Mystery & Transformation in Meditation

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Our Moving into Meditation class completed our study of  Frank Ostaseski’s wonderful book the Five Invitations.   In today’s class the 5th invitation to cultivate “don’t know mind” became an exploration of mystery and transformation.

In realizing our selves as mystery we open the door to awe and wonder.   We truly live with uncertainty and touch the elemental feeling of fear.  Voices of poets, naturalists and writers joined with Frank in encouraging us to be embrace and engage change and impermanence.

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When Death Comes

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Mary Oliver – earth inhabitant, particular and real, ever curious, left so quietly . . .

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

~~~~~~~  Mary Oliver

Perfect Trust

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The Great Way runs
to left, to right,
the ten thousand things
depending on it,
living on it,
accepted by it.

Doing its work,
it goes unnamed.
Clothing and feeding
the ten thousand things,
it lays no claim on them
and asks nothing of them.
Call it a small matter.
The ten thousand things
return to it,
though it lays no claim on them.
Call it great.

So the wise soul
without great doings.
achieves greatness.

Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching
translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

Witnessing the Sacred

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Our Moving into Meditation class drew inspiration from  the end of  Frank Ostaseski’s wonderful book the Five Invitations.   In today’s class we explored the 5th invitation to cultivate “don’t know mind.”  Cultivating this mind state challenges us to traverse the ever-changing ground of uncertainty.  It awakens us to what we hold most dear, to what is sacred.  We listened to the voices of naturalists and writers Terry Tempest Williams, Rachel Carson and Gary Snyder describe how they encounter the sacred.

 

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Intimacy in Meditation

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Our Moving into Meditation class is nearing the end of  Frank Ostaseski’s wonderful book the Five Invitations.  The book offers some fundamental principles for living a conscious life and for serving others who are nearing life’s end.  In today’s class we explored the 5th invitation to cultivate “don’t know mind.”  Two essential human experiences – intimacy and vulnerability – characterize this expression of mind.  I believe our willingness to be so fully human is also an expression of love.  Continue reading →

Remembering in Meditation

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Our Moving into Meditation class continues to draw inspiration from  Frank Ostaseski’s wonderful book about living with the awareness that we’re going to die.  His book distills what he’s learned into Five Invitations we can answer in living a conscious life.  In today’s class we explored the workings of memory.  Our fallible memories inform our life stories.  They can keep us rooted in the past while strongly defining our present.  Frank suggests that bringing “don’t know mind” to our memories and stories can be profoundly healing. Continue reading →

Don’t Know Mind in Meditation

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Our Moving into Meditation class continues to draw inspiration from  Frank Ostaseski’s wonderful book about living with the awareness that we’re going to die.  His book distills what he’s learned into Five Invitations we can answer in living a conscious life.  In today’s class we worked with the fifth invitation to cultivate “don’t know mind.”  This invitation seems to mirror queries found in the ancient Tao Te Ching.  We drew inspiration from Ursula Le Guin’s elegant translation of the “Book About the Way and the Power of the Way.”  She described it as “. . .  the most lovable of all the great religious texts, funny, keen, kind, modest, indestructibly outrageous, and inexhaustibly refreshing. Of all the deep springs, this is the purest water. To me, it is also the deepest spring.” Continue reading →

Shadows & Light in Meditation

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Our Moving into Meditation class drew inspiration from the symbolism of darkness and light.  We used contemplation and movement to explore the different feeling states we have in association with darkness and light.  We used the breathing practices of Chandra Bhedana and Surya Bhedana to tune into the darkness and light in our experience and psyches. Zen poet Jane Hirshfield’s poem evoked imagery to further the journey.   We also discussed the concept of the shadow in Jungian psychology.   Continue reading →

Being Held in Meditation

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Our Moving into Meditation class continues to draw inspiration from  Frank Ostaseski’s wonderful book about living with the awareness that we’re going to die.  His book distills what he’s learned into Five Invitations we can answer in living a conscious life.  In today’s class we continued working with the fourth invitation.  Frank encourages us to create the inner safety we need in order to feel our fears.  In his beautiful poem Everything is Waiting for You, poet David Whyte challenges us to open ourselves up to the world.  We explored the following guided meditation to feel the abiding support of the earth as if we were held in loving arms.

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Introduction to Meditation Mindfulness of Thought

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We had the final meeting of our Introduction to Meditation and Mindfulness series at Yoga Bliss today.  The course content is adapted from the wonderful work of Insight Meditation teacher, Gil Fronsdal.
Last week we focused on mindfulness of emotion. We use the breath to stabilize our attention and then we focused the lens of attention on the compelling emotions, feeling freely in sustained awareness. This week we bring in mindfulness of thought.

Welcome Everything

We try to develop mindfulness to be all inclusive, to include all aspects of our life. To include breath, body, emotions, thoughts, the world we encounter –  sights, sounds, smells, everything. Nothing is outside of awareness.  That is what makes it sacred.   The term “Big Mind” is sometimes used to describe the mind that holds everything.  That doesn’t mean that we don’t act with discernment in the world. We keep our awareness and our hearts open, even though we might say no to something.

We keep our hearts and minds open through the strengthening of mindfulness. As mindfulness gets stronger and stronger, our attention is set free from what we are mindful of.  When we have strong sensation or pain in the body – we often react to it, we tense around it or try to push it away.  We may have feelings of anger, despair or self-pity.  All these strong reactions can become entangled with what we are attending to.  As mindfulness gets stronger, mindfulness itself begins to disentangle itself; it becomes independent.  An analogy often used is that of a lotus flower. A lotus flower grows up out of the muddy water, but as it blooms it’s untouched by the mud. A beautiful white lotus is rooted in the mud, but it’s not touched by the mud. It has this purity. As the mindfulness gets stronger it’s becoming free from the mud, the places of attachment or aversion.  In mindfulness meditation, we aim to be aware of thoughts. To include them in awareness, and in that inclusion, with time, learn to be free of them.  Sometimes the mind does become silent.

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