The Yogabliss, Your Heart Life on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. We explored the practice of silence.  We began, continued and ended with relaxation.  We cultivated an open receptivity while venturing deeper into silence.  The poets and teachers use words to point toward no words.  Awareness points toward our true nature and is our true nature.

We heard Kerry O’Brien’s poem Core from her collection Illuminate.  Kerry is an Irish poet who explores literature as a form of activism.  You can see and hear Kerry read her poem Dublin at her web-site.

We drew on Chan Dharma Master Hsin Tao’s teachings on silence.  You can read more about the practice of silence he teaches in his Tricycle Magazine article, Listening to Silence.  Master Tao invites students to: “Hear the silence in the mountains and rivers, the great wide earth, the sky. Eventually, the whole universe will fall into deep silence.”

We heard Still the Body by Sufi poet Kabir. The poem is from Beloved May I Enter: Kabir Dohas and Other Poems translated by Sushil Rao.  I love this poem because of the influence it has had on my favorite poet, Jane Hirshfield.  You can hear how the 15th century Sufi poet is alive in her poem:  Standing Deer.

We drew from the ninth chapter of Kathleen Dowling Singh’s book, The Grace in Aging: Awaken As You Grow Older. In this section, Silence: Liberation from Illusions, Kathleen explores the practice of inner and outer silence. She encourages students to “become silence by being silence [as one] becomes love by being love.”

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The Yogabliss, Your Heart Life on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  We explored the experience of embodiment sensing inside and outside our bodies.  We explored the experience of inter-being:  how we are born and sustained in mutual relationship with others.  We cultivated appreciation and love: for Earth, her human and more than human inhabitants and the ordinary miracles of being alive.

We heard one of Erin Geesaman Rabke’s blessings from her Embodied Beatitudes.  A more complete list from her “work-in-progress” is like a prayer of appreciation for our amazing bodies.

We heard Daniel Ladinsky’s translation of Hafiz’ poem Today from The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master.  You can find more of his irreverent and whimsical writings, including Buddha After Hours in a Bar, at his blog.

We drew extensively from Orrin Williams’ Humans and Nature essay, Skinfolk, Kinfolk, and the Kingship of Oneness. Orrin is a community advocate and educator.  His work focuses on making urban space more productive and more efficient, particularly in terms of feeding people and generating energy.  His essay embraces  a vision of kinship consciousness.

We drew inspiration from Toni Spencer’s beautiful poem Reciprocal Rhythm.  Toni is a Deep Adaptation Advocate, poet, mentor and teacher.  She “seeks to enable a richer engagement with the ecological, cultural and social issues of our times.”  You can learn more about Toni’s work and her seven week course, Living Deep Adaptation at her web-site.

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The Yogabliss, Your Heart Life on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  Today’s class affirms the basic innate goodness we share.  We practiced appreciation as a way of attuning to this goodness within ourselves and each other.

We heard from Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche’s teachings on the five appreciations.  We drew from his Tricycle Magazine article, The Antidote to Self-Criticism.  Rinpoche encourages us to practice appreciation for our innate goodness or what many call our true nature.  We can recognize it within ourselves and in each other.

We heard Matty Weingast’s poem Mitta – Friend. 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 inspired by the original writing of poet, Mitta.  It is about finding friendship and belonging on the spiritual path.

We heard from Jeanne Corrigal’s Tricycle Magazine series, Closer Than We Think:  Gentle Reflections on Death.  In this section of the series Jeanne shares practices to support others in the transition of death.

One practice is helping others to remember their own goodness.

We ended with Alberto Rios’ poem We Are of a Tribe.  The poem celebrates the common home we can find and share in the sky.  It affirms the freedom and joy we can find in leaping the world’s ties.

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The Yogabliss, Your Heart Life on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. We explored caring presence as an inner quality and a unitive force we share.  Caring presence gives rise to responsiveness:  our acts of caring.  Awareness enables these life experiences which, through practice, can be the refuge we find on our life’s journey.

We heard from Jeanne Corrigal’s Tricycle Magazine series, Closer Than We Think:  Gentle Reflections on Death. Jeanne is the guiding teacher for the Saskatoon Insight Meditation Community.  In her four part video series she shares practices she has found helpful in cultivating loving presence and responsiveness. Jeanne cultivates wholesome qualities as part of her aspiration that at the time of death she “can meet whatever’s here to the best of [her] ability with an open, kind heart.”

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. You can find Matty’s wonderful article about the writings along with queries for contemplation at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies web-site.

We ended with Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem December 31.  This poem is from Rosemerry’s A Hundred Falling Veils site which offers a poem a day.  She also co-hosts Emerging Form podcast on creative process, Secret Agents of Change (a surreptitious kindness cabal) and Soul Writers Circle.

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The Yogabliss, Your Heart Life on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  We explored the different states of being that arise in mindfulness practice.  Navigating with intention, enlivened by attention helps to create the condition in which ease, joy and curiosity arise.

Sharing the journey has kept my heart open along the way.

We heard from Brother David Steindl-Rast’s essay, On Gratefulness and the Body from “Encounter with God through the Senses.”  In this essay Brother David writes about the body’s language of the senses. He has adopted gratefulness as a method for cultivating mindfulness.

We heard Susan Aposhyan’s views on meditation. They are outlined in her Kosmos Journal essay, Our Animal Bodies and the Unitive State:
Open Heart/Body Awake. Susan urges us to to practice mindfulness of the body to open our hearts and love!

We heard Mary Oliver’s short poem about joy and grief.  She simply affirms how we hold them both.

We drew from the fifth chapter of Kathleen Dowling Singh’s book, The Grace in Aging: Awaken As You Grow Older. In this section, Opening the Precious Package, Kathleen reminds us that we all have awareness and the potential for awakening. She teaches that devoted practice supported by intention, sustained by attention create the conditions for the experiences of contented ease, joy and curiosity.

We heard Jane Hirshfield’s poem Standing Deer. This poem speaks to the ebb and flow of life.  How we are filled and emptied with experience and the passing of time.  What we have left – if we are lucky – is our tender presence.

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The Yogabliss, Your Heart Life on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. We practiced concentration by focusing awareness on breathing and sensation.  We explored widening awareness to include our inter-being with all of life.  We practiced experiencing the self as an expression of life.  This broader view helped to “lay down the self” and to surrender our struggles with impermanence and change.

These steps lead us through an opening to compassion and love.

We heard poet Jan Richardson’s invitation to “let there be an opening.” Jan is a poet, writer and artist.  Her book, Sparrow:  A Book of Life and Death and Life is a moving memoir of experience of loss, grief and hope after the sudden death of her husband.  I think her spirit is reflected in this writing: “A blessing meets us in the place of our deepest loss. In that place, it gives us a glimpse of wholeness and claims that wholeness here and now.”  You can find her books and blog writings at her web-site.

We heard an excerpt from Sophie Strand’s 2022 Feldenkrais Summit Keynote Address.  Sophie writes at the “. . . intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. But it would probably be more authentic to call her a neo-troubadour animist with a propensity to spin yarns that inevitably turn into love stories. Give her a salamander and a stone and she’ll write you a love story.”  You can find many intriguing and provocative essays at her Substack site.

We drew inspiration from poet and writer Mark Doty.  His book, What Is the Grass:  Walt Whitman in My Life, can be found at the public library.  Mark’s writing is yet another invitation to open to the experience of inter-being and love.

We drew from the fourth chapter of Kathleen Dowling Singh’s book, The Grace in Aging: Awaken As You Grow Older. In this section Kathleen outlines a map to awakening.  The journey traverses Chaos, Surrender and Transformation.  We experience Chaos when facing the “predictable sufferings” in life.  Her suggestion is “to lay down the self” again and again through spiritual practice.   She describes this as a process of surrender which goes beyond acceptance or resignation.

We closed with a few short lines from Rainier Maria Rilke’s Collected Writings.

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The Yogabliss, Your Heart Life on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. We imagined drawing in the Earth’s breath while visualizing earthworms and fungi creating fertile soil.  We reflected on what we might compost within our own lives. Path and practice have transformative potential to support us in growing compassion for ourselves and the world.

Our meditation was inspired by naturalist, teacher and writer Yuvan Aves.  Yuvan is author of A Naturalist’s Journal.  He is based in Chennai where he is an environmental activist.  He is a great story teller. He developed a “practice of seeking wisdom across species during inwardly stormy times.”  He describes asking the millipede “Can you help me please?”  Then holding his “mind as a receptacle and pay[ing] full attention to the being, its energy, its living . . . “You can listen to a fascinating interview with him about his work at Agam the Climate Podcast.

We heard Rebecca Villarreal’s beautiful poem, Earthworm Magic. Rebecca is a writer and counselor.  She refers to herself as a “mystic athlete.”  Her poem beautifully evokes the “archetype of the earthworm.”

We drew insights about aging and practice from the third chapter of Kathleen Dowling Singh’s wonderful book, The Grace in Aging: Awaken As You Grow Older.

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The Yogabliss, Your Heart Life on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  We explored growing awareness from the experience of embodiment to communion with all beings.  It is both a lifetime journey and a leap of consciousness.  Love brings so much possibility.

We with one of Erin Geesaman Rabke’s blessings from her Embodied Beatitudes.  A more complete list from her “work-in-progress” is like a prayer of appreciation for our amazing bodies.

We heard Julia Fehrenbacher’s poem, The Cure for It All.  Julia is a poet, life coach, teacher and painter.  You can find more of her beautiful poems at her web-site. The poem is about accepting life – including yourself – with forgiveness and love.

We drew from the fifth chapter of Kathleen Dowling Singh’s book, The Grace in Aging: Awaken As You Grow Older. In this section, Opening to Our Own Mortality:  A Meditation on Death, Kathleen describes the process of gradually letting go.  As we let go we also explore the spaciousness of freedom.  These are both practices of preparing for death and living life more fully.

We heard, The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee, a poem written by Pulitzer prize winning writer N. Scott Momaday.  In 2007, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. His work centers around the oral tradition of his Kiowa roots and the natural world.  You can find a documentary about this life at Return to Rainy Mountain.  The poem we heard today speaks to the communion we hold with all beings.

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The Yogabliss on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We continued exploring our place on the wheel of life.
We examined the habitual ways we make meaning around the self.  Looking at ourselves as expressions of Nature can be a powerful way to find freedom and experience compassion.

We heard a quote from Native American native poet, Linda Hogan’s book, Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World.  Linda’s writing reminds us that we are born from the love of thousands.

Much of the practice centered around insights about aging drawn from the second chapter of Kathleen Dowling Singh’s wonderful book, The Grace in Aging: Awaken As You Grow Older.  Kathleen draws from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition which encourages us to view our experiences of body, heart and mind as organic life processes.  These processes arise out of causes and conditions that will always change.  We can lessen life’s suffering by cultivating a broader, more spacious awareness of our experiences.

We heard from “Ninja” poet and writing guide Maya Stein.  Maya is the author of many books, the latest is her edited collection Grief Becomes You. Her writing inspires us to loosen our grip on who we think we are.  She encourages readers to open their hearts and minds.

We ended with William Stafford’s poem, Being a Person.  The poem is drawn from his 2010 collection, Even in Quiet Places:  Poems.  The poet invites us to stand, listen and breathe.

Our dream of life may be much vaster than we imagine.

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The Yogabliss on-line Moving into Meditation classe met this morning.  Today we explored how mindfulness practice, especially mindfulness of the body, can help us to age with loving awareness and compassion. Every day we are invited: Awaken.  Love what is here.  No matter where we are on life’s journey the invitation is open.  The invitation to live in truth: to live for what really matters every moment we have left.  

Much of the practice centered around insights about aging drawn from Kathleen Dowling Singh’s wonderful book, The Grace in Aging: Awaken As You Grow Older.  Kathleen, a years long hospice worker, spiritual advisor and writer, died in October 2017.  Her children said simply that their mother would want us all to know that “she was an ordinary person dying an ordinary death.”  Her book is a treasure of practical insights and steps “to allow awakening to unfold – transforming predictable sufferings of aging into profound opportunities for growth in clarity, love, compassion and peace.”  I am aging as many of my dear ones.  I am grateful for this resource and hope to draw from in it in the months and years to come.

We heard Zen poet David Budbill’s poems about the importance and appreciating the ordinary beauty in our lives.  David’s poems are whimsical and wry sketches of our earthly existence.

We heard insights about life’s importance from Pema Chodron.   Ani Pema teaches meditation and Buddhist philosophy as it applies to everyday life.  You can find many of her teachings in various forms at her web-site

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.

We ended with a poem from Rebecca del Rio’s collection, Prescription for the Disillusioned.

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