We had our Sunday Introduction to Meditation Class at Yoga Bliss.   We practiced a guided  meditation called Being on Your Own Side.  Neuropsychologist, author and instructor, Rick Hanson, uses this practice to  help us explore how caring for ourselves can enhance our mind and brain health.

In Rick’s book, The Buddha’s Brain: the Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom, he describes how we can use our minds to change our brains and how positive changes in our neural circuitry, in turn, help us cultivate healthier mental states.  It starts with befriending ourselves.  It sounds simple – just like the meditation instruction to follow the breath.  Yet when it comes to practice we discover how difficult this can be – especially when we doubt the value of what we’re doing.

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We had our tenth Introduction to Meditation Class at Yoga Bliss.   We practiced a guided  meditation inquiry, Who Am I?   Instructor and author, Tara Brach, uses this practice to  help us see beyond our stories of self and enter the revealing the mystery of our true nature.

In Tara’s book, True Refuge,  she encourages readers to use the inquiry both formally, in meditation, and informally, in every day life, by taking a few moments to pause, look into our awareness  and question what is true.  Then we let it be.

Over time our sense of being a “separate self” becomes apparent and we can also experience the boundless nature of pure awareness.

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We had our ninth Introduction to Meditation Class at Yoga Bliss.   We practiced a guided  meditation, Exploring Inner Space, that instructor and author, Tara Brach, uses to touch pure awareness – the mystery of our true nature.

In Tara’s book, True Refuge, she encourages us to engage in a sincere inquiry into what she calls:  “the refuge of pure awareness.”

In pure awareness we are no longer creating, defending or fortifying a sense of separate “self.”  We’re free from our daily preoccupations and habits of mind, free from grasping or pushing experience away.

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We had our eighth Introduction to Meditation Class at Yoga Bliss.    We explored a guided practice meditation instructor and author, Tara Brach, says can help us cultivate compassion:  Seeing Past the Mask.

In Tara’s book, True Refuge, she describes the way we develop in relationship to others – from
our early months in the womb and then with our mothers and close caregivers.  We learn the “dance of attunement.”

Our bodies are designed to feel a connection with each other.  We have specialized “mirror neurons” that attune us to another person’s state – to sense their emotions, even the intentions underlying their movements.   She calls the mirror neurons and the other structures in the prefrontal cortex our “compassion circuitry.”

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“Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.  Live in silence.  Flow down and down in always widening rings of being.”  Rumi

We had our seventh Introduction to Meditation Class at Yoga Bliss.  We discussed how most of us fall into habits of worry or repetitive thoughts.

Anxiety, stress or unpleasant surprises unleash spirals of planning and problem solving.  Uncomfortable interactions replay with shades of anger, regret or shame.   Meditation instructor and author, Tara Brach, says we reflexively lapse into these patterns as a way of trying to control life.  Tara says:

the common denominator is that whenever we’re lost in thought, we’re disconnected from our body and our senses. We’re cut off from the perceptiveness and receptivity that underlie our natural intelligence and kindness.

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