Our Moving into Meditation class focused on the ever changing nature of life. In our mindfulness practice we break society’s spell of feeling we are being carried away. We experience a wholeness upon savoring each moment with full attention. We drew inspiration from meditation teacher and writer, Toni Bernhard‘s book: How to Wake Up: A Buddhist Inspired Guide to Navigating Joy and Sorrow. Toni contends that by embracing life – as it is – we have the potential to realize well-being. In her article, Meditation in Motion, meditation and yoga instructor Jill Satterfield encourages us to explore full awareness of our bodily experience to wake up and be with what is. Finally, Jane Hirshfield‘s exquisite poetry takes us deeper into our creatureliness.
Monthly Archives: January 2019
Mystery & Transformation in Meditation
Our Moving into Meditation class completed our study of Frank Ostaseski’s wonderful book the Five Invitations. In today’s class the 5th invitation to cultivate “don’t know mind” became an exploration of mystery and transformation.
In realizing our selves as mystery we open the door to awe and wonder. We truly live with uncertainty and touch the elemental feeling of fear. Voices of poets, naturalists and writers joined with Frank in encouraging us to be embrace and engage change and impermanence.
When Death Comes
Mary Oliver – earth inhabitant, particular and real, ever curious, left so quietly . . .
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
~~~~~~~ Mary Oliver
Perfect Trust
The Great Way runs
to left, to right,
the ten thousand things
depending on it,
living on it,
accepted by it.
Doing its work,
it goes unnamed.
Clothing and feeding
the ten thousand things,
it lays no claim on them
and asks nothing of them.
Call it a small matter.
The ten thousand things
return to it,
though it lays no claim on them.
Call it great.
So the wise soul
without great doings.
achieves greatness.
Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching
translated by Ursula K. Le Guin
Witnessing the Sacred
Our Moving into Meditation class drew inspiration from the end of Frank Ostaseski’s wonderful book the Five Invitations. In today’s class we explored the 5th invitation to cultivate “don’t know mind.” Cultivating this mind state challenges us to traverse the ever-changing ground of uncertainty. It awakens us to what we hold most dear, to what is sacred. We listened to the voices of naturalists and writers Terry Tempest Williams, Rachel Carson and Gary Snyder describe how they encounter the sacred.
Intimacy in Meditation
Our Moving into Meditation class is nearing the end of Frank Ostaseski’s wonderful book the Five Invitations. The book offers some fundamental principles for living a conscious life and for serving others who are nearing life’s end. In today’s class we explored the 5th invitation to cultivate “don’t know mind.” Two essential human experiences – intimacy and vulnerability – characterize this expression of mind. I believe our willingness to be so fully human is also an expression of love. Continue reading
Remembering in Meditation
Our Moving into Meditation class continues to draw inspiration from Frank Ostaseski’s wonderful book about living with the awareness that we’re going to die. His book distills what he’s learned into Five Invitations we can answer in living a conscious life. In today’s class we explored the workings of memory. Our fallible memories inform our life stories. They can keep us rooted in the past while strongly defining our present. Frank suggests that bringing “don’t know mind” to our memories and stories can be profoundly healing. Continue reading