The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We explored how “to attend to what is while stretching to what can be.”  How we attend is vital to responding to with compassionate action.  We can come alongside each other in courage and en-couragement. We begin with this moment: a pause to breathe and feel.

We heard from John Paul Lederach’s recent Upaya Dharma talk:  A Call to Hearten:  Let Tender Tenacity Walk with Fierce Compassion.  John Paul is professor emeritus of International Peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame. He is a pioneer in conflict transformation.  He’s been involved in conciliation work in Columbia, the Philippines, Nepal and various African countries.

We drew 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.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We practiced sitting with the truth of our experience.  We contemplated what it is to expand our view in space and time.  We can practice hope by keeping our hearts open.  We can offer ourselves compassion when they close.  We are, each of us, part of the fabric of being.  Each thread makes the whole.

We heard from Jane Hirshfield’s Emergence Magazine interview, On Time, Mystery, and Kinship.

We heard from Jane Goodall’s Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times,

We heard J. Drew Lanham’s word of hope:  To Walk in a Mad World. You can learn more about poet, professor and writer J. Drew Lantham by listening to his On Being interview with Krista Tippett:  Pathfinding Through the Improbable.  Check out his memoir The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature at the library.

Once again we drew insights from  Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet.  This beautiful book will help readers to bring compassion and mindfulness to their response to the many environmental and social crises we are witnessing today.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We reflected on the vital importance of having spiritual friends.  We reflected on the Eight Worldly Winds of change that create stress in our lives.  We contemplated the teachings on equanimity as a way of restoring balance.  We can cultivate qualities of resilience to change what we can and to accept the truth of our experience.

We heard a quote from history Adam Tooze’s address to the World Economic Forum.

We heard Kaira Jewel Lingo’s teaching on the Eight Worldly Winds from her book We Were Made for These Times.

We heard Gil Fronsdal’s teaching’s on equanimity from his Tricycle Magazine article, A Perfect Balance.

I shared Los Angeles Times journalist, John Corrigan’s, story What We Can Learn from Africa’s Likoma Island.

We heard a Rumi quote from Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee’s Emergence Magazine essay, Unborn and Undying.

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