The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We explored concentration as “just and loving attention.”  We aspired to extend this quality of attention from our “grandmother’s heart” and to see ourselves and others with “grandmother’s eyes.”

We heard from David Brooks’ New York Times essay, How to Save a Sad, Lonely, Angry and Mean Society.  David encourages us to see, feel and understand our shared humanity.  Part of our salvation is extending “just and loving” attention to one another.

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.”

We heard Dane Anthony’s poem Right Here.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We focused on concentration and what the mind needs to cultivate wholehearted concentration.  When we bring our heart’s awareness to concentration we see that it is a devotional practice.  We are moved to create the conditions in which concentration can naturally arise.  What a relief to experience the ease of whole hearted concentration.

We continued to draw from Oren Jay Sofer’s new book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love.  Oren describes concentration as a “collected and stable heart.” He believes concentration arises when the heart is interested and at ease.

We heard Professor Gloria Mark remark about creating pauses to rest the mind periodically throughout the day.  I heard these remarks in her discussion with Ezra Klein, Tired? Distracted? Burned Out?  Gloria is author of Attention Span A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity.

We heard from poet Jane Hirshfield’s essay The Mind of Concentration from her book Nine Gates:  Entering the Mind of Poetry. In this essay Jane explores the many dimensions of concentration: “penetrating, unified, and focused, yet also permeable and open.”

We heard Madronna Holden’s poem, Indwelling.  I discovered the poem recently published by Kosmos Journal.  Her site is an adventurous compilation of writings on world views and values, ecofeminism, folklore and poetry.  Have a cup of tea here and be delighted!

Finally we heard a brief quotation from chaplain and author Lynn Casteel Harper.  You can read more of her views on remembering and inclusivity in the December Sun Magazine interview, Speak Memory:  New Ways of Understanding Dementia.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We explored how mindfulness can help us navigate in the world.  We reflected on how we need each other to create the space of loving awareness.  We need each other to bring mindfulness into its mature expression as heartfulness.   I am so deeply grateful for the meaningful conversations I’ve had with dear ones this week.

We continued to draw from Oren Jay Sofer’s new book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love.  We reflected on how the awareness of life’s impermanence can help us be more present in the world.  This presence is integral to deep conversation and helpful action in the world.

We heard William Stafford’s poem, Ritual to Read Each Other.  The poem encourages us to reflect on how we understand ourselves and others.  Patterns and assumptions can misguide and mislead us.  The poem speaks about our need of each other in finding our way in life.  Paradoxically, we need to find one another so that we might not lose ourselves.   You can find a wonderful exposition of the poem’s meaning at the Growing Edge podcast program, A Ritual to Read Each Other.  This is a conversation between musician Carrie Newcomer and writer, teacher, activist Parker Palmer.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We explored mindfulness as “heartfulness.”  We cultivated embodied presence and invited the heart wisdom to reveal itself.

We continued to draw from Oren Jay Sofer’s new book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love.  We are explored the quality of mindfulness.

We drew on the work of John Prendergast.  John has been a spiritual teacher and psychotherapist.  We drew from his book, The Deep Heart:  Our Portal to Presence.   “The ‘deep heart’ is John’s term for the subtle center of emotional and energetic sensitivity, relational intimacy, profound inner knowing, and wholeness found within our hearts.”

We heard Rosemerry Trommer Wahtola’s poem, How.  Rosemerry generously offers a daily poem through her site:  A Hundred Falling Veils.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We practiced “right effort” by creating the conditions in which  we can attune to our inner wisdom.  Settling into embodied presence can help us find freedom and ease even in our heartfelt aspirations. We can invite living questions to help us go deeper to find those beginnings quietly born.  May this new year bring peace to all beings.

We continued to draw from Oren Jay Sofer’s new book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love.  We focused on how attention, aspiration and energy enable us to establish the settledness of being in which to hear our inner wisdom.

We also drew inspiration from Insight Meditation teacher, Gil Fronsdal’s teaching.  Gil and his fellow teachers offer a library of talks, guided meditations and courses through AudioDharma. You can experience his talk, Desire for Right Effort, in this archive. You can hear his exploration of “What Wants to be Born” in his talk, Return to Your Center.

John O’Donohue’s poem For a New Beginning is from his collection, Anam Cara. Anam Cara is a phrase that refers to the Celtic concept of the “soul friend” in religion and spirituality..

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We explored ways of developing a more sustainable relationship with energy.  We practiced deep rest with calm, patience and gentleness. Our inquiry was about resting as awareness:  letting go of doing by allowing being.

We drew inspiration and guidance from Oren Jay Sofer’s new book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love.  We reflected on how energy  animates our lives.  How do we develop a more sustainable relationship with our energy?  Can we balance our striving with mindful rest and self care?

We heard from Tricycle Magazine’s recent interview with Oren:  Nurturing the Energy for Change.  Oren discusses how reclaiming our right to rest is a radical act in a culture that is centered around continuous growth and productivity.

We also heard from poet David Whyte’s essay, Rest, from his collection: Consolations:  The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words. David writes lyrically about the “conversation between what we love to do and how we love to be.”

We were inspired by Wendell Berry’s beautiful poem, The Peace of Wild Things.

Our guided meditation was informed by the teachings and work of Kelly Boys. You can find Kelly’s guided meditations on her youtube channel.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.   We contemplated questions about how we want to spend our limited time here together. We cultivated a field of loving awareness in which our aspirations can grow.

Living by aspirations that are rooted in compassion might inspire us to affirm our inter-being with caring action.

We drew inspiration and guidance from Oren Jay Sofer’s new book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love.  We reflected on aspirations that can help us live meaningful lives.  Aspirations can arise in answer to our heart’s natural longing for the flourishing of all human and more than human beings.

We also drew inspiration from Insight Meditation teacher, Gil Fronsdal’s teaching.  Gil and his fellow teachers offer a library of talks, guided meditations and courses through AudioDharma. You can experience his guided meditation, Attuned Aspiration, in this archive.

We heard from poet Jane Hirshfield’s On Being interview, The Fullness of Things.  In this interview Jane shares how her natural inclination to question things expresses itself through her work and her life.  She describes “looking for . . .  an unmediated intimacy with things as they actually are, and perhaps an accurate understanding of what is the place of this self that we all walk around inside of and know the world through.”  I think this is a helpful approach to growing and living aspiration.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We focused on how we experience attention.  Our experience of how we attend determines our aliveness.  Tuning into our natural vitality as a source of support can release us from the tension of trying too hard.

Our inner aliveness can buoy us up like a boat on water.

We drew inspiration and guidance from Oren Jay Sofer’s new book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love.  We continued our focus on attention – specifically how we pay attention.

We also drew inspiration from Insight Meditation teacher, Gil Fronsdal’s teaching.  Gil and his fellow teachers offer a library of talks, guided meditations and courses through AudioDharma.  You can experience his guided meditation, Vitality, in this archive.

We heard Anne Hillman’s poem, We Look with Uncertainty. The poem, from her collection Awakening the Energies of Love: Discovering Fire for the Second Time.  The poem is a “dare” to be human in our vulnerability and openness.

We drew from the tenth chapter of Kathleen Dowling Singh’s book, The Grace in Aging: Awaken As You Grow Older. In this section, Commitment:  Liberation from Deception, Kathleen focuses on the precious gift of our attention.  She reminds us  that “we’re here to learn from each other. . . . We’re here to share with each other, to comfort and be comforted, to be present with each other.”

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We considered how we shape the world and are, in turn, shaped by the world.  We cultivated attention.  Attention is one of our most precious inner resources.  Attention makes love and connection possible.  Like flowers opening we can open our hearts to what we pay attention to.  Attention can help us feel all of life and move us to care for the world.

Attention can help us consider what our hearts are made for.

We drew inspiration and guidance from Oren Jay Sofer’s new book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love.  The book is a wonderful collection of twenty six precious human qualities we can cultivate over the weeks to come.  We began with attention because we make the world with our attention.  You can find more about the book, including a number of short guided meditations, at Oren’s web-site.

We heard Miriam Teichner’s beautiful prayer-poem, Awareness. Miriam was a journalist and poet. In 1915, she served as a a correspondent on the peace ship Oscar II that took Henry Ford to Europe on his ill-fated peace mission before World War I. I deeply appreciate the poem’s fierceness and humility.

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The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning.  We explored relational presence in our practice. In relational presence we can stay aware of our inner state while engaging with another.  Imagining what we love about a person – even in challenging relationships – can help us recognize how we belong to each other.  This awareness is all the more important knowing that the only time we really have is the present moment.

We drew on Oren Jay Sofer’s Speak Your Truth With Love and Listen Deeply:  A Training in Mindfulness Based Nonviolent Communication. This course is a beautiful and thoughtful training in how to bring our embodied presence to the world.  It can support our relationships and help us to grow as compassionate actors in the world.  Today we focused on relational presence:  How we can stay  present and grounded and in touch while we’re engaged with another person.

We heard poet David Whyte’s beautiful words on belonging.  You can find more on this in David’s book, The House of Belonging.

We heard Bernadette Miller’s poem, An Invitation.  You can find more of Bernadette’s poetry on Grate Living.

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