The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.   We reflected on the nature of stories that lead to change.  We explored how mindfulness can help us to recognize the heart-stories that we are shaped by and those that we bring to life through our compassionate choices.

We heard the story of Bolivian human rights defender, Amparo Carvajal.  This week Amparo was honored with the U.S. State Department’s annual Human Rights Defenders Award.  At 85 years old, she is still creating the stories that the world needs to hear.  You can learn more about her and the other honorees by viewing the Human Rights Award Ceremony.  It is a joy to learn about the dedicated work that happens throughout the world.  (I wanted to bring this forward as it wasn’t mentioned in the New York Times.)

We heard journalist and writer Rebecca Solnit’s comments about the kind of stories that lead to change.  Her comments were drawn from What If We’re Telling the Wrong Stories About the Climate Crisis.

We heard activist and theologian, Dr. Vincent Harding’s encouragement to create the “just country” we want to live in.  You can read more at Dr. Vincent Harding’s Call to Make America America.

We heard David Whyte’s poem, In the Beginning.  You can hear more of David’s mindful insights in his interview with On Being’s Krista Tippett, Seeking Language Large Enough.

Continue reading →

The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We reflected on what it means to have “wise hope” in these challenging times of global strife and environmental decline.  We practiced being with what is true.  We considered our willingness to bring caring actions to the world despite the uncertainty of success.  Each of us can bring our light to this “beautiful broken world.”

We heard readings from Valerie Brown’s book Hope Leans Forward:  Braving Your Way Toward Simplicity, Awakening and Peace.  Valerie is a practitioner and teacher in the lineage of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.  Valerie’s teachings and writings encourage students to make life affirming choices in conditions of challenge and uncertainty.  These choices help us to align our actions with the values that enliven meaning and purpose.  Today we touched on what it is to have “wise hope” for the future of our world.

We heard a few lines of affirmation from Andjelka Jankovic Andjelka  is a seeker and writer of stories, travel guides and life perspectives.  She is inspired by living questions like:  What does it mean to flourish?

We heard David Wagoner’s poem, Lost.  David was a poet of the Pacific Northwest who died in 2021 at the age of 95.  He was a conservationist and a hiker.  He experienced awe in our Northwest lands and also lamented humanity’s treatment of nature. David taught at the University of Washington for many years.  He once said: “Those who do without poetry should imagine their lives without music — they are missing that much by missing poetry.”

Continue reading →

The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We reflected on our inter-dependence and how the choices we make locally affect others globally.  We attuned to our compassionate and wise “grandmother’s heart.”  May this wisdom enable us to live our lives with conscientiousness and care.

We heard the story of the Quechua people as told in the New York Times article, Where Rivers Run Red.  Their story is one of adaptation, collaboration and mutual support.  It is also story of an indigenous people living as they close to the land as they have for centuries.  Their land and life ways are at risk as glaciers continue to melt and their water is poisoned.  They have little influence over the global choices that are melting the glacial source of living water.  This insight might inspire us to consider how we consume water and other resources.  Perhaps we can live more simply so others may simply live.

We read from the Roshi Joan Halifax essay, Grandmother’s Heart.  She observes that “life is in need of balance and life is in the balance.” Roshi urges us “to find that immoveable center, that plumb line that aims toward gravity, the wise elder within us. Let’s find that strong back that supports our soft front, and let’s find or call out our grandmother’s heart.”

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We reflected on the vital importance of having spiritual friends.  Good spiritual friends support us in living with authenticity and compassion.  Spiritual leader, teacher and author, Thich Nhat Hanh, encourages us to draw on our inner meditator, artist and warrior while serving in the world.  He urges us to cultivate relaxation and joy so “our actions become a true expression of our love, care and awakening.  It’s not that we have to take action.  If we’re awakened, action will naturally take us.”

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.

We heard Joseph Rubano’s beautiful poem, Friend by Friend.  Joseph is a counselor who also offers True Heart/True Mind Enlightenment Intensive Retreats at the beautiful Manzanita Village Retreat Center in Warner Springs California.

Continue reading →

The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We drew on the body and the breath to bring us into the Here and Now.  We affirmed our deep caring for each other.  We explored loving awareness as a way of creating the space in which loving presence and compassion arise.

We heard Rosemerry Wahtola’s poem,  Big Lesson.  This poem is an affirmation of our natural inclination to care for each other.

We heard Julia Fehrenbacher’s poem The Cure for It All.  This poem is an invitation slow down, to be accepting and gentle with ourselves, to call on the breath to find equanimity.

We ended with 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 about how we support one another as spiritual friends on the Path.

Continue reading →

The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We explored the Earth’s inspiration for bringing mindfulness practice into daily life. We looked deeply to find aspirations that nourish our well being and inspire compassionate action.  Like sunlight shining through a forest, our loving awareness can shine on all beings.

We can choose love again and again.  Love can help us realize our inter-being and live with open hearts.

Our guided meditation was inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet.  This beautiful book will help readers to bring mindfulness to our climate crisis.  Thich Nhat Hanh  and his students teach us how to face challenging feelings and create a sense of freedom and possibility. It aims to help us to engage in compassionate action.

We heard Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem, As You Have Done for Me. Since 2006, she’s maintained a poem-a-day practice. Since 2011, she’s posted those poems for all to enjoy.  You can enjoy her lively interview with Tara Brach: The Courage to Say Yes.

Continue reading →

The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We contemplated the need to look deeply at our stories and conditioning.  We can open our hearts and minds to the inspiration of Earth’s powers of healing and renewal.  We can engage our imagination and compassionate action to help restore Earth and her human and more than human inhabitants.

We heard a quote from Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke translated by Robert Bly.  You can read the complete poem at the Mindfulness Association website.

We heard from social activist and writer Rebecca Solnit’s Tricycle Magazine interview:  It is called  Life As It Is:  From Despair to Possibility.  We also drew from her book, Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility.

I referenced Roshi Joan Halifax’s comments about imagination in the program she and Tara Brach offered:  The Sacred Work of Bridging Divides.

Our guided meditation was inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet.

We heard poet Jan Richardson’s invitation to “let there be an opening.” Jan is a poet, writer and artist.

Continue reading →