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.
Guided Reflection
Welcome. Last week we contemplated the need to look deeply at our stories and conditioning. We considered how engaging our imagination and compassionate action can help to heal Earth and her human and more than human inhabitants. This week I’ve been studying Thich Nhat Hanh’s beautiful book, Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet. This was one of Thay’s last books that his students put together at his request. The book opens with a beautiful reminder that:
The beauty of the Earth is a bell of mindfulness.
Is there a place of beauty that is special in your life? You might take a moment to imagine it now. You can close your eyes, feel your breathing and let it take shape in your mind. Feel your breathing and notice how it feels to be present with this beautiful place.
As many of you may know Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings invite us to bring mindfulness continuously into our daily lives. When we cultivate this quality of presence we are also practicing looking deeply. Looking deeply enables us to realize our beautiful bodies and our beautiful planet as wonders.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem, As You Have Done for Me, affirms this appreciation:
If you were here
I would put my hand
on your heart
and hold it there
until our breaths
became a single tide,
hold it there until
I could feel the moment
when you remember
your infinite value.
It’s so easy to forget
we are treasure.
So easy to lose track
of our own immeasurable worth.
The chest rusts shut.
We think we are empty.
Amazing how easily
we are fooled into believing
we’re paupers.
Sometimes it takes another
to remind us
we have always been
not only the treasure
but also the key.
Though the hinges
are a metaphor,
the treasure is not.
We were made to open,
to share our priceless gift,
to press our hands
to each other’s hearts
until we all remember.
When we gather together we touch each other’s hearts. We recognize that each of us is a treasure. We support one another in remembering our interbeing and that “we were made to open, to share our priceless gift.” In Thay’s last book he suggests that:
We need to learn how to take refuge in Mother Earth—it is the best way to heal and to nourish ourselves. We can do it if we know how to allow the Earth to be, within us and around us—just being aware that we are the Earth.
I invite you to take a few deep breaths. Let the in-coming breath nourish you. Let the out-going breath release you into Earth’s support. At this time of year, things are falling away, coming to their natural conclusion, trees are baring their empty branches. We can attune to the powers of nature as they are making themselves known. We can witness their letting go, their letting be. They seem to be calling us into a deeper intimacy with the Earth within us and around us. Earth’s beauty is a mindfulness bell.
Here in our circle of loving awareness we might sense the trees wave in our bodies, the flowers bloom in our souls. We might hear the bird, wind and rock songs becoming our songs. Our songs of love. We are inspired as we breathe – respiratio manifesting spiritus. This is a good time to feel breathing and listen for our songs of love. What inspires you?
What deep aspiration might nourish you? What aspiration might help you connect with humans and more than humans? This may be a living question – one that you explore with compassionate presence. One that invites appreciation, attunement and respect. We can think of this as a way of finding the song of life within us. A song we can sing to enliven our connection with all beings.
Let’s cultivate a nourishing aspiration in mindfulness practice. This is a beautiful time of being. Being is the ground of our actions and also our healing. I invite you to find a posture so you can feel Earth’s body. Sense gravity hugging your body. You might sense it on the edges of your skin. You might feel it’s energy touching every cell. Sense gravity pulling your body toward Earth. Rest in the experience of being grounded.
Become aware of yourself, here and now. Become aware of your body in all its dimensions and sensations. Allow your awareness to move from sensations of breathing to roaming through your body. Find places to relax. Open to an aspiration for being here now, present in meditation. You might attune to an aspiration that enlivens you. It could be one that inspires you with a kind, calm presence, like sunlight on a forest. It could be an appreciative awareness. A forgiving awareness. A caring, kind or loving awareness.
As you’re ready, I invite you to imagine the way sunlight bathes a forest. Imagine how its slow gentle light awakens nearly imperceptible changes. It may be growth in some areas or a letting go in others – a returning to Earth. Our aspiration to cultivate loving awareness and mindfulness comes to life in this same, gentle, sensitive way. We can take in the goodness of our aspiration in a way that is free. In a way that is appreciative and kind. We can deeply attune to ourselves with an awareness like sunlight bathing a forest.
Can there be an aspiration to be present with freedom? A freedom that gives whatever we’re aware of its freedom. Freedom from our clinging, aversions, judgments. Freedom that softens the hard edges of separation. bell hooks reminds us: The moment we choose to love we move towards freedom. May we let our deepest aspiration help us to be present, compassionate, loving and kind. Each of us – a treasure and also a key.