energy must be conserved, and consciously directed, in order to maintain our balance. With the barrage of news, information, ads, texts, e-mails, internet sites, etc. that each of us have access to and must navigate most days in this modern world, these teachings can remind us to notice the moments in which we DO have choice about what we decide to let in, and to choose wisely.
From my experience, it is when I feel the resonance of my intentions (for example, when I know that cultivating love matters to me) and when I feel my energy is balanced (vs. depleted or revved up), that I feel able to serve more freely and to receive love.

What is true for you? What intentions matter to you most? What helps to support you in cultivating energy that is balanced (vs. depleted or revved up)? What is different about the moments where you feel connected with your intentions and balanced in your energy? What arises in these moments? If it is helpful, you might hold the affirmation: “Connected with wholesome intention, I protect and direct my energy wisely.”

May our daily life practice help to bring greater moments of peace, wisdom and compassion to our lives and this world during this time of uncertainty and disaccord. May all beings, nature and Earth, be safe and be well.

Mindfulness: Going Beyond The Current Trend

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It seems mindfulness has become the tour de jour in 2015. It is everywhere. Parade Magazine called mindfulness meditation the number one health booster, the hottest well-being trend of our time. It is now used by the U.S. military to prepare soldiers for war and treat them for PTSD when they get back. Companies like Google are using mindfulness to enable employees to work harder for longer hours. A recent headline I found in Forbes magazine sums up the whole trend:

“Overworked and Overwhelmed? Use These Mindfulness Secrets to Restore Balance In 2015.”

The article opens with the following words, “Stress and burnout are all-too-frequent for executives…. But feeling overworked and overwhelmed not only reduces engagement and productivity, it also erodes happiness and personal health. What to do? Mindfulness is the answer.

Some of the benefits of mindfulness touted in the article include such attributes as flow, completely absorbed in work, elevated, a little bit of swagger, transparency, a sense of humor, calm, clear, confident, intentional, and laser-like focus.

There’s nothing wrong with any of this, of course, but from a Buddhist perspective the purpose of mindfulness goes much deeper. Most of the techniques used under the rubric of mindfulness in the popular culture focus on the peace that comes from a concentrated and calm mind, which can bring a lot of relief from the stress we face in our everyday world. But calming, concentrated meditation alone will not necessarily bring us wisdom, promote ethical behavior and ultimately lead to liberation from suffering. While concentration is a cornerstone of mindfulness practice, it can also be used in the service of the ego, for achievement and competition, to dominate others and to be selfish. It will not necessarily give us a perspective on ourselves, our suffering and the suffering we may cause others.

If we simply focus on entering calm peaceful states and staying there, we don’t gain any insights into who we are and all the neurotic stories and lies we can tell ourselves that fosters the illusion of a separate permanent self. In essence, by simply making the mind calm, without paying attention, we miss everything about us that makes us human.

Pema Chödrön puts it this way, “The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.”

Vipassana (Insight) meditation is really a balancing act between mindfulness and concentration. Mindfulness grows by using the lens of a concentrated mind to look at whatever is passing without judgment, realizing and accepting what is the truth and then letting go. Bhante Gunaratana writes, “Mindfulness is cultivated by a gentle effort. Persistence and a light touch of the senses. It is cultivated by constantly pulling ourselves back to a state of awareness, gently, gently, gently, over and over again.”

Mindfulness leads to wisdom, not by trying to achieve anything, but by simply investigating how things really are for us in the present moment. It does not involve trying to analyze, blame, or fix anything. Instead, we face our thoughts, emotions and body sensations with a kind and detached discernment. Investigating this “self” that continues to arise and pass away in all its many forms. As Gil Fronsdal writes, “We learn to live with openness and trust rather than with a self-image and all the self-criticism, aversion and pride that can come with it. In mindfulness practice, none of our humanity is denied. We are discovering a way to be present to everything – our full humanity – so everything becomes a gate to freedom, to compassion and to ourselves.

Mindful Communication: The Gift of Wise Speech

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The Buddha singled out wise speech as one of the important factors for awakening. It is part of the eight fold path, leading to the cessation of suffering and the realization of self-awakening. Like other parts of the path, wise speech requires effort, mindfulness and spiritual wisdom on our part to avoid harming others as well as ourselves. It is one of the most profound practices we can undertake off the meditation cushion and one of the greatest gifts we can give others. As Joseph Goldstein writes, “The care it takes to avoid harmful speech creates a vast playing field of mindfulness in our daily lives.”

Wise speech is rooted in learning to avoid four unwholesome verbal actions that cause harm to others and ourselves. These are lying (false speech), using harsh or aggressive language, divisive speech (backbiting and gossiping) and frivolous (or useless) conversation. Or put in positive terms, wise speech means speaking in ways that are trustworthy, comforting, harmonious, and worth taking to heart. When we practice these positive forms of speech, our words become a gift to others. The benefit of this practice is that people are more likely to listen to you and respond in kind.

One way to practice wise speech is to listen to our internal monologue. What is the tone of voice we use within our mind? Do we have a tendency to build ourselves up or put ourselves down? How often do we complain, compare, and judge ourselves? It is likely that your internal and external talk run in parallel tracks, so if we can hear and improve our internal monologue, it will help us hear and improve the way that we speak with others.

The more we practice wise speech, the more we see that the way we act shapes our experience and the world around us. If we can take some time to investigate the feelings behind our words, we may begin to uncover hidden or confused motives behind our speech. Self-righteous words may be a cover for anger. Angry words may be a cover for fear. Gossiping may be an attempt to try and reaffirm and strengthen our feelings of self-worth. Sometimes we engage in frivolous banter to cover up a feeling of unworthiness or a need for approval.

The point of practicing wise speech, however, is not to beat ourselves up. As meditation instructor Dr. Shahara Godfrey states in an interview published on Spirit Rock’s website, “the whole point is that the practice gives us the opportunity to try again and again. And we will make mistakes. Yet, how can we be kind to ourselves in a moment when we know we have made a mistake? I think the beauty of the practice is that we get an opportunity to practice Wise Speech over and over again with so many different people and in so many different situations.”

Exercises for Practicing Wise Speech

Here are two exercises that you might find useful for cultivating wise speech in your daily life.

Say Only What It True and Helpful: A succinct summary of wise speech in the Buddha’s words could be paraphrased as “say only what is true and helpful.”  With this in mind, see if you’d like to pick one day a week (or month) to focus on speaking only words that to the best of your knowledge are truthful and beneficial to those on the receiving end of your words. This requires mindfulness to see what is really true for us in the moment. Unless we are aware of our true experience, it is hard to be truthful in our speech.

Give Up Gossip: Choose a time period of perhaps a day or a week.  Then commit to not saying anything about other people unless they are in your presence. Whenever you find yourself tempted to gossip, try to recognize the underlying motive.

For each of these exercises take some time at the end of the day to reflect on your experience.  Notice the sense of integrity and strength that comes from holding to the truth, treating people with respect, and refusing to succumb to hurtful talk. Also notice when you have temptations to stretch the truth or gossip. See if you can discern some of the hidden agendas behind these impulses. The point of these exercises isn’t to criticize ourselves, but to simply notice what words arise out of our mouths and investigate the subtle motives behind them. This is an opportunity to attend to the habitual emotions or thoughts that may block us from using our words in a more truthful and harmonious manner.

With practice, our speech can grow wiser and our hearts become lighter. We begin to see the suffering that unmindful speech causes ourselves and those around us. We see how unmindful listening creates a feeling of separation between us and others, and constricts our heart. As our speech becomes more mindful, compassionate and kind, we will sense greater harmony in our lives and promote greater peace among all beings in this world.

Judgment vs. Discernment: Moving From Preferences to Wisdom

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When I first began practicing mindfulness meditation, I was surprised by the constant chatter of thoughts running through my head. What I found most disturbing about all this noise was that the majority of my thoughts were full of self-judgment, criticism and doubt. My first inclination was to try and stop these voices, or at least to ignore them. But the more I tried to do suppress them, the louder they became and the worse I felt when they inevitably reappeared.

Feeling discomfort with the judging mind is not uncommon. We come to meditation hoping to get relief from our distress and end up feeling more distress when we actually start to become aware of our thoughts. We’re taught that mindfulness involves cultivating non-judgmental awareness of what’s happening in the present moment, and yet here we sit full of judgment. I believe that part of our confusion around working with judgments comes from our western tendency to see the world in terms of duality – to judge our thoughts and experiences as right or wrong, good or bad, smart or dumb, etc. By seeing our judging minds as something negative, we take our judgments personally and see them as a reflection of ourselves.

It is not that all judgments are bad.  There are general agreements about what’s right and wrong, such as not harming others and not stealing. Such agreements are important for us as social beings to function as a society.  So there is a place for judgment. Often, however, we artificially make up these categories of good vs bad on the basis of our own likes and dislikes, as a way to navigate through the world. We divide things up politically, religiously, socially, racially, etc. and conclude that those in my camp are right and those in the other are wrong. When something falls outside what we deem acceptable, we judge it harshly. When it falls within that shifting structure of acceptability, we judge it positively. This goes for our critiques of the outside world as well as our thoughts about ourselves.

Our judgments about how things should be often exacerbates our suffering. For example in considering our relationship with our parents, if you still feel anger towards them that you haven’t worked out, you may have a lot of judgment around that anger. You may feel that having anger at your parents is clearly wrong. The judgment you have around this anger will itself cause you to suffer, perhaps dearly, because you feel so strongly that anger shouldn’t be here. But the truth is, it is here.

There is a Buddhist teaching attributed to the Chinese Zen patriarch Jianzhi Sengcan call Faith – Mind that opens with the lines “The great way [towards liberation] is not difficult for those who have no preferences. Like not, dislike not. Be illuminated.”  You could say, this is true of judgment. When we can suspend good and bad, high and low, all we’re left with are arbitrary divisions of life.  When we can just see these division as the way things are, we begin to develop true wisdom. This is the realm of discernment.

When we move from judgment to discernment our view changes. With discernment we begin to investigate and know what thoughts, feeling, or actions lead to happiness and what leads to suffering. The point is to try and wake up to what is suffering, what does it feel like, and to begin to see what leads to suffering. Also, what is real happiness (not what we think is happiness) and what leads to happiness. It is through discernment that we begin to know these things on a felt, experiential level.  Judgment does not have this ability to do this.

To see the difference, consider the following example.  You’ve just eaten a nice meal. Maybe you’re a little full, and you see there’s cake for dessert. Judgment goes cake – “good.” Then judgment goes, no I shouldn’t eat that cake, I’m already full, it will break my diet. Eating that cake is “bad.”

Discernment goes, cake, hum, mindfulness – I think I’d like that cake. Desire that’s the mind. Let’s now check in with the body. How’s the body feeling? How’s the stomach feeling? Ugh, kind of full and uncomfortable. What’s it going to be like if I eat that cake? More likely my stomach will be much more uncomfortable, very unpleasant.

The difference is that it’s not right or wrong. Discernment just knows that eating this cake is going to lead to suffering. This is much different than thinking I am a bad person if I eat that cake.

As our mindfulness practice deepens, we want to come more and more from discernment and less and less from judgment. Discernment starts with the suffering we find ourselves in, allowing us to see how our attachments are its fundamental cause, and then provides us the space to let go. Overtime, we learn to let go of our attachments through insight, by seeing into their impermanent nature and their inability to provide any kind of lasting satisfaction.

As our discernment grows, we gain the ability to grasp, comprehend, and evaluate clearly the true nature of ourselves. We begin to wake up to what is suffering and what leads to suffering in our lives. We gain insight into what is real happiness and what leads to happiness. Judgement does not have this ability to know this because it is concerned with protecting, supporting, or compensating for the ego. With discernment, we are no longer so concerned about protecting the ego. Instead we turn towards the difficulties in our lives with curiosity and compassion. Overtime, this honest turning towards the way things are provides us with the insights that propel us toward greater wisdom.

Cultivating A Relationship With Stillness

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In my experience, one of the most poignant benefits of walking a spiritual path is the opportunity to cultivate a relationship with stillness. In the early years of my practice, stillness was like an unknown continent on the other side of the earth; a foreign land with a mysterious terrain I barely even knew existed. Before I entered the practice, my orientation to life was often like that of a shark: swim constantly, I thought, or else you’ll die! I was often in search of a set of experiences in the outer world that would fill what the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins refers to as the “god-shaped hole” in my heart. In the end, this wasn’t a very sustainable way to live, not if what I was truly seeking was a rich, grounded and meaningful life.

The early years of my practice also featured a good amount of fumbling around as I learned to walk – or should I say crawl? – on this new terrain. I was gaining exposure to an entirely new way of being that, in its formal structure, often centered on the concept of doing nothing at all. On my first silent retreat, my restlessness felt so large that there were many periods of sitting mediation during which I thought a freight train was going to explode right through my chest! Yet something kept bringing me back, something intuitively told me this was the path I needed to follow no matter how excruciating it may feel. Because, the truth is, that even on that first retreat I was able to touch moments of stillness that revealed a whole new way of experiencing this life; a way of being that wasn’t constantly pushing me towards the next thing but was allowing me to rest in the stillness and intimacy of not needing to do anything at all.

I can clearly remember a moment a year or two after that first retreat, I was at a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction training with Jon Kabat-Zinn at the Mount Madonna Center outside of Monterey, when the full beauty of stillness truly landed for me. During this seven-day training, Jon incorporated three days of silence. During that time, I can recall sitting outside the dining hall one morning after breakfast, there was about a half hour before we were to meet again in the meditation hall, and I had absolutely nowhere to be and absolutely nothing to do. It was a clear, warm spring morning and I simply sat down in a chair in a small courtyard, overlooking the redwoods and Monterey Bay, and did something that was quite shocking: nothing. And not only did I do nothing but I enjoyed doing nothing. I wasn’t thinking and I wasn’t not thinking. I was simply sitting in a chair overlooking the lush green valley below me. I was simply feeling the warmth of the morning sun on my skin. That was it. Nothing more, nothing less.

As my practice has evolved, I’ve come to a personal understanding of stillness and it’s difference from silence. For me, silence is the absence of noise and distraction while stillness is an embodied quality of being. Silence is something I may be able to influence by going on retreat or by finding quiet spaces and places in my life in which to practice, reflect, or simply rest and relax. Silence can be beautiful and deeply nourishing but it’s not something I can always control. Stillness, on the other hand, is an inner quality that I can nurture and cultivate; it’s a refuge I can always return to because it exists within my body. In a challenging meeting at work, with intense emotions and divergent perspectives swirling all around me, silence may be something I desire but is not available in that moment. However, I can drop into the sensations in my body and seek refuge within a stillness that exists there. I can rest in the interior stillness that follows a few slow deep breaths. Stillness is a resource that, for me, exists both in and out of retreat, both on and off the meditation cushion.

Even in my formal sitting practice, I find a distinction between silence and stillness. For example, while my mind may be very active during a particular meditation – moving from the past to the future, from remembering to planning – my body is actually resting in stillness. While my mind may be far from silent and filled with “traffic,” my body is like a car pulled off to the side of the road. And, when life gets noisy and full of bumper-to-bumper intensity, it’s this car-by-the-side-of-the-road stillness that I seek out within myself. It’s a quality I can call upon no matter what’s taking place in the world around me. Over time, my body has learned to cultivate this relationship with stillness and it has been an unexpected, and deeply nourishing, aspect of my practice.

Cultivating Joy in Daily Life

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The Buddha taught that joy and happiness already reside within us. To cultivate these qualities, we just need to develop wholesome states of mind that allow us to experience our true nature. Such change, however, requires effort. It’s no different than the effort required to develop a wholesome life style aimed at keeping our bodies in shape. If we focus on eating right, exercising and doing yoga, we find that we feel healthier, our muscles can get stronger and we become more limber. The ability of bodies to get healthier and stronger is endemic to all bodies. Similarly, the ability of the mind to experience inner peace and well-being is endemic to all minds. In fact according to neuroscience, the default state of the mind is a sense of ease. When the mind is calm and clear it returns to its default state. Thus, happiness is not something you need to pursue, you just have to learn how to access it.

But accessing “it” is not so easy for most of us because we’ve developed mental habits based on a misunderstanding that our happiness and joy are dependent on external conditions – conditions that are unceasingly changing on an unreliable bias. As neuroscientist Sam Harris says, “The problem of finding happiness in the world arrives with our first breath – and our needs and desires seem to multiply by the hour.” And so, from day one, we are developing habits that seek out pleasurable experiences and avoid unpleasurable experiences in the hopes that our needs and desires will be met – that we ‘find’ happiness. What we find instead is that all of our pleasures – however refined or easily acquired- are fleeting. You can’t get enough of your favorite meal and you keep eating until the next moment you are so stuffed you feel sick, and yet by some miracle of science you still have room for desert, then seconds after the taste no longer lingers you feel regret, so you download a new app that’s guaranteed to help you lose weight, and so it goes.

The habits of ego are hard to change, but the good news is that like all habits change is possible with the right “exercise.” Bad habits can be replaced by good habits. The exercises themselves are fairly simple in concept, but not so easy to keep up. Our tendency is to get lazy and fall back into familiar and comfortable patterns. So effort is required by us to sustain our practice. In Buddhism, wise effort refers to the energy we need to abandon unwholesome states of minds (bad habits) and to cultivate wholesome states of mind (good habits). The good news is that all habits can be changed over time; it just takes practice and patience.

Simple Daily Exercises for Developing Greater Joy

Our meditation practice begins with sitting on a cushion or chair, and it is here where we first begin to cultivate joy and loving-kindness. Eventually, however, we must move our practice off the cushion and out into daily life. Learning to cultivate and experience joy in the work place, at home, in our relationships, etc. is an important part of our spiritual journey. Of course we’ll make mistakes — we’ll lose our tempers, harbor resentments, express dislikes, fail to be compassionate even when our friends are suffering — but making mistakes is just a part of the process of learning any skill.

The important point to remember is that if we are trying to cultivate joy in meditation, but always act in ways that undermines our joy in daily life, then we’re obviously going to get “stuck” in our development. Part of the trick is just remembering to practice when we’re in the world. For myself, I have found three simple practices that help me remember to stay conscious in daily life. They are calming the mind, attending to joy and evoking kindness. Below, I describe each of these practices and offer some simple exercises you can try for yourself.

Calming the mind

Calming the mind helps to bring us back to our default set point, which is a sense of ease or abiding in peace. While it is difficult to maintain this inner peace very long, given our mind’s tendency to wander, we can, with exercise, experience inner peace on a moment by moment basis. The more we practice the longer these moments become.

There are many methods for calming the mind, but three that I have found useful are “Anchoring”, “Imaging” and “Using a Mantra.” Anchoring refers to focusing your mental awareness on a single object and trying to keep it there. Generally, this is the breath, but it could also be a particular body sensation, like the feelings in your hands, or the warmth in your belly. If you use the breath, it is best to focus on where you notice it the strongest, in your nostrils, chest, abdomen, or even surrounding your whole body. The idea is that when your mind is active or agitated, triggered by the ongoing conditions of the world, you can bring it back to a state of calm by refocusing your attention on your anchor. You anchor becomes a refuge in the storm – a safe harbor when there is turbulence in the mind.

Imaging refers to using a mental image that you associate with a calm meditative state of mind. One possibility is the image of a butterfly landing on a flower. The idea is that as we calm our mind, we are able to slowly make the butterfly become still enough to stay on the flower for a short period of time.

A mantra is any sound, word or short phrase that you find attractive, easy to remember and conducive to relaxation. It can have meaning or no meaning. Some people do better with a meaningful word or phrase while others experience the meaning as a distraction and hence prefer a simple sound. One mantra I have found helpful to me is “No one to be, Nothing to do.” Or you might try the word “Calm” on the in breath and “Peace” on the out breath. Often connecting your breath with your mantra can help maintain a calm mind for longer periods of time.

Daily Exercise

Experiment with each of these methods during your day. See which one works best for inducing and maintaining a clam state of mind. You might start by committing to your “calming the mind” practice for one minute every day for the next week. Try it at work, at home, or wherever feels right. Gradually increase the time if it feels right for you. See if when you practice you notice a shift in you state of mind. When your mind is calm do you notice a greater sense of inner peace? What does this inner peace feel like in the moment? Does it change from moment to moment of stay the same?

Attending to Joy

Experiencing the inner peace that comes from a calm mind is the first step towards cultivating loving-kindness. The second step is to begin attending to the moments of joy in our lives. Every time you have a joyful experience, simply give it your full attention. It only takes one moment, this moment, to bring full attention to the joy that you are feeling at any one time – walking with a loved one, seeing a sunset, holding a baby, taking a bite of a delicious meal.

Joy is everywhere if we set our intention to look for it. It’s like setting an intention to look for blue cars. When we do, we quickly notice they are everywhere. The fact that we are not in pain, are healthy, are safe, are able to get water and food when we need it, live in a beautiful area, have the resources that allow us to practice mediation, are miracles that we often take for granted. Like blue cars, momentary joy is all around us, even in the midst of struggle, and the more we set our intention to look for it, the more were realize that many moments in our day are filled with joy. Attending to joy trains our minds to more readily access the joy that is already here.

Noticing the good in our life strengthens our inner sense of peace, which helps calm the mind. For most of us, our habitual tendency is to focus on the negative aspects of our life. What scientists call our brain’s built-in “negativity bias.” Instead of focusing on the fifty things that went right for us at the end of the day, we ruminant on the one that went wrong. By focusing on the good, however, we can overcome this habit. This makes it easier for us over time to return to our minds default state of ease and friendliness towards ourselves.

Daily Exercise

Try paying calm mindful attention to three activities a day (one minute each) that bring you a sense of ease and well-being. Perhaps when you first step into the shower, just notice without analyzing how your body feels. Take in the sensations. Or when you first start eating a meal, notice how the food feels in your mouth, notice its temperature, colors, and texture, focus on its aroma and taste. Or when you find yourself walking. Just notice how it feels to walk, what are the sensations like in your body in the present moment as you move through space. The possibilities are endless.

Evoking Kindness

The practice of loving-kindness is central to all schools of Buddhism and is key to finding and staying on the path. There is often a lot of confusion about what is meant by the concept of loving-kindness, or by terms like joy and happiness in the Buddhist sense of the words. What we are talking about is not some esoteric feeling that will carry us away on waves of bliss, only to crash down to the ground again when conditions change and we feel discouraged. Loving-kindness can best be understood as a friendly response to ourselves and the people around us. It is a feeling of good-will or a kind heart that we can always access in the present moment, if we are awake enough to look. This is the fertile ground from which happiness and joy can arise in our lives.

As our ability to access inner peace and inner joy grows, our natural tendency is to feel more compassion for ourselves and others. Actively evoking kindness to others helps us make this characteristic a habit. Wishing for others to be well, to be free from suffering, to have good health and success opens up our hearts and connects us with our own sense of well-being.

As we practice evoking kindness it may sometimes seem that we have more aversion than when we started. We may even become irritable. If we can stay mindful of the feelings that occur, we may notice a powerful purifying process taking place over time. Joseph Goldstein likens this purification to drops of water falling on a piece of red hot metal. As the drops of water hit the metal over and over again there is the sound of steam rising…”whoosh.” Gradually as the metal cools off the sound rising from the drops diminishes and the reactions of the metal to water drops cease. We all carry a vast storehouse of judgments, hurts, resentments and old reactions. As we begin evoking kindness to ourselves, our storehouse of negative emotions may percolate to the surface…”whoosh.” As our mind calms and are able to take in more of the good things in life, our reactions to evoking kindness, even to those we may not intrinsically like, loss strength and we find ourselves living with greater ease and joy.

Daily Exercise

At least once a day randomly choose two human beings and wish them happiness. Just sit quietly and visualize the first person in your mind and then evoke phrases like, “May you be happy, may you have peace, may you find joy and success in your life.” Do this for 10 – 15 seconds and then visualize the second person and repeat the exercise. Experiment with the phrases you use so that they have meaning to you. If you feel more ambitious you might try evoking kindness towards two people every hour at work. Simple take a break from your daily routine for 30 seconds, sit quietly calming your mind and randomly evoke kindness to two people. Do it as a free will giving – with no expectations for any benefits for yourself. See if over time you notice the sound of the steam abating and a greater sense of joy arising in your heart.

‘Tis The Season To Take Refuge

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Each holiday season, as winter approaches, I often find myself drawn to reflect upon what supports us in staying centered within ourselves throughout this busy season. While the world swirls in gift purchases, holiday events and social plans, I often find myself longing to move inward vs. outward, to balance the busy with the quiet, to reflect upon and recommit to the values and intentions I choose to live from, this holiday season and beyond.

If it fits, I invite you to carve out some quiet space this week to explore what helps to center, nourish and support you throughout the holiday and winter season. In Buddhist terms, “What will you take refuge in?” Or, said another way, “What activities or practices help point you back to awareness, your own inner goodness, the way things actually are, the truth of interconnection?” Practices might include certain helpful views or personal mantras that you hold in your mind. Perhaps something like, “All things are of the nature to change… this, too, will change” or meditation teacher Sylvia Boorstein’s mantra, “May I meet this moment fully, may I meet it as a friend.” Our personal mantras, like the whisper of a quiet wind on a summer’s day, can be gentle, kind reminders to the mind to lean back into our refuge again and again.

Other practices and wholesome activities might include: exercise, talking with a kind friend, practicing generosity, enjoying time in nature, meditation, yoga, experiencing your body and sound as you sip a cup of tea, being mindful of your sense experiences while doing the dishes or preparing a meal, noticing the goodness in others, taking in the sound of the birds outside your office window, connecting with a spiritual community that supports your spiritual practice, gardening, taking a few deeper breaths each time you come to a stop light, etc.

If you currently have a refuge practice, you might explore whether it still fits or what deepens your commitment to it. What do you take refuge in now? If you don’t have a current refuge practice and would like to create one, you might explore what your intention is for this season. Your intention might even become the mantra you whisper to yourself: “Peace, peace, peace”, “Let” (on the in breath) “Go” (on the out breath), “Just” (on the in breath) “Here” (on the out breath), for example. What will you take refuge in?

May all beings know peace and their own inner goodness.
May all beings be well.