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Clayton's Corner  - Weekly Blog

November 9, 2022

With all the noise that inundates our lives, both literal and figurative, it's very hard sometimes to actually hear and access the truth. I'm writing this before the results of the midterm elections, and frankly, I've worried about this concept and how misinformation can and perhaps will cause chaos in our democracy. No matter in which camp you sit politically, this should worry you too. 

But our inability to tap into true wisdom goes beyond political campaigns, in ways that are simultaneously large-scale and minute. In our families and with work, we lose the opportunity to learn and grow because we can't properly filter out all the stuff that we read and hear that doesn't really matter and isn't wholly true. And in many ways, the default system of our brain operates like the internet: creating its own version of reality based on our past experience (which is by definition limited to what we've lived through already) and what might easily serve us in this very minute. Our own private algorithm is fraught with much the same downside as that depicted in the Social Dilemma. 

So just as we use our mindfulness meditation practice to quiet our minds so we can be present and hear what others are saying in conversations with us, we can also declutter the "airways" that lead to important insights within us. We carry around so much knowledge that goes unused. Every day we are bombarded with information, much of which is neither useful nor real, but it forms a kind of barrier blocking our awareness of what we may already know that is more important. If we don't make the effort to spend time with our internal library, we slowly lose access to the neural pathways that lead to this previously acquired wisdom. Use it or lose it!

Did you ever wonder why so many of your best insights come when you are in the shower, walking the dog, just falling asleep, driving somewhere familiar with the radio off, or sitting quietly meditating or doing yoga? It's because your PFC, (pre-frontal cortex or executive brain), is not active during these periods. The PFC is notoriously noisy as brain regions go, and when are trying to figure something out analytically, we lose a lot of access to the quiet parts of our brain where so much cool, important information is stored. That's why when you are in a crowded restaurant talking to friends about something that happened last week and forget the name of the key person you are referring to, you often won't remember until on the way home. At the moment, your brain is trying too hard. 

Here are some thoughts I've shared before but warrant repeating:

This is where insights come from. For some it's a conversation between their quiet mind and God, for others it's the soul's intentions rising in consciousness as the ego is sublimated. Either way, neuroscientists have discovered that meditators have the ability to deactivate the Posterior Cingulate Cortex when their practice at least begins with a focus on breath, body, or a mantra. The PCC is quite active when we are thinking about ourselves, and how life's interactions affect us. The quote below from Wikipedia helps explain this in scientific terms:

Meditation

From neuroimaging studies and subjective descriptions, the PCC has been found to be activated during self-related thinking and deactivated during meditation.[11][12][13][14] Using generative topographic mapping, it was further found that undistracted, effortless mind wandering corresponds with PCC deactivation, whereas distracted and controlled awareness corresponds with PCC activation.[11] These results track closely with findings about the role of the PCC in the DMN (Default Mode Network)

When the PCC is quieted, the Anterior Cingulate Cortex is more apt to become activated and is valuable in regulating emotion and making decisions that have a broader perspective than just I/me/mine...The front-most portion of the cingulate cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex (or ACC) has been implicated in several complex cognitive functions, such as empathy, impulse control, emotion, and decision-making.

So once again science backs what the Buddha knew 2,600 years ago: If you want to make informed decisions, your mind needs to be in the right space, not being preoccupied with yourself, but rather open to input from many places, including those regions of your brain that often are overlooked when your ego is running the show. You want to be in alignment with your better self, your True North, your Soul? Quiet your mind and just listen.

OCTOBER 28, 2022       

SETTING THE INTENTION OF LISTENING             

 When was the last time you were in a conversation and the person with whom you were talking was so interested in what you were saying that when you finished your thought, they said, "Wow. Tell me more about that"? I hope it was not so long ago, but the sad truth is that it happens very rarely in life. When it does happen, however, it is deeply reaffirming and solidifies the connection between the speaker and the listener in very meaningful ways. You might be thinking that I'm going to suggest ways for you to become more interesting so people hang on your every word. Nope, not today. What I do hope to bring your attention to is how we can cultivate the very important but severely underutilized art of listening. There are some key elements that are needed to develop this skill, and almost all of them can be grown through your meditation practice. A couple of the most important components of building the attentive listening muscle are focus, curiosity and receptiveness. I'll walk through each of these. It won't take long, I promise. And it can make a big difference in what you take away from your interactions with other people, and what their impressions of you are as a result. 

Focus

So often as we go through our days we allow common distractions to interfere with our ability to place our full attention on what's happening right now in the present moment. There are myriad ways to reduce the intrusion of these distractions and I heartily recommend researching them as an additional means of shielding yourself from their insidious pull on your precious attention. 

Assuming we have taken steps to reduce our vulnerability to distractions, there are tools within our mindfulness practice that can help us make choices where we place our attention. We can follow our breath, scan our body, concentrate on specific sounds, smells, or counting, as just a few examples. This practice around focus, choosing an anchor and actively returning our attention to that anchor when our minds begin to follow thoughts, helps us strengthen our awareness muscles. Our attention wanders, we catch it and with a smile, gently return to our anchor. Doing this while we practice meditation makes this a new habit that is available to us when we are interacting with others. We get distracted, our attention moves away from the person and conversation we are otherwise engaged with, but with awareness we see this happening and make the choice to refocus on our conversation. Like any other kind of exercise, the more we practice, the easier it becomes and the more naturally to comes to us. It becomes second nature, or better yet, maybe our true nature. 

Curiosity

We have to constantly fight our brain's impulse to explain the present situation by what it has experienced in the past. It is a prediction machine trying to make it easy to navigate life by recalling what has happened before and using that to help make quick decisions about what's happening now. That can affect how we react to things visually (oh I've seen that stick a thousand times before, it's not a snake that could bite me), but also when we're interacting in conversation. Your brain fills in words that may be "missing" or makes quick interpretations of statements that may not make immediate sense. These "fill in the blank" moments might not lead to accurate understanding of what the other person is trying to say. In fact, as we probably have noticed, there are lots of times when this filter our conversation partner's words are passing through makes the subject about us, it's our story, rather than the speaker's. 

In our mindfulness practice, we talk about bringing the Beginner's Mind into play. That is, being authentically curious about what's being discussed and what the other person is saying, as if everything about it is brand new. When we engage our curiosity, it helps us bring our gentle, observant and non-judgmental focus to the present moment, to the interaction we are having, whether it's in person, on the phone, or via a video conference like Zoom. 

Our authentic curiosity makes us deeply interested in every word, every nuance of the non-verbal, all the potentially hidden meanings we might otherwise miss. It makes us want to know more, to ask "What more can you tell me about this?" Several things are bound to happen: because you aren't compelled to make this YOUR story, you'll be willing not to talk or to even be thinking about what you're going to say next - you'll be motivated to WAIT (also one of my favorite acronyms Why Am I Talking); and perhaps more important, you will send the message to the speaker that you care and that they are your priority. Your curiosity can also help prime your awareness muscle to notice quickly when your attention may be pulled elsewhere.

Receptiveness

Another important element that helps elevate this listening experience from one of distracted restlessness to one of embodied connectedness is being in a truly receptive state during the conversation. If you are focused and curious, the other party usually feels comfortable in sharing even the more difficult topics with you. Tara Brach talks about learning to listen with your entire body, not just your ears. You actively create a space to receive the words, noticing if any parts of your body are tightening, restricting or closing off. It you sense this happening, you use your mindful attention to go those places that are being affected and allow them to soften. You might think of this as dropping your guard, or if you are a Star Trek fan, lowering the shield on the Enterprise. There is no doubt that you are becoming more vulnerable by doing this, but this is an integral part of being a full participant in the conversation process. Robert Greenleaf made Listening the first of his ten principals of Servant Leadership. 

In our meditation practice, we can work on the process of opening up our receptivity by listening with our focused attention to the sounds around us, near and far, and even in the presence of silence, just sit with it. We might notice a restlessness coming over us, that we are fidgeting, and we can observe those sensations and let them pass naturally. That's a skill that comes in very handy during some conversations that may not at first seem that interesting. If the person talking is important to us (and I like to think all beings are important, but realistically some play a more important part in our everyday lives than others), we want to use all our powers of awareness to stay present for them, be authentically curious and interested in what they are saying, and lower our protective armor to allow their true meaning to land as it is intended. This all may seem like a lot of work, but the payoff is huge. Your relationship with colleagues, family members, partners and friends all deepens naturally as a result of this intention to be a better listener. 

I would be honored if you wanted to share this message  with someone you think would benefit from our time together. That's  how our sangha grows and creates a ever widening ripple effect of  goodwill. Of course above all, we look forward to having you join us Friday mornings at 9am ET. 

Click this link to join the Zoom Event. Zoom  Link to Friday Morning Mindfulness.           

Password is Metta.

With gratitude,

Clayton 

Mindfulness Meditation - Introduction and Expansion

203.253.5369

OCTOBER 21, 2022                    

One of the things that often gets in the way of learning is our reliance and deep trust in what we already know. It often feel it's redundant to reopen a book we have already read, or if we do, we skim through it just picking up reminders of what we had previously read. Leaders often fall into the trap of the "expert syndrome" where they rely on the knowledge they have accumulated on the climb up and don't make the effort to search beyond this expertise. In some ways this attitude insulates us from feeling unprepared or less qualified than we are supposed to be. But it also traps us into the sense that there is no real reward for exploring the possibility of answers outside of the facts we already possess. The richness of the universe lies more in what we haven't discovered than what we have. Seung Sahn, the Korean Zen master suggests that we value the "don't know mind." Be curious!

Our views and opinions lock us in

Jack Kornfield's mentor Ajahn Chah used to tell him, "You have so many opinions. And you suffer so much from them. Why not let them go?" Clearly our polarized society guards its opinions closely, as they define who we can trust. It takes more work to ask questions and listen, but therein lies our future wisdom.

 The Dalai Lama has said, "when you are talking, you only hear what you already know. The only way to learn to is by listening."

Looking at the world with fresh eyes is liberating and allows us to see things from perspectives we never dreamed of. Rachel Carson, the great naturalist, said:

 "A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over all children, I would ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life."

I would be honored if you wanted to share this message  with someone you think would benefit from our time together. That's  how our sangha grows and creates a ever widening ripple effect of  goodwill. Of course above all, we look forward to having you join us Friday mornings at 9am ET. 

Click this link to join the Zoom Event. Zoom  Link to Friday Morning Mindfulness.           

Password is Metta.

With gratitude,

Clayton 

Mindfulness Meditation - Introduction and Expansion

203.253.5369

OCTOBER 12, 2022                    

One of the most important concepts to emerge from the introduction of mindfulness meditation to Western cultures was that of being truly present, in the moment, open and available with curiosity and without judgement for all the experiences that life is offering right now. It is the basis for being authentically aware - of yourself, of others, and of what is happening around you. Many of us  understand and appreciate what that means on an intellectual level,  but also find it difficult to put the concept into practice with any kind of regularity. 

We live in a time when our attention is pulled in so  many different directions at work, at home and in between. The emergence of social media and its insidious use of algorithms aimed at enticing us to keep scrolling is a force against which practically all of us struggle from time to time at the least. 

Much of what distracts us is self-inflicted, becoming  obsessed with events of the past, wrapped up in the emotional baggage of difficult relationships or interactions, as well as worrying non-stop about things that might happen in the future. Neither of these preoccupations makes us bad people; actually, they make us perfectly human. But as members of the most evolved species on this planet, we have the power to choose where we let our focus go. Our meditation practice is an ideal place to strengthen the muscle of awareness, to build the habit of catching our wandering attention, our being pulled into mindless behaviors, and to choose to be right here, right now.

What are the real benefits of being present? 

Being in the room where it happens, as Alexander  Hamilton would say. 

You cannot truly appreciate what someone else is saying or experiencing if you aren't fully present. You also can't  properly express yourself if your mind and body are in separate zip codes. Being authentically in the moment allows you to take in all  the beauty of nature, the depth of all the instruments being played or voices singing, the complexity of flavors in a well-prepared meal,  the tenderness of a loving smile from a partner, parent, child or friend, the affectionate lick from a loyal pet, and so much more. We miss so much when we allow our attention to be pulled out of the present moment, ruminating about the past or fixating  about the future. There is nothing wrong with anticipating an  upcoming event that you've looked forward to, but doing so in midst  of a one-on-one with a direct report or while your child is recounting their day at school is not the time. You get to choose where you place your focus ...if you are actually aware of what's competing for your attention. 

What can you do to be more present, to strengthen our awareness muscle?

You can start practicing meditation with more regularity. Try committing to 5-10 minutes every day. It can really help to carve out a designated time and place, but don't let that be an impediment. My friend and colleague Lisa Gonzalez has a great  3-minute video on this subject that you can watch by clicking  this link. Practice mindfulness in line (if you still shop in person), while doing the dishes, walking the dog (or yourself), right before bed. Use apps , download audio versions of my guided meditations by clicking here Clayton's  website...But nothing good happens without  effort, some difficulty, perhaps the feeling of initial inadequacy, self-judgment. But you can learn to let that go. It's a saying that sounds cheesy but rings true, the only bad meditation is the one you  don't do. Or as my friend Kira Higgs said recently, a  good meditation is the one you did.

I would be honored if you wanted to share this message  with someone you think would benefit from our time together. That's  how our sangha grows and creates a ever widening ripple effect of  goodwill. Of course above all, we look forward to having you join us Friday mornings at 9am ET. 

Click this link to join the Zoom Event. Zoom  Link to Friday Morning Mindfulness.           

Password is Metta.

With gratitude,

Clayton 

Mindfulness Meditation - Introduction and Expansion

203.253.5369

A Meditation Practice that supports your sleep (or your sleep challenges)*

*This meditation is also supportive for daytime practice….

Dear Friends,

Recently, I have once again become aware of how significant sleep - or the lack thereof - is in our lives. I am also astonished by the increasing number of people who suffer from sleep challenges (including myself at times) - in the tens of millions… Sleep scientists refer to this as a sleep deficit epidemic… It is a serious problem affecting a large percentage of our global population. Sleep deprivation is also an underlying cause of many acute and chronic diseases and contributes to traffic accidents and the crime rate.

Matthew Walker is a Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Founder and Director of the Center for Human Sleep Science. He has received funding awards from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, and is a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences.

Matthew Walker’s TED Talk: 

Sleep is your superpower | Matt Walker

From an edited version of an interview with Terry Gross from NPR in 2017 we learn some important messages regarding sleep from Matthew Walker.

Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In An Underslept State'

The National Sleep Foundation recommends an average of eight hours of sleep per night for adults, but sleep scientist Matthew Walker says that too many people are falling short of the mark.

"Human beings are the only species that deliberately deprive themselves of sleep for no apparent gain," Walker says. "Many people walk through their lives in an underslept state, not realizing it."

Walker is the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He points out that lack of sleep — defined as six hours or fewer — can have serious consequences. Sleep deficiency is associated with problems in concentration, memory and the immune system, and may even shorten life span.

"Every disease that is killing us in developed nations has causal and significant links to a lack of sleep," he says. "So that classic maxim that you may [have] heard that you can sleep when you're dead, it's actually mortally unwise advice from a very serious standpoint."

Walker discusses the importance of sleep — and offers strategies for getting the recommended eight hours — in his new book, Why We Sleep.

Interview Highlights

On what you should do if you can't sleep:

You should not actually stay in bed for very long awake, because your brain is this remarkably associative device and it quickly learns that the bed is about being awake. So you should go to another room — a room that's dim. Just read a book — no screens, no phones — and only when you're sleepy return to the bed. And that way your brain relearns the association with your bedroom being about sleep rather than wakefulness. ...

Another thing that people can do if you don't want to get up and go to a different room is actually try meditating. ... Being quite a stoic, hard-nosed scientist, I actually didn't really believe the data [about meditation as a sleep aid], even though the data is very strong. And I started doing it myself, particularly when I was traveling with jet lag, and I found it to be very effective. ...

It [Meditation] just quiets the mind and it dampens down what we call the "fight or flight" branch of the nervous system, which is one of the key features of insomnia. And that can really have some efficacious benefits too. So that's another solution if people would choose not to go to a different room.

On whether you can make up for a sleep deficit by sleeping longer another day

You're trying to sleep off a debt that you've lumbered your brain and body with during the week, and wouldn't it be lovely if sleep worked like that? Sadly it doesn't. Sleep is not like the bank, so you can't accumulate a debt and then try and pay it off at a later point in time. And the reason is this: We know that if I were to deprive you of sleep for an entire night — take away eight hours — and then in the subsequent night I give you all of the sleep that you want, however much you wish to consume, you never get back all that you lost. You will sleep longer, but you will never achieve that full eight-hour repayment, as it were. So the brain has no capacity to get back that lost sleep that you've been lumbering it with during the week in terms of a debt.

On how the quantity and quality of sleep decreases with age:

The amount of sleep — the total amount of sleep that you get — starts to decrease the older that we get. I think one of the myths out there is that we simply need less sleep as we age, and that's not true, in fact. We need just as much sleep in our 60s, 70s [and] 80s, as we do when we're in our 40s. It's simply that the brain is not capable of generating that sleep, which it still needs, and the body still needs. So, total amount of sleep actually decreases.

We also know that the continuity of sleep also starts to fall apart. Sleep becomes much more fragmented. There are many more awakenings throughout the night — pain, bathroom trips, etc. But we also know that it's not the quantity of sleep that changes with aging, it's also the quality of sleep.

It seems to be particularly the deepest stage of sleep — something that we call non-rapid-eye-movement sleep, or non-REM sleep, the very deepest stages of non-REM sleep — those are selectively eroded by the aging process. By the time you're in your 50s, you've perhaps lost almost 40 to 50 percent of that deep sleep you were having, for example, when you were a teenager. By age 70, you may have lost almost 90 percent of that deep sleep.

If you put on shoes that are too tight and walk out across an empty plain, you will not feel the freedom of the place unless you take off your shoes. Your shoe-constriction has you confined. At night before sleeping you take off the tight shoes, and your soul releases into a place it knows. Dreams glide deeper.

Rumi

Sleep Foundation:

How Meditation Can Treat Insomnia

Harvard health:

Mindfulness meditation helps fight insomnia, improves sleep

Julie Corliss, Executive Editor, Harvard Heart Letter

Calm App:

Find Your Calm

All Your Sleep Questions, Answered | Dr. Matthew Walker

The Global Problem of Insufficient Sleep and Its Serious Public Health Implications

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6473877/

Please join me November 8, 2022 for our next Tuesday Morning Meditation gathering.

I look forward to being with you all!

Zoom link:

Kindest Regards,

Laurie

If you put on shoes that are too tight and walk out across an empty plain, you will not feel the freedom of the place unless you take off your shoes. Your shoe-constriction has you confined. At night before sleeping you take off the tight shoes, and your soul releases into a place it knows. Dreams glide deeper.

Rumi

Listen For Guidance

Listen for guidance

among the trees,

dried leaves fragrant

underfoot. Listen to

the crows and finches,

to the whistle of wind

through pine needles.

Most of all, listen

to the whispers of

your soul and the

knowing in your bones.

When your inner compass

points in a new direction,

dare to follow. In the

stillness of meditation or

the tumult of the day,

listen for what's next.

Truth will come in many

ways and contexts.

Listen - - and begin.

Danna Faulds

LovingKindness

Dear Friends,

I am sharing two resources for Lovingkindness practice below.  Sharon Salzberg quite literally wrote the book - and was the originator of bringing this practice to the west.  There are more resources for this and other practices which I will share with you in the coming weeks.

I also put the reference for Matthew Walker’s book on sleep in case you know of anyone who may be interested.

Sharon Salzberg

About Sharon Salzberg

LovingKindness

Sharon Salzberg July 14, 2014

The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

https://www.sharonsalzberg.com/lovingkindness/

On Being with Krista Tippett

“Shelter for Heart & Mind” Interview by Krista Tippett

LISTEN TO EPISODE

How can we keep walking forward, and even find renewal along the way, in this year of things blown apart? How can we hold to our sense of what is whole and true and undamaged, even in the face of loss? These are some of the questions Sharon Salzberg, a renowned teacher of meditation and Buddhist practices, has been taking up in virtual retreats this year, which have helped ground many — including Krista — on hard days. She teaches how to stay present to the world while learning kindness toward yourself.

https://www.sharonsalzberg.com/on-being-with-krista-tippett/

For any of you who may prefer Dr. Brewer’s - more clinical approach…:

Loving kindness meditation guided by Dr. Jud Brewer 

Have you noticed that when trying to change any habit, especially with anxiety or self-judgment, we can be extremely hard on ourselves?  We have a hard time accepting ourselves; we beat ourselves up for not being able to deal with our emotions. We compare ourselves to others or do any number of things. One of our Unwinding Anxiety app community members put it this way: “Anxiety is a scared child inside me that needs love.”

Today we’ll focus on an exercise that can help teach you to go easy on yourself when you contract and pull the anxiety knot tighter by judging or beating yourself up. This practice may also help you move more in the direction of expansion.

* Loving Kindness*

This is a practice called Loving-kindness. This practice can help us start to soften and to accept both others and ourselves as we are. This helps us let go of what has happened in the past, and learn from it so we can move forward in the present. My lab has even found that loving kindness meditation changes our brain! 

Loving kindness isn’t positive self-talk or a pat on the back when we’re feeling down. These are dependent upon something making us feel better, which just builds dependence upon these external things. We have to go looking for that pat on the back. What happens when we can’t find it?

Loving kindness is different. It’s a capacity that we all have and can draw upon at any time. You might be thinking, I don’t have this, which means that you probably just haven’t tapped into it in a while. It’s probably in the back of your mental closet, and just needs a little dusting off.

Loving kindness is a genuine well-wishing that we offer to ourselves and others. And when we practice loving kindness, we also learn to see more clearly when we’re doing the opposite –judging ourselves. This gives us a nice contrast so we can see what we actually get from self-judgment. And when we see more clearly how the judgment is not helpful and even painful at times, it helps us to drop this and build the kindness more because kindness feels better.

There are three parts to the loving-kindness practice:  

1) Some loving-kindness phrases to help you stay centered

2) The image of the being you are sending loving-kindness to 

3) The feeling of kindness that might arise in your body as you do this practice.

See my short YouTube video on why loving kindness (and kindness more generally) is a "bigger better offer" for your brain, and how you can practice it short moments, many times a day to make it your new habit. Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pncEd...

About Dr. Jud: Jud Brewer MD PhD is an addiction psychiatrist and neuroscientist. He is the Director of Research and Innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center, and associate professor of psychiatry as well as behavioral and social sciences at Brown’s School of Public Health. His work has been featured on 60 minutes, at TED.com(4th most viewed talk of 2016), and in media outlets across the world. He is the author of The Craving Mind: from cigarettes to smartphones to love, why we get hooked and how we can break bad habits (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017).

Kindest Regards,

Laurie

Dear Friends,

The dedication in Jon Kabat Zinn’s Mindfulness For Beginners reads;

“for the perpetual beginner in all of us”

One gift of mindfulness that I treasure, is that we are always invited to begin again. Every time our mind wanders, every time I catch myself ruminating, whenever I forget to notice the present moment and everything this moment has to offer, are just a few examples of my gratitude that we can always - begin again…

I met someone recently who shared their experience of discovering a momentous shift in a long term relationship. Although the incident lasted only minutes, the perspective that their mindfulness practice brought to this exquisite moment of engagement changed the trajectory of the relationship, and created a path for a more meaningful connection.

We will hear their story tomorrow morning, along with our practice.

Jon Kabat Zinn has the following to say about the potential of our moment by moment by moment experience…

Taking Care of This Moment

When it comes to mindfulness, each of us brings our own genius to adventures of this kind. Moreover, we cannot help but make use of and build on everything that has come before in our lives, even if much of it was - and perhaps still is - painful.

When it comes right down to it, our entire past, whatever it has been, however much pain and suffering it has included, becomes the very platform for doing the work of inhabiting the present moment with awareness, equanimity, clarity and caring. You need the past that you have it is raw clay on the potter’s wheel. It is both the work and adventure of a lifetime not to be trapped in either our past or our ideas and concepts, but rather to reclaim the only moment we ever really have, which is always this one. Taking care of this moment can have a remarkable effect on the next one and therefore on the future- yours and the world’s. If you can be mindful in this moment, it is possible for the next moment to be hugely and creatively different- because you are aware and not imposing anything on it in advance.

Three of Kabat-Zinn’s “Attitudinal Foundations of Mindfulness” are beginner’s mind, trust, and letting go. We will explore how these three attitudinal foundations play a pivotal role in bringing the gift of awareness to this moment, right now.

I look forward to being with you all Tuesday mornings@ 9:00 am.

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81405205550

No matter what we experience when we’re meditating, it only has meaning when we take it out into our daily lives. There is nothing we experience—from the simple act of eating to the complications of work and relationships—that we cannot approach with the mindfulness and compassion we develop in our meditation.

When we cook, when we clean, when we walk, each movement can be made with mindfulness, concentration, and insight. With each step we take, we can touch the earth and become one with it. Our fear and loneliness dissipate.

Kindest Regards,

Laurie

The following appeared in my inbox over the weekend. Soren Gordhamer began the venue and conference of Wisdom 2.0, a time for people to be together in community and bring together technology, business and mindfulness.

Soren is the host of the conference and reaches out throughout the year.

I was reminded of this story which I first heard several years ago.

We considered this story in our practice this week… 

From this story we also considered a query:

How do you know what you know? 

You may want to consider this question from time to time.

From Soren Gordhamer:

Dear Friends, 

Once when I was at a retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh, he told the story about the Buddha holding up a flower in front of an audience of monks and nuns.  

Most people looked at the Buddha quizzically, wondering what he was doing.

However, a monk named Mahakashyapa simply smiled. 

The Buddha, according to the story, said that Mahakashyapa understood the true teaching. 

Later explaining the story, Thich Nhat Hanh said, “If you keep thinking, you miss the flower.”  He continued, “If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything.”

There are of course many interpretations to this. We could say the flower has an “isness” that can only fully be appreciated when we are in touch with that in ourselves. 

This “isness,” for lack of a better term, is inherent in life. 

A flower does not have more “isness” than a tree. It does not increase if we are successful in the eyes of the world or decrease if we are not. It has nothing to do with our history or bank account or position. A CEO has no more “isness” than a janitor. 

I have been traveling a lot this past month, and especially in airports, it is so easy to “miss everything,” bouncing from looking at our phone to shopping to hurrying to catch a flight. 

We live at the speed of technology instead of the speed of our body and mind. 

As a result, “isness” is easily missed — in ourselves, in our children, our friends, in nature. We live instead immersed in our thoughts. 

It’s amazing, however, how quickly someone will engage when given the opportunity, especially children.

Just a moment of presence, of actually seeing them, and they often open right up. 

Walking in a store, and actually seeing the clerk or waiter, can shift the entire encounter. Presence is felt, even without words. 

Like the monk in the story, when given a chance for connection, we too can step out of thinking and smile … not because of anything special, but simply to appreciate the “isness” that is present.  

Blessings,

Soren Gordhamer

I want to share with you, that I have some days that are challenging with meditation; days when I am definitely not sitting in blissful silence ( these moments are very few, and fleeting), or easily allowing what is here… I wonder if any of this resonates with you?

What Am I Doing Here?

Do you ever have those days when you do not feel like sitting in practice?

I have.

These are the days when:

My mind has so many thoughts from so many different directions, I feel i have no patience with my mind or these thoughts.

I don’t want to be curious.

Yes, I am grateful that I am breathing but I don’t want to follow my breath.

I don’t have patience for a body scan.

I don’t want to learn anything.

I notice some self-judgment creeping in.

I notice I feel tired.

I have no patience to pray.

Just before I stand up and walk away, I realize… there is nothing left except just -to -be- here. 

Nothing to do, nowhere to go.

I notice my body breathing. Just noticing.

For a brief moment I notice nothing is here.

My mind notices briefly this vast vacuous space.

Is it possible for my mind to begin again? A painless reset.

It feels freeing.

I notice some warmth and it feels as though it is coming from my heart.

What is here?

Is a small bit of curiosity returning?…

Is it possible to be with just this?

Just this.

Allowing…

Right here

Right now

The Hardest Work in the World

It is only fair for me to point out right from the start, again in the spirit of full disclosure, that the cultivation of mindfulness may just be the hardest work in the world

- Jon Kabat- Zinn

I am inspired by the following from one of my favorite authors, Mary Oliver.

Where do we begin to “save the only life you could save”?

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.

–Mary Oliver

 Thich Nhat Hahn   "Stopping, Calming, Resting, Healing" by Thich Nhat Hanh from The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching  Buddhist meditation has two aspects — shamatha and vipashyana. We tend to stress the importance of vipassana (“looking deeply”) because it can bring us insight and liberate us from suffering and afflictions. But the practice of shamatha (“stopping”) is fundamental. If we cannot stop, we cannot have insight.   

There is a story in Zen circles about a man and a horse. The horse is galloping quickly, and it appears that the man on the horse is going somewhere important. Another man, standing alongside the road, shouts, “Where are you going?” and the first man replies, “I don’t know! Ask the horse!” This is also our story. We are riding a horse, we don’t know where we are going, and we can’t stop. The horse is our habit energy pulling us along, and we are powerless. We are always running, and it has become a habit. We struggle all the time, even during our sleep. We are at war within ourselves, and we can easily start a war with others.   

We have to learn the art of stopping — stopping our thinking, our habit energies, our forgetfulness, the strong emotions that rule us. When an emotion rushes through us like a storm, we have no peace. We turn on the TV and then we turn it off. We pick up a book and then we put it down. How can we stop this state of agitation? How can we stop our fear, despair, anger, and craving? We can stop by practicing mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful smiling, and deep looking in order to understand. When we are mindful, touching deeply the present moment, the fruits are always understanding, acceptance, love, and the desire to relieve suffering and bring joy. But our habit energies are often stronger than our volition. We say and do things we don’t want to and afterwards we regret it. We make ourselves and others suffer, and we bring about a lot of damage. We may vow not to do it again, but we do it again. Why? Because our habit energies (vashana) push us.   

We need the energy of mindfulness to recognize and be present with our habit energy in order to stop this course of destruction. With mindfulness, we have the capacity to recognize the habit energy every time it manifests. “Hello, my habit energy, I know you are there!” If we just smile to it, it will lose much of its strength. Mindfulness is the energy that allows us to recognize our habit energy and prevent it from dominating us. Forgetfulness is the opposite. We drink a cup of tea, but we do not know we are drinking a cup of tea. We sit with the person we love, but we don’t know that she is there. We walk, but we are not really walking. We are someplace else, thinking about the past or the future. The horse of our habit energy is carrying us along, and we are its captive. We need to stop our horse and reclaim our liberty. We need to shine the light of mindfulness on everything we do, so the darkness of forgetfulness will disappear. The first function of meditation — shamatha — is to stop.   

The second function of shamatha is calming. When we have a strong emotion, we know it can be dangerous to act, but we don’t have the strength or clarity to refrain. We have to learn the art of breathing in and out, stopping our activities, and calming our emotions. We have to learn to become solid and stable like an oak tree, and not be blown from side to side by the storm. The Buddha taught many techniques to help us calm our body and mind and look deeply at them. They can be summarized in five stages: (1) Recognition — If we are angry, we say, “I know that anger is in me.” (2) Acceptance — When we are angry, we do not deny it. We accept what is present. (3) Embracing — We hold our anger in our two arms like a mother holding her crying baby. Our mindfulness embraces our emotion, and this alone can calm our anger and ourselves. (4) Looking deeply — When we are calm enough, we can look deeply to understand what has brought this anger to be, what is causing our baby’s discomfort. (5) Insight — The fruit of looking deeply is understanding the many causes and conditions, primary and secondary, that have brought about our anger, that are causing our baby to cry. Perhaps our baby is hungry. Perhaps his diaper pin is piercing his skin. Our anger was triggered when our friend spoke to us meanly, and suddenly we remember that he was not at his best today because his father is dying. We reflect like this until we have some insights into what has caused our suffering. With insight, we know what to do and what not to do to change the situation.   

After calming, the third function of shamatha is resting. Suppose someone standing alongside a river throws a pebble in the air and it falls down into the river. The pebble allows itself to sink slowly and reach the riverbed without any effort. Once the pebble is at the bottom, it continues to rest, allowing the water to pass by. When we practice sitting meditation, we can allow ourselves to rest just like that pebble. We can allow ourselves to sink naturally into the position of sitting — resting, without effort. We have to learn the art of resting, allowing our body and mind to rest. If we have wounds in our body or our mind, we have to rest so they can heal themselves. 

Calming allows us to rest, and resting is a precondition for healing. When animals in the forest get wounded, they find a place to lie down, and they rest completely for many days. They don’t think about food or anything else. They just rest, and they get the healing they need. When we humans get sick, we just worry! We look for doctors and medicine, but we don’t stop. Even when we go to the beach or the mountains for a vacation, we don’t rest, and we come back more tired than before. We have to learn to rest. Lying down is not the only position for resting. During sitting or walking meditation, we can rest very well. Meditation does not have to be hard labor. Just allow your body and mind to rest like an animal in the forest. Don’t struggle. There is no need to attain anything. I am writing a book, but I am not struggling. I am resting also. Please read in a joyful, yet restful way. 

The Buddha said, “My Dharma is the practice of non-practice.” Practice in a way that does not tire you out, but gives your body, emotions, and consciousness a chance to rest. Our body and mind have the capacity to heal themselves if we allow them to rest.  

Water Reflecting  

The clear still water of mountain lake reflects  the mountain with pristine clarity.  You can do the same. If you are calm and still  enough you can reflect the mountain, the blue  sky, and the moon exactly as they are. You  reflect whatever you see just as it is, without  distorting anything.                                -Thich Nhat Hahn, How to See