The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We explored how mindfulness can help us to build beloved community.  We all need connection to flourish.  We can expand our circles of relationships by examining the obstacles to connection.  We can become aware of the implicit bias that we all learn as developing humans.  Awareness is the first step in relearning more life-affirming habits of connection.

In a lively and moving conversation with On Being’s Krista Tippett ,we heard Professor john a. powell’s observations about how we approach belonging.  In exploring race he focuses on our shared human needs.  He offers many examples of how we can learn to resolve many of our race related social problems.  He shares personal memories of learning what is most important in relationship from his father’s example.  He is professor of Law, African American, and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Racing to Justice: Transforming our Concepts of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society.

We heard about mindfulness approaches to building beloved community from the Boundless Love Project.  You can access many resources including their tenets of building beloved community.

We heard Anu Gupta’s approach to mindfully “breaking bias,” a habit that we learn and can unlearn.  You can watch Anu’s TEDtalk, What We Can Save by Breaking Unconscious Bias.

We heard part of poet and author Mark Nepo’s inspirational essay, More Together Than Alone.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  Today we explored ourselves as nature.  We reflected on the intimate relationships between breath, body and the natural world around us.  We sustain each other.  We breathe and live.  We drink in the world through magical senses. We sleep and dream.

Our love for Earth inspires us to bring our caring to her preservation. In his talk, A Primordial Covenant of Relationship, Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee writes:

At the heart of that ancient primordial relationship that existed, there was love. Not the Hallmark variety of love, not even the human variety of love, but a much vaster, more ancient, and simpler form of love. A covenant of love between the human and the living Earth.

We heard Robinson Jeffers invitation to “uncenter our minds from ourselves.”  In his poem Carmel Point he juxtaposes Earth time with modern man’s time and its devastating effects on Earth.

We were inspired by Ben Bushill’s beautiful prayer that we “may we save ourselves and our world – love by love.”  Ben is a poet and spoken word performer.  You can find more of his words, films and music at BenBushill.com.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  On this Mother’s Day we explored widening our kinship with others.  We contemplated the many who have nurtured and loved us.  We imagined the many forms of ancestral inheritance we carry in our lives today.  We also contemplated what we would be offering others as ancestors-to-be.

We drew inspiration from Susan Moon’s essay Grandmother Mind.  Susan offers a creative and eloquent exploration of the many meanings of honoring our mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers.  She poses questions about who we consider to be our kin.  Finally she shares her own experience of grandmothering under the challenging conditions of pandemic imposed isolation. Susan is an accomplished writer, editor and teacher in the Soto Zen tradition.  Her compassion and humor shine in her writings.

We heard Joy Harjo’s beautiful poem Remember.  Her lyrical lines ask us to remember our human and more than human ancestors.  The repeating evocation to re-member seems to affirm our wholeness and inter-being.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  Today we explored wholeness by listening to the inner voices that are difficult to hear.  These voices want to be heard.  They often express painful emotions and reflect underlying beliefs that cause us suffering. We created a “ministry of presence” capable of listening.  The ministry is made up of healing councils such as: “a council of forgiveness, compassion and openness.”  We then cultivated loving presence and engaged our inner council to feel, listen and care.

We drew inspiration from mediation teacher and author Sharon Salzberg’s new book, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom. In Real Live, Sharon describes how we can engage a ministry of presence and form inner councils of support. It is part of her intention to help reader’s live more expansively from the truth of their being.  Mindfulness, presence can help us to  lead authentic lives.  We can extend our ability to accept and care for others to the degree we can do this for ourselves.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  We explored the experience of attunement.  We reflected on the widespread loneliness that afflicts so many people.  People are born in belonging.  We need belonging to flourish throughout life.  We visualized someone who loved us without judgment through good times and bad.  We rekindled the sensations and emotions enriching the memories of love. Like our meditation practice, these experiences and memories can be a resource for us in sustaining belonging in our lives.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  This week we explored the qualities of empathy and compassion. We practiced a compassion meditation in which we directed caring and compassionate phrases to someone who is suffering.  The practice can help us turn toward suffering while offering our loving presence.  In the expansive presence of loving awareness we gain perspective as to what might serve to alleviate suffering.

We drew inspiration from mediation teacher and author Sharon Salzberg’s new book, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom. In Real Life, Sharon encourages readers to live more expansively.   When we live expansively, we have room to experience both positive and negative emotions and to view them with openness and curiosity rather than restriction and resistance. When we are willing to experience emotion we develop our capacity to extend compassion to ourselves and others.

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The Yogabliss on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning. We explored walking the path of the Middle Way.  This is the practice of moderation which we develop by working with our aversion and craving. With relaxed awareness we can observe and feel the underlying energy of what compels us to lose our balance.   We bring compassionate awareness to our inner struggles.  Little by little we deepen our capacity to be present with difficulties.  We become more able to offer a compassionate response to our circumstances.

We drew inspiration from our recently named 24th U.S. Poet Laureate, Ada Limon.  You can hear her discuss her wonderful work in her On Being interview with Krista Tippett:  To Be Made Whole.

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The Yogabliss on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  We explored the cultivation of appreciation and joy.

We drew on the teachings of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.  This great teacher valued community most highly.  We explored the Plum Village Begin Anew community supporting practices.

We heard Li-Young Lee’s beautiful poem of appreciation and savoring:  From Blossoms.

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The Yogabliss on-line Moving into Meditation classes met this morning.  We explored how we sometimes abandon parts of ourselves as undesirable.  We can have faith in the boundlessness of our natural presence.  It’s a space that can hold all parts of ourselves. We can quiet and calm the mind and hear from those parts of ourselves that have been buried or lost.  Faith and mindfulness can helps us realize our wholeness.

We drew inspiration from draw inspiration from The Five Invitations, Frank Ostaseski’s wonderful book about living a conscious, loving life knowing that one day we will die.  Frank is the cofounder of the Zen Hospice Project and Metta Institute.

We heard  poet Jane Hirshfield’s words about whole-hearted concentration.

We drew inspiration from meditation instructor Jack Kornfield’s book, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life.

We drew on meditation instructor Tara Brach’s book, Radical Compassion.  This book offers guidance for working with strong emotions.

We heard Janet Gallagher Nestor’s poem, Belief.

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