Foundational Practices
These foundational practices will support you in cultivating a supportive approach to meditation, and will support you in beginning to see more deeply into the true nature of your experience. When we truly see our experience as it is, it is liberating in the most profound way.
Please always sit in a comfortable posture. If you tend to fall asleep when you meditate or to feel spacey, it may help to sit in a posture where you have a sense of alertness, often without your back supported or even standing. However, if you tend to experience a lot of energy when you meditate, you might choose a more relaxed, supported posture or choose to lie down. Ultimately, you will learn and trust what works best for you. There is no right posture - full lotus does not get you any closer to enlightenment than does lying down. Trust yourself.
If you are just beginning to practice, or if you've been practicing for decades. Your mind will wander. A LOT! Our mind is very accustomed to thinking, and we cannot control whether we are thinking a lot or a little.
Relax. When we aren't troubled by our thoughts, they tend to quiet down. Sometimes naming an emotion or feeling the body sensations underneath the thoughts will help resolve what's fueling them.
If you feel disoriented or overwhelmed, it can be useful to return to an anchor. Anchors frequently used in meditation include the breath, hearing, sensing body sensations, etc. It is useful for your experience of the anchor to be neutral or pleasant. Anchors support us in grounding our attention in our felt experience and out of our minds.
If you continue to feel overwhelmed, take care of yourself and move on to another activity, or perhaps do some self-care. We do not want to push ourselves to stay in a state of overwhelm unless we really know what we're doing. If we do mediate in a state of overwhelm, we cultivate aversion instead of cultivating acceptance, which is the opposite of what we're trying to do. Trust yourself!
Remember the attitude we are cultivating (or uncovering . . . ) in meditation is one of peace and kindness. Usually our tendency at first is to judge our experience and try to control it. You will hopefully quickly see that that doesn't work! Quite the opposite in fact, that is how we create most of our suffering. Whatever your mind is doing, whatever your body is doing, whatever your emotions are doing, whatever the world is doing around you, notice how it is to relate to that with an attitude of peace and compassion. You may see there was never any need to judge your experience, only a lack of recognition of its true nature.
Enlightenment means no arguments. With each moment, we practice letting things be as they are.
Please always sit in a comfortable posture. If you tend to fall asleep when you meditate or to feel spacey, it may help to sit in a posture where you have a sense of alertness, often without your back supported or even standing. However, if you tend to experience a lot of energy when you meditate, you might choose a more relaxed, supported posture or choose to lie down. Ultimately, you will learn and trust what works best for you. There is no right posture - full lotus does not get you any closer to enlightenment than does lying down. Trust yourself.
If you are just beginning to practice, or if you've been practicing for decades. Your mind will wander. A LOT! Our mind is very accustomed to thinking, and we cannot control whether we are thinking a lot or a little.
Relax. When we aren't troubled by our thoughts, they tend to quiet down. Sometimes naming an emotion or feeling the body sensations underneath the thoughts will help resolve what's fueling them.
If you feel disoriented or overwhelmed, it can be useful to return to an anchor. Anchors frequently used in meditation include the breath, hearing, sensing body sensations, etc. It is useful for your experience of the anchor to be neutral or pleasant. Anchors support us in grounding our attention in our felt experience and out of our minds.
If you continue to feel overwhelmed, take care of yourself and move on to another activity, or perhaps do some self-care. We do not want to push ourselves to stay in a state of overwhelm unless we really know what we're doing. If we do mediate in a state of overwhelm, we cultivate aversion instead of cultivating acceptance, which is the opposite of what we're trying to do. Trust yourself!
Remember the attitude we are cultivating (or uncovering . . . ) in meditation is one of peace and kindness. Usually our tendency at first is to judge our experience and try to control it. You will hopefully quickly see that that doesn't work! Quite the opposite in fact, that is how we create most of our suffering. Whatever your mind is doing, whatever your body is doing, whatever your emotions are doing, whatever the world is doing around you, notice how it is to relate to that with an attitude of peace and compassion. You may see there was never any need to judge your experience, only a lack of recognition of its true nature.
Enlightenment means no arguments. With each moment, we practice letting things be as they are.
Guided Meditation - Listening
| listening.m4a |
Guided Meditation - Being the Breath, the Body, the Heart
| being_the_breath_the_body_the_heart.m4a |
Heart Practices
The heart practices are an equally important part of our practice. It is in opening our hearts that we can truly understand the lack of ultimate division in the world. We also heal a great deal of our own conditioning through letting love's radiance pour out of us.
Often heart practice is no picnic. We can expect that with this practice, at times, we will draw out the opposite of compassion: hatred, anger, despair, numbness, jealousy, etc. This is good - these are just parts of us arising in need of healing. There is no need to struggle with these feelings.
If a voice arises telling you that you don't deserve love or compassion, simply note it as another part of your experience. Every human being deserves to be held in love. Love heals; pushing ourselves away only causes us further hurt.
Beware of the compassion band-aid! Compassion is meant to support us in being with our experience, not in helping us to get rid of it. Because most of us don't like feeling our own suffering, sometimes we'll find ourselves using this practice to get away from an emotion. Just notice if this is happening. Ask yourself - is this too much? Can I be with this? Do I need a break? Please take care to not push yourself beyond what's possible for you today. If you start to feel overwhelmed, back off and move to an easier practice (perhaps just following the breath, or being aware of sound). Or get up and go do something else! When you feel stable again, you can return to this practice, or wait to try again another day.
Often at the beginning of our practice, we are experiencing more purification and less compassion. Sometimes the numbness can persist for years! This is just part of the process. Move away from the practice when you are overwhelmed. Trust that in time, setting the intention again and again to be compassionate with yourself and others will have tremendous effects.
May all beings be held in spacious love and compassion.
Often heart practice is no picnic. We can expect that with this practice, at times, we will draw out the opposite of compassion: hatred, anger, despair, numbness, jealousy, etc. This is good - these are just parts of us arising in need of healing. There is no need to struggle with these feelings.
If a voice arises telling you that you don't deserve love or compassion, simply note it as another part of your experience. Every human being deserves to be held in love. Love heals; pushing ourselves away only causes us further hurt.
Beware of the compassion band-aid! Compassion is meant to support us in being with our experience, not in helping us to get rid of it. Because most of us don't like feeling our own suffering, sometimes we'll find ourselves using this practice to get away from an emotion. Just notice if this is happening. Ask yourself - is this too much? Can I be with this? Do I need a break? Please take care to not push yourself beyond what's possible for you today. If you start to feel overwhelmed, back off and move to an easier practice (perhaps just following the breath, or being aware of sound). Or get up and go do something else! When you feel stable again, you can return to this practice, or wait to try again another day.
Often at the beginning of our practice, we are experiencing more purification and less compassion. Sometimes the numbness can persist for years! This is just part of the process. Move away from the practice when you are overwhelmed. Trust that in time, setting the intention again and again to be compassionate with yourself and others will have tremendous effects.
May all beings be held in spacious love and compassion.
Guided Meditation - Self-Compassion
| compassion_-_benefactor_and_dear_friend.m4a |
Guided Meditation - Longing for Ever-Present Love: Two Ways to Connect to the Uncdonditioned Heart
| longing_for_ever-present_love.m4a |
Many of my other talks and guided practices are available on my Full Circle Spirituality site.
No different, really --
a summer firefly’s
visible burning
and this body,
transformed by love.
~ Izumi Shikibu
a summer firefly’s
visible burning
and this body,
transformed by love.
~ Izumi Shikibu
