The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We cultivated wonder and gratefulness.  We practiced mindfulness and explored Anu Gupta’s encouragement to be mindful of everyday wonder.  We practiced mindfulness and appreciation for the body.  We reflected on the human and more-than-human ancestors that create the causes and conditions that made our lives possible.

We drew inspiration from poet and author Mark Nepo’s beautiful essay, The One Life We Are Given.  He experiences finding heart wisdom while caring  for his dying father. This wisdom arises when we recognize the preciousness and wonder of life.  He urges readers to cultivate wonder by affirming the “unseeable thread” that holds all life together. 

Guided Reflection

Over the past five weeks we’ve explored unlearning old habits of stereotyping and to establishing life-affirming prosocial habits.  We started with mindfulness. Mindfulness allows us to acknowledge our thoughts and to notice stereotypes as they arise.  

We then moved to replacing stereotypes by imagining a positive version of someone who is endowed with aspirations, dreams and accomplishments. 

In our third class we explored individuation.  That is feeling what it is like to be subject to bias – someone’s mistaken beliefs about who we are.  And then imagining the counter experience of being recognized for who we really are. 

In our fourth class we used our imagination as an ally to help look beneath the surface of others.  We cultivated empathy and offered loving kindness to them and to ourselves.

Last week we explored perspective taking as a way of practicing radical compassion.  Our intention was to  be truly present with a marginalized person, a person subject to stereotyping. Imagining the rich complexity of their lives helps us to connect with our shared humanity.  

These practices are intended to help us integrate our bodies, hearts and minds.  It isn’t always easy to be with the emotions that accompany our experience of bias. Attending to these three dimensions of being during practice can create conditions for healing and insight.   

Today we’ll practice gratitude as a way of affirming our beloved community. Last week I read  Mark Nepo’s beautiful essay, The One Life We Are Given, in which he describes caring for his dying father.  It’s about finding our heart’s wisdom.  It’s about wonder. I think some of his words speak to the importance of the kinship that we share:

Wonder is the rush of life saturating us with its aliveness, the way sudden rain makes us smile, the way sudden wind opens our face. And while wonder can surprise us, our daily work is to cultivate wonder in ourselves and in each other. Yet we only have a few seconds to love the wonder of those before us. . .  Seconds to warm their life-force into the air where it will reveal the kinship of things. Seconds to let the timeless resource of aliveness come into our knowing, so it can soften our fears . . . 

If . . . . we assert our own authority over the authority of life, wonder will go into hiding like a shy animal. The authority of being that connects us to all life needs to be affirmed, not asserted. Only safety, honesty, and welcome – the servants of encouragement – can create an opening for wonder.

When we experience wonder we open to gratitude.  I invite you to adjust your posture so you can be relaxed and alert.   Establish a sense of presence by noticing the state of your body and mind.  You might sense the kind energy of a smile and let that sense fill your body.  Deepen the sense of receptivity with kind presence.  Bring a relaxed and focused attention to the rhythm of the breath or a neutral area of the body.  As you feel each breath or sensation, let the mind calm and the body relax.  

As you bring greater awareness to your breath, your body, your heart you sense this body is being breathed every moment of your day.  Your experience of being alive is a gift of so many causes and conditions coming together. Our internal organs are working collaboratively, heart and lungs, stomach, liver and kidneys.  Our nervous system interpreting and responding to the world around us.  All of these systems are like a beloved community within our bodies to create the experience of what it is to be you.  I invite you to take a few moments to appreciate your body, your breath.  Take a moment to thank this body, this breath for being.  Thank you.  Silently repeating these two gentle words to your body.  Thank you.  Thank you.  

As you’re ready, let the image of your body fade.  Invite your ancestors – known and unknown – into your mind.  Your parents and guardians – your biological ones or your chosen ones.  Imagine all these people who have given you life, who have touched your life.  Their qualities and shortcomings have uplifted you with this gift life. You may not have known them.  In this moment what matters is this sense of gratitude and appreciation for the interdependence that has made your existence possible.  This too has been your beloved community in a way.   Take a moment to thank all of these ancestors, biological, spiritual, ideological inspirational.  Thank you.  Thank you.  

Let the sense of your ancestors fade.  Now bring to mind the community here that has nourished you.  We have shared this learning space together.  Each week we aspire to create safety, honesty and welcome.  Invite other friends, mentors and teachers.  Imagine the others who have been on this path with you.  There’s no need to try too hard.  Let the words and faces surface in your mind as they will.  As you see them, as you hear them.  Gently repeating this magical phrase:  Thank you.  Thank you.  

Now become aware of the earth below you.  Imagine all the elements that support your life.  The air, water, sun.  Thank you.  Thank you.  You are a part of this mystery.  This cycle of life.  You are part of this network of mutuality.  These elements are also our beloved community because they enable us to have life itself.  Appreciate life itself.  Thank you.  Thank you.  

As we near the end of this meditation we can appreciate Mark Nepo’s words:

We’re all here by a thread, but it’s a very strong, eternal thread. On any given day, we can be terrified that it’s only a thread and, at the same time, stunned that such a thing as vast as life is held together by this magnificent unseeable thread.