Category Archives: mindfulness

Compassion is life loving itself

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Kwan Yin, Goddess of Mercy and Compassion

Part of mindfulness practice is cultivating compassion for ourselves. For example, when we are meditating and we get lost in thought, our habituated reaction may be to give ourselves a hard time. This just throws us into another tangle of thoughts and emotions about past ‘failures’ and/or future hopelessness. But if we cultivate compassion for ourselves, we gently shift back to here and now.

Having cultivated compassion for ourselves, we are better able to cultivate compassion for others. But it’s important to distinguish between compassion and empathy. When we encounter someone who is struggling, we may feel empathy, especially if what they are going through is similar to our own experience now or in the past. We literally feel their pain as if it is our own. Because it is painful, we may turn away as a form of self-protection. Or we may be drawn in because it is so familiar. In either case, it doesn’t help the other person, does it? And it doesn’t help us, because we either feel guilty for turning away or we feel like we’re drowning in someone else’s misery.

Compassion is recognizing suffering and responding in a way that is useful. If I see an insect stuck on the inside of a screen door, compassion sparks me to open the door to let it out. If I was just feeling empathy, I might stand there and say ‘Oh, you poor little bug! Look how you struggle. Me too! Boo hoo!’ And if I had no empathy and no compassion, I’d grab the fly swatter, seeing the bug as a potential danger or at least an annoyance, threatening my own happiness and peace of mind.

Compassion respects all life. It isn’t limited to beings we find ‘relatable’, whose experience mirrors our own. Compassion recognizes suffering but expands to hold it in an open and loving way rather than succumbing to it.

Compassion is action. When we see someone in distress and we help them in whatever way is skillful, that is compassion. Many instances of compassion we might recognize as simply being human, being neighborly or ‘doing the right thing’. Compassion comes naturally to most of us, at least in certain situations.

I am sure you have performed many acts of compassion this week. Maybe you let a car merge in front of you. Maybe in the grocery store you helped someone get something off a high shelf beyond their reach. Maybe you gave a respectful nod to someone sitting on the sidewalk. Maybe you saw or heard about a community in distress from flooding or earthquake or other disaster, and you sent a donation. Compassion is action, but it comes in all shapes and sizes: From a nod of respect to giving a majority of your waking hours to a cause you care about or a person in need. As citizens in a democracy, we cultivate compassion when we vote and make our voices heard for the benefit of our community, our nation, all beings and the earth itself.

Compassion doesn’t register within us as an identity — “I am a compassionate person” — trying to be seen as a hero, taking credit for actions, or being concerned about how we are perceived by others. Shoring up a personal identity just knocks us into seeing ourselves as separate, rather than a part of the celebration of the oneness of all being that sparks true compassion, life loving and taking care of itself.

There are many among us whose whole lives are devoted to compassionate action. And for them especially it is important to discern between compassion and empathy. Over the years I have had a number of insight meditation students who are psychologists, counselors and therapists. Some have complained about the weight of carrying their patient/clients problems into their own lives after the appointment is over. I suggest, for the benefit of their clients and for themselves, that they think of the client’s sharing as being laid out in the space between them for both to examine in a spacious way. Trying this out, my students found that they could bring all their practice and wisdom to the challenge without taking it on as their own. For their clients it helped to see their sharing as a story passing through their experience rather than an aspect of their identity. It makes sense that people who choose professions in the field of psychology are empathetic and want to be of help to those that suffer. But the empathy can become a source of misery.

It’s important to acknowledge that this misery is not just experienced by the empathetic person. When when you share your grief and your friend cries, you are unlikely to feel you can share freely. It is painful to cause suffering in another. Sharing our suffering with a person who has cultivated compassion feels safer. They receive it with loving-kindness, respect and full attention, but they don’t make it their own.

An experiment conducted by neuroscientists Tania Singer and Olga Klimecki comparing empathy and compassion showed that empathy training activated motion in different parts of the brain than compassion training. The outcome was that the empathy-trained group found empathy ‘uncomfortable and troublesome’ while the compassion group felt kinder and more eager to help others.

This makes sense. Taking on the suffering of others as if it is our own is not very comfortable, is it? Being so empathetic we become drained when we spend time around others, because we are taking on their suffering. We may need to get away just to allow ourselves to reconnect with our own experience. While I encourage everyone to take time for themselves, having to be alone a lot can certainly be challenging in maintaining satisfying relationships. If this is your experience, you might notice whether being overly empathetic is at play, and whether cultivating active compassion might help to channel it more skillfully.

But whether we lack empathy or are inundated in it, how do we cultivate compassion? Again, cultivating compassion begins with ourselves: compassion for our own suffering and grief, but also for our ignorance, blundering and foolishness. We do this, in part, to soften the rigid pattern of harsh self-judgment and the resulting suffering that becomes toxic and contagious. This doesn’t mean we ‘let ourselves off the hook’ when we have done something unskillful. A part of our mindfulness practice is cultivating ethical behavior, speech and livelihood (See Noble Eightfold Path). But if we enforce our behavior with cruel words or punitive actions, then we are compounding our unethical behavior.

Instead we do what we can to right any wrong, make amends, apologize, and investigate what went wrong in order to learn from our experience and not repeat the unskillful behavior. But this is only possible if we also actively cultivate compassion, because without compassion we beat ourselves up or avoid dealing with it through all manner of addictive and distracting behaviors.

Once we have cultivated more compassion for ourselves, we are better able to extend compassion to others. We see the suffering at the root of the unskillfulness of those around us. For example, driving around we may be quick to judge someone who drives too closely, too fast, changes lanes erratically, etc. At that moment we might recognize their suffering, and feel compassion. Who among us has not at times driven mindlessly? Who among us has not been lost in our own suffering, or been lost in a hormonal high that makes us feel immortal. That last one is most often the realm of the young who haven’t quite connected with the reality of the two ton metal weapon they are wildly wielding on the road. But knowing that they are not immune to suffering in this life, we can have compassion for them as well, even if at this very moment it is challenging to do so. The compassionate action that arises within us is to not react or retaliate as we drive, but to maintain mindful safe driving and actively send lovingkindness. ‘May you be well. May you be safe.’

For most of us it is easy to feel compassion for someone in a temporarily difficult situation that we can relate to. We tend to have a harder time cultivating compassion for someone who seems to have made poor life choices and is now living with the consequences. It helps to recognize that our harsh judgments function as a bypass to avoid feeling other people’s pain or recognizing our own poor choices in life. Perhaps our poor choices did not have substantial adverse effects on our lives. Do we take that good fortune as a credit to ourselves? None of us is perfect. And none of us is immune to suffering, no matter how fortunate.

Compassion does not command us to be saviors. It offers us the opportunity to live fully in the joy of being alive, and to recognize all life as deserving of respect and kindness, and a little help from a fellow being now and then.

 

What is Mindfulness?

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Photo credit: Curt Firestone

Through the regular practice of meditation — insight, vipassana or mindfulness — we cultivate the ability to stay present with whatever is going on in our experience. It is not an escape from the difficulties of daily life. It is practice in skillfully relating to whatever arises in our experience with more compassion, spaciousness, awareness and kindness.

Next week I will be sharing effective concentration practices to cultivate mindfulness. But for now, let’s look at what mindfulness is, and what it is not.

Mindfulness is being in the moment, noticing what is present, using all our senses. It’s also noticing any desire for things to be different or to get more of whatever we are experiencing. When thoughts and emotions rustle through, as they will, we notice them without getting lost in them. If we discover we have been lost in thought, we gently return our attention to the breath.

With mindfulness when we notice a recurring pattern of thought, we can pose a question — Is this true? for example — and then be fully present for the answer when it comes.

Mindfulness is not viewing things from a lofty remote location as an observer, separate from life. It is instead continuously cultivating boundless awareness, holding all that arises in our experience with great compassion, being fully present in this body-mind, grateful for the opportunity to be alive in this form.

With mindfulness we don’t make anything ‘other’ or ‘enemy’ So we are not pushing away, blaming or punishing any aspect of self, or making anyone person or situation a scapegoat for the challenges we are facing in this moment. What presents itself as either/or can be investigated more closely to reveal it’s both/and nature. With mindfulness we open again and again to these kinds of possibilities. We discover the most skillful way to deal with antagonism is to engulf it in the power of infinite loving-kindness. When we slip into the pattern of other-making, we feel stuck in the sludge of fear that drags us down and causes us to be blind to the true nature of life.

We see how in every moment we are given the option to make skillful choices, by staying present, anchoring our awareness in physical sensation. We are powerful beyond measure when we are living mindfully. We can be responsive rather than reactive. We can dance with all that arises rather than let it keep us on the sidelines or engaged in a battle. We see that every moment is a pivotal point of power, where we can act on our truest intention with wise effort, or we can go mindless and fall into habitual behavior, driven by fear.

Mindfulness is not something we have to struggle for or chase after. It arises of its own accord through dedicated meditation practice that is rooted in wise intention and wise effort.

As we cultivate mindfulness in our sitting practice and in our daily lives, we feel some release of fear-based tension. Or at least we notice the presence of tension, which is an excellent place to start.

With mindfulness life doesn’t get ‘perfect’. But difficulties become more permeable, and we see bridges and networks revealed where we thought there were only walls. 

With mindfulness thoughts have enough space to not be constantly in conflict. And there’s room for the ‘I don’t know’ mind to hold all life with reverence and awe.

With mindfulness we can appreciate this gift of life, in whatever form it has taken, through whatever experiences we find ourselves in. The comparing mind is seen as just a fear-based pattern that softens and dissolves as we continue to practice.

Mindfulness also softens and releases the ‘if only’ mindset that had us trapped in the belief that causes and conditions are the source of our happiness, when in fact joy arises simply out of being present, aware and compassionate with ourselves and all beings.

Mindfulness is quite a life-enriching benefit to come out of spending minutes a day in meditation practice! It costs nothing. And the list of health benefits is long and scientifically proven.

As you practice, let go of expectations, but note growing awareness, growing compassion and growing sense of aliveness.

As with the other aspects of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path, I have given a number of dharma talks over the years, and you can check out their companion posts for further understanding. https://stephanienoble.com/?s=right+mindfulness  and
https://stephanienoble.com/?s=spacious+mindfulness

Gravitational Pull and the Five Hindrances

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Meditation is the practice of being present in this moment, becoming more skillful in how we relate to our experience and becoming more compassionate with ourselves and others. With practice we develop mindfulness throughout the day. With mindfulness we are able to notice the nature of the thoughts that pass through our field of awareness. I have begun to notice how sometimes these thoughts have a gravitational pull, drawn to a certain future event, like the treat I’ve promised myself later in the day or a concern I have about whether the layover on an upcoming trip is long enough for us to catch our next plane. Or the pull might be toward something that happened in the past, something I’m still feeling emotional ripples from experiencing, or something I’m figuring out how I might have handled differently with better results.

That sense of gravitational pull makes these small future or past events feel like the center of my mental universe. They are where my mind is drawn if I’m not busy with something else. 

Have you noticed any gravitational thoughts — events in the past or future that hold your attention? Maybe it’s the dread of some chore, the daydream of some future situation, anticipating or longing for pleasure, questioning whether you are up to the task you set out to do, or maybe your thoughts are more muddled and you just want to sleep. Each of these kinds of thoughts can be categorized in what the Buddha called the Hindrances: Sense Desire, Aversion, Restlessness & Worry, Sloth & Torpor, and Doubt. [Read more about the Five Hindrances.]

Being able to identify the nature of our thoughts in these categories hones mindfulness skills. It reminds us that our thoughts are not ‘ours’ but natural byproducts of the universal nature of thinking mind. This depersonalizes our investigation, making it feel safer. Many people avoid this kind of inner exploration because they fear discovering something awful that will make them feel even worse about themselves. These five hindrances are not labels to brand ourselves. To have a slothful thought does not make me a lazy person. To have a lustful thought does not make me a slut. If we understand that the thoughts are not personal and do not define us, then it makes the idea of mindfulness and inner investigation much less scary.


‘The Five Hindrances’ is one of the Buddha’s useful lists found in the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. This one identifies mental obstacles to awakening to the present moment.  Noticing the nature of our thought patterns brings them into the light, creates spaciousness with which we can take wise action in regard to the thought.

For example, since I found that I kept worrying about that short layover, I was able to determine that the wise action was to call the airlines and discuss whether I needed to change one of the flights. Having made the change, that worry has dissolved and therefore has no gravitational pull. I am able to be present in this moment with whatever is happening here and now. Yay! If I didn’t pay attention and had not identified the thought that was causing my discomfort, I would have carried it with me for days.
Sound familiar? Stop, close your eyes, anchor your awareness in physical sensation for a moment, and then notice your thoughts as they pass through your field of awareness. Is there a recurring thought that comes up for you? Maybe it is so powerful it is draws you in and you find yourself caught up in a tangle of story.

Once you have identified the thought that has you in its gravitational pull, ask yourself:
  • Does this thought pull you into the past or the future?
  • If it’s in the past, would you say it is mostly regret or nostalgia? Is there a strong emotional content? Is there anger? Is there shame?
  • If it’s in the future, would you say it’s mostly worry, dread, excitement, restlessness?
  • Notice how the thought feels in your body. Is there tension? Is there an ache in the chest? Does all the energy drain from your body?
  • Notice what associated emotions, memories and images arise. Bring that past experience into your spacious compassionate field of awareness where you can see it clearly. Keep breathing, stay present, be kind. If judgments arise, notice them too. Replenish the field with as much spaciousness and compassion as you can muster. Release all expectations. (If what you come upon is so extremely painful that you don’t feel you can continue on your own, find a skilled therapist who knows how to walk you through the process of this kind of self-investigation.)
  • If you are worried about something, what is a skillful action you can do to address or alleviate your concerns? For example, if you are dreading some overwhelming chore, you might break it down into incremental bits and allot an hour a day to it.
  • Is there a wall you come up against, some lack of information or a sense of self-doubt, for example? Noticing what is needed opens the door to being able to get the information or alleviate the doubt, either by developing the skills necessary, finding someone else who has those skills to help with the task at hand, or confirming that you indeed can do this.
  • If there is nothing in your power to do about it, or it is not your problem to solve but you’re still concerned, you can always send metta, infinite loving-kindness, to the person or situation. Sometimes this is the best we can do, and it is actually quite a lot to do!

To see the nature of thoughts and emotions is the gift of the practice of meditation. More and more we are able to live mindfully. Seeing how these thought patterns fall into the categories the Buddha delineated 2600 years ago certainly depersonalizes them.  When we understand this is a universal experience of being human, it is much less intimidating to face our fears, to see them for what they are, and to use this understanding to further bring mindfulness to our current struggles so that we can alleviate suffering. But remember that to strive to get beyond hindrances is just another hindrance (aversion). Striving is not the way. We do this practice with wise balanced effort. All that is necessary is to have the paired intentions to be present in this moment, anchored in physical sensation, and to be compassionate with ourselves and others when we discover that we (or they) haven’t been present at all.

And why aren’t we present? Because some thought or emotion is holding us in its gravitational orbit, pulling us in like a black hole. Wake up!

You Never Have to Wait Again!

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You never have to wait again? That sounds like an impossible promise, but what if it is possible? Let’s explore.


First, let’s define ‘waiting’.
We might say that waiting is focusing  our attention toward some future moment, thinking that what is to come is the ‘real’ experience and whatever this is in this moment is not worthy of our attention. While waiting people often say they are just ‘killing time.’


But through the practice of mindfulness we find that this moment is always worthy of our attention. Therefore, we never have to wait again.


Can that be true?


A typical situation most of us dislike is waiting in line.
We might experience anger and frustration. We might think, ‘These people aren’t doing their job,’ ‘They aren’t respecting my time,’ or ‘I am now going to be late for such and such and so and so will be upset with me.’ We might debate whether we should stay in line or come back another time. We might give ourselves a hard time for not planning enough time or for choosing the wrong time to come. Even after we have accomplished what we came for and left, the aggravation may lingers on, ‘ruining our whole day’ or at least we continue to think about it and maybe talk about it to others.


So what would make standing in line NOT be waiting?
What if we let go of the idea that our only purpose is to pick up the prescription or buy the groceries or mail the package? What if this is not a placeholder moment but a real deal moment? As we stand in line we can come fully into the moment just as it is without any other purpose but to be here, senses activated. We feel our feet on the floor, supported by the earth, anchored by gravity. We might notice temperature, texture, light and dark, color and pattern, tension in the body, air on the skin, the breath rising and falling. There are so many things going on!


As we access these sensations, we develop a spacious awareness that awakens us. As if captured by an artist on canvas, we experience this moment as complete unto itself, rich with shapes and colors of the clothes draped on the bodies, the faces with all the character and moods exposed in a setting that is full of pattern, light and shadow. If it were in a museum we would be fascinated by this painting.


As we sense into the fullness of this experience our compassion is awakened. We understand that we are all in this together —  in this line and in this life — not in an ‘us against them’ way but in an intrinsic connection of all life. Out of this awakening awareness and compassion, we smile. And just as something shifts within us, something starts to shift within the room. Our eyes meet another’s and a conversation begins. When its our turn at the cashier, we are kind. Here is a person having a stressful day dealing with aggravated people. Great compassion! We each have the capacity within us to frame our experience, to decide whether it is a source of irritation, insight or pleasure.


There are many other kinds of waiting beside standing in line, of course. A pregnant woman could be described as waiting, but is she? In fact, she is very actively providing a nurturing environment for gestation. I remember when I was pregnant having the wonderful sense that I could do absolutely nothing and I was still being the most useful person in the room. There are other kinds of gestation that we might interpret as waiting, but as passive as it may feel, something is happening. Is there anything like that in your experience? I know sometimes when I am writing, I need to take a break, do a little game of Spider Solitaire or unload the dishwasher, anything to empty my mind and let me return to the writing from another angle. Gestating. Not waiting!


There is waiting for news. Maybe about a loved one. Is he or she okay? For this kind of waiting we can send metta, universal loving-kindness: ‘May you be well.’ This is really all we can do about it, and it helps us to settle and come back into the moment. Maybe the news is our own, waiting for results of medical tests. Same thing. ‘May I be well.’ Metta is a powerful activity, aligning ourselves with that quality of infinite loving-kindness, feeling it in ourselves and then sharing it generously with all beings. ‘May all beings be well.’


Maybe we’re waiting for news about something we’ve submitted, such as an application or a manuscript. Someone else is holding our future in their hands. That can be a stressful if we focus on the future, hoping or worrying ‘what if..’. But if we stay in the moment, once we’ve done everything we can do, we don’t need to ‘wait.’ We go on living fully. It can actually be a pleasant feeling to have accomplished having something ‘under submission’ where it is no longer on our plate and we are free to focus on other things. Every time thoughts about that ‘up in the air’ submission arises, we simply send metta. ‘May those in whose hands the decision rests be well. May they be happy. May they be at ease. May they be at peace.’ That’s all we can do, and it’s the best thing we can do.


Some people seem to make a whole life out of waiting: for a settlement, or a true love, or a baby, or the wherewithal to buy a house, move, change jobs, get sober, etc. Whatever it is always seems hopelessly off in the future, but because they believe it will change everything, this life here and now seems pretty shabby compared to that dream. Appreciating this moment just as it is may seem like a betrayal of the dream. We’re told not to take our eye off the prize. But this is the prize: This ability to be fully engaged and aware right now.


Sometimes we’re waiting for the courage to kick in to do something we want to do. Mindfulness enables us to notice the pattern of our thoughts that keep us from proceeding. We can notice:
  • A thought that knocks the stuffing out of us. Every time we think it we want to crawl back under the covers, grab the remote or head for the refrigerator.
  • A gaping hole in our knowledge base that needs to be addressed before we can proceed. Identifying the question and just Googling it is a good step. Maybe it’s a big gap and requires a book or a course. Sometimes it is a gap that can be helped by thinking of who we know that might have the answer or the contact. So often our quandary has to do with believing that we have to do this on our own. It truly does take a village!
  • Erroneous assumptions that keep us circling around again and again, coming to dead ends. Every inner statement can be questioned: Is that true? How do I know that’s true?


If we let go of the idea that we are waiting and instead really pay attention, we gain clarity, compassion and courage.

So next time you find yourself waiting, explore the experience and see for yourself what is true. Maybe you will find you never have to wait again!

It would be great to get your comments or questions on this topic. Click below.

Where Do You Go Mindless?

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Have you ever realized when you arrived somewhere that you don’t remember anything about the ride? Have you ever finished a meal and realized you didn’t taste a single bite? Have you ever blurted out something you wish you could take back?


We all have times when we go mindless and function as if we’re on automatic pilot. As we develop mindfulness through the regular practice of meditation, we begin to see where this happens in our lives and why.


You know how when things go into slow motion actions reveal themselves that you totally missed at normal speed? It’s the same with meditation, especially on a silent retreat when you have no where else to be and nothing else to do but meditate and practice being mindful. In that slow motion state, thoughts are still there but they dance in a more spacious field of awareness. We can see the dance steps, how one thought leads to another by process of association.


We become present enough to see how thoughts arise, one dependent on another. And if we can see what thought stream kicks us into mindlessness, we can look more closely to see where we are falling into habituated patterns that don’t serve us and where we might be avoiding something that makes us uncomfortable.


Some people are terrified of the idea of meditating for that very reason. They don’t WANT to be mindful, because it might reveal something they have very forcefully kept stuffed down. Instead of giving themselves quiet time alone, they fill their lives with as much noise and busyness as they possibly can to stifle whatever it is in there that seems so threatening.


But developing awareness awakens compassion. Meditation is not some boot camp with a tough drill sergeant bent on making us suffer. Just the opposite! It’s a homecoming! A liberation! A savoring of this gift of being alive in this moment. The thing we thought was scary or shameful is not lying in wait to harm us. Instead it is waiting for us to soften the tight chains that bind it to us, and through compassionate dialog to release it and allow the process to teach us.

So, tell me, where do you go mindless?

Mindfulness and the Mirror

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With the moment to moment practice of being fully present, anchored in physical sensation, noticing how thoughts and emotions pass through my experience, I find myself in a much kinder and healthier relationship with my body. I think of the Cat Stevens song ‘Miles to Nowhere’ when he sings, ‘Lord my body has been a good friend. But I won’t need it when I reach the end.’ It’s such a reminder of the impermanence of the body and also gives me a way to be kind to my body. It is indeed a good friend! It affords me to experience this life, all these sensations and interactions that would not be possible otherwise.

But this sense of friendliness to my body has not come easily, as any western woman understands completely. How much of my brain activity has been expended over these many years on the ‘flaws’ and ‘imperfections’? How long did I buy into the idea that to the degree that this body didn’t meet the ideal standard of the current culture, I had failed in some way? And to what degree are those ideas still embedded in my thoughts?

We had a rich discussion in class this week on our relationship to our bodies, and especially about continually coming to terms with the changes that occur as the body is affected by a combination of gravity, time, sun exposure, stress and health care. More and more the mirror belies the person we feel we are. My mother removed all the mirrors in her house except a small one on the back of the bathroom door, and she only used it to make sure nothing was stuck in her teeth. She had sailed for four years and her Anglo-Irish skin was so deeply wrinkled from sun exposure that she couldn’t handle the sight of herself! She was a lively vibrant woman, regardless of her wrinkles, but every time she got a glimpse of that ‘hag’ she was dragged down.

Have you ever had that feeling? You get a glimpse of yourself in a shop window and wonder who that is? Not you! Or have you ever been out in the evening having a wonderful time and then you excuse yourself to go to the lady’s room where the lights are harsh and you return to the party chastened by that cruel sight of yourself in the mirror? As a kindness to each other we should all make sure our bathroom lighting is soft enough to make any guest look as beautiful as she feels inside. Now that’s a good hostess!

The class seemed to be in agreement that the numbers we are awarded on our birthdays seem less and less a fit to our ideas of who we are. But why would a number match? As children the age number was a pretty predictable indicator of size and behavior of a majority of kids. But the bigger the number, the less predictable it is, because so much of how our bodies age has to do with how we treat them. My mother died at 73 of emphysema, the same age her mother died. They both smoked. My mother’s younger sister was convinced she would also die at 73, a family tradition. But she never smoked and she lives on in pretty good health and happier than ever at the age of 88 in a loving relationship with a much younger man.

This week my youngest granddaughters turn three and five, and the number is such a big deal. A friend of mine taught the older one the Barbara Streisand song ‘I’m five, I’m five, I’m a big girl now, I’m five!’ and she was thrilled to be such a big girl. But for us by now the thrill of the number is gone. The older we get the less that number means, and our attachment to it really doesn’t serve us. Let’s celebrate each birthday as the anniversary of our birth, with gratitude for the great gift of life. But let’s let go of the numbers game that is such an inaccurate a reflection of reality.

The practice of mindfulness can help us take care of our bodies in a way that supports health and strength. I’ll never forget when a doctor told me ‘as a kindness to your heart you could lose some weight.’ That was such a wonderful way to put it, and as a result I have lost a pound a month over the past eighteen months without any real effort except remembering to be kinder to my heart.

Being mindful we can notice when we are holding two contrary opinions. One student in class recognized that she was grateful for her body enabling her to experience life but at the same time unhappy with her aging body. Such skillful noticing! What contrary pairings do you notice about your body? Can you hold them up to the light of your awareness with compassion? Not making yourself wrong? Just noticing, and maybe marveling at the complexity of the human mind?

Wisdom from one student’s grandmother: ‘There are only two ages: alive and dead.’

Of course we all die, but our routes to that common destination are very different. My aunt’s belief that she would die at 73 is a good example of how we make assumptions based on what we have observed of other people’s experience. But we will have different experiences because we are in different bodies, and even if we have a similar experience we will experience it in our own unique way. If we’re raging about the unfairness of it, if we’re in denial, if we are doing everything we can to escape from it, we’ll no doubt suffer. But here we are practicing opening to whatever the present moment brings, and who knows? Maybe this practice will serve us well whatever we face in the future.

In the group there was also a collective nostalgia for the young girls we once were. But then there was a recognition that that little girl is still here, still part of who we are, still alive and well. And this reminded me of my recent intention to include all of who I am in everything I do. Leave no part of me out, not that little girl, not that young woman, and not the old woman yet to be. Her wisdom has often guided me at difficult turns, and I certainly don’t intend to deny her now that I see her appearing in the mirror.

When we are fully present, conscious of the fleeting precious gift that is this moment, we are less likely to think that having a ‘perfect’ body is going to make us more lovable. We can see how obsessing about supposed imperfections and spending time and money grasping at youth is a sure way to isolate ourselves. Through mindfulness we activate compassion, both for ourselves and others, creating true loving connection. And much more fun!

Mainstream Media Discovers Meditation

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Wow! Over the past few months the major American media outlets have really started noticing what a huge difference meditation makes in the lives of those who practice it regularly.


In the past months there has been a Time Magazine cover article, a 60 Minutes television segment, then a NBC news story on the difference meditation makes in elementary school classrooms, then a personal story by an ABC newsman Dan Harris, who found Buddhist style meditation works to keep him cool, calm and off drugs. He wrote a book, 10% Happier that will speak to a whole different audience than usually reach. It might make a great gift for more skeptical family or friends. (Though let’s not proselytize! The best way to promote meditation is to simply do it yourself, and let those around you reap the benefits of your calmer, kinder interactions.)  I loved one thing he mentioned in the interview in this link, about giving that busy mind voice in the head a Reaganesque ‘There you go again.’ Now you don’t often hear Reagan references in meditation circles. This means the circle is definitely widening! And more people are considering meditation something they might actually incorporate into their lives.


But the capper for me was this past Sunday when Parade Magazine named meditation the number one thing to do for your health for 2015! Now Parade is a relatively conservative newspaper insert syndicated in most major papers throughout the country. I’ve never known it to embrace anything that isn’t total Americana. It offers up celebrity interviews, seasonal recipes for such things as tailgate parties and 4th of July picnics, and lots of inspirational stories about hometown heroes. Now it embraces meditation. I can only conclude that meditation is finally a truly red, white & blue American activity. Since the act of meditation is a simple activity that needn’t have any dogmatic affiliations, there’s never been a valid reason for it to be scorned.


A couple of the stories focus on the wonderful work of Jon Kabat Zinn in bringing science-based mindfulness practice to hospitals and to the world at large. But a subtle but profound shift has happened because in all the other stories they call it ‘meditation.’ That word that Zinn found so toxic to his colleagues that he substituted ‘mindfulness’ for it is apparently no longer seen as something foreign and threatening. People, this is huge!


Also huge is the fact that most of the stories are not apologizing to readers in advance for giving them this information. Most are straight out reporting in a reasonable and even positive way the many benefits of this simple practice. Dan Harris did say he used to think it was flaky, but since his own experience with it, and the research he did, he now says that meditation is ‘simple, secular and scientifically validated.’


Good enough for me. Think I’ll try it! How about you?


I know fads come and go. No doubt soon meditation’s stardom may dim.  The media that has been offering inspiring meditation articles all along may have ruffled feathers that it’s no longer their private purview and find fault with the mainstream’s reporting. Chances are good that somehow someone will find newsworthy backlash stories, anomalous news to counter the results reported, or ways in which previous reports were overblown. But even so, the practice of meditation is now an accepted part of a normal life, seen as no weirder than going to the gym. It has broken through the resistance, the fears and the foolishness. Meditation can now, without a lot of hullabaloo or rigamarole, provide anyone anywhere with a means to create well being, compassion and understanding.

All we ever needed was for people to be willing to give it an honest try just to see if it’s right for them. Once they try it, like all those reporters, they’ll discover why it’s such a valuable practice, simple as it is.