The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.   We explored equanimity, one of our four essential qualities including loving kindness, compassion and altruistic joy.  We can draw on the wisdom of our grandmother’s heart to respond to our experience with these qualities.  Our commitment to the practice – to try, to fail and try again is what transforms the grain of reactivity into the pearl of equanimity.

We continued to draw from Oren Jay Sofer’s  book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love. Oren writes about equanimity as a centering stabilizing resource in our lives.  It enables us to stay right on the edge of reactivity.  We stay long enough to gain perspective and consider an appropriate response.

We drew inspiration from Roshi Joan Halifax’s essay, Equanimity: Walking the Tight Rope with a Grandmother’s Heart.  Having a grandmother’s heart enables us “to love all equally.”  Roshi is committed to this practice while knowing she will fail.  She and many others continue working at this every day.

We heard poet Alison Luterman’s poem: Because Even the Word Obstacle is an Obstacle.  This is a somewhat whimsical poem that brings the practice into every day life – the crowded lane in the public swimming pool.  We can visualize the images of those who are “in the way” as they become the way, the way of all beings.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We explored how our ability to be with what is – our patience – can help us in our struggles.  It is a slow process of cultivating loving awareness around what needs healing.  Slow time in loving awareness can help the heart to open and the mind to clear.

We continued to draw from Oren Jay Sofer’s  book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love. Oren writes about patience as a practice of being with the heart of our struggles.  We do this by recognizing reactivity or tension.  We then create the conditions that will allow us the space and time needed to move toward clarity and healing.

We heard Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem, Lumbricus patentia.  Rosemerry offers many of her poems and writings  on her web-site A hundred Falling Veils.  On a troubled day, Rosemerry wants to be like an earthworm giving itself over to the tunneling motions of creating more space.  She yearns for the constancy and slow time the heart needs to open.  Patiently being with what needs tending.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We explored ways of finding ease while caring for those in our web of being.  Our calm and caring presence can be a source of healing.  It begins by finding the still point in our thoughts words and deeds.  In stillness we can surrender our doing to the experience of being.  In the ease of being we can offer loving awareness and caring presence.

We continued to draw from Oren Jay Sofer’s  book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love. Oren writes about finding ease by appreciating the moments in which “there is nothing special you need to do, fix, accomplish, get or have.” He encourages to take time to be still even in the midst of serving others.  Our calm presence can be the beginning of healing.

We heard Julia Fehrenbacher’s poem, The Most Important Thing.  Julia’s writing reflects her intention to “. . . be as present, as here as possible . . .  This being here is a constant practice, a practice that begins, and begins again, in each and every moment. And it is everything. Everything real and true is here – never there, never yesterday, never tomorrow. This is something I forget, and sometimes remember, every single day.”

We heard Matty Weingast’s poem Grandma Sumana. This poem is from Matty’s book, The First Free Women: Poems of the Early Buddhist Nuns, a reimagining of the Therīgāthā.  This poem is about a life of “looking after others” and warming in a blanket of every loving kindness offered along the way.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We reflected on how our basic human warmth, our loving kindness can manifest in caring action.  We are only a screen away from the world’s suffering and from those who are working hard to alleviate that suffering.  Poet Amanda Gorman:

May we not only mourn, but give:
May we not only hurt, but act;

We continued to draw from Oren Jay Sofer’s  book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love. Oren writes eloquently about how loving kindness can be a force for caring action in the world.

We heard from Nicholas Kristor’s New York Times’ Opinion Essay, ‘People Are Hoping That Israel Nukes Us So We Get Rid of This Pain.’

We heard from the New York Times’ report:  Aid from Jose Andres’s World Central Kitchen Could Depart for Gaza Within Days.

We spoke about the work chef Jose Andres and his World Central Kitchen are doing in bringing meals to Gaza.   You can learn more about Jose and his team by viewing Ron Howard’s documentary, We Feed People.

Poet and author, David Whyte, speaks of love’s gravity in his book, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.

We heard Amanda Gorman’s poem, Hymns for the Hurting.  Amanda’s young voice seems to speak on behalf of people who are suffering today.  People who are caught in the trauma of living in conflict zones.  Her Hymn calls us to transform hate into love.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  In exploring renunciation we practiced with letting go and opening to.  I  appreciate Oren’s encourage to ask for help.  I am so grateful to have people I trust to help me in those moments when I’m contracting around a difficult experience.  I also ask them to help me to open my heart when I know I’ve closed it.

We continued to draw from Oren Jay Sofer’s  book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love.  Oren explores renunciation through the lenses of personal, inter-personal and collective.  He writes:  “Renunciation allows us to embrace the relative and to open beyond it.  By releasing the tendency to contract around anything, we realize a wider perspective, very much including the diversity at the core of a just society.  Renunciation creates the possibility of holding multiple even conflicting perspectives simultaneously.”

Oren quoted Roshi Bernie Glassman, founder of Zen Peacemakers.   You can see a beautiful five minute video about Bernie and his work by following this link  You can read Zen Is All of Life: Remembering Roshi Bernie Glassman, the Lion’s Roar article about Bernie’s legacy.  You can see a funny picture of him, his dog and his cigar here too.

We heard Madronna Holden’s poem, Ask the River.  I discovered the poem recently published by Kosmos Journal.  Her site is an adventurous compilation of writings on world views and values, ecofeminism, folklore and poetry.  Have a cup of tea here and be delighted!

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