We read a lot about the benefits of meditation. But the true test may come in times of trauma. Here’s how meditation transformed a severe fall and a trip to the emergency room into an experience of mindful awareness.
Tag Archive: Meditation Beyond The Cushion
What’s your idea of the perfect Kindness Community?
Some months ago I wrote about starting a Meditation Community. I still think it’s a great idea. There’s a genuine benefit to sharing our practices (whatever they may be), supporting, and motivating one another.
But what I want to share with you at Luminous Heart is so much more than meditation in the way most people think about it, as sitting meditation practice. So the plan for a Meditation Community didn’t quite describe what I want to create.
My primary focus is what I call “meditation beyond the cushion.” How do we bring mindfulness into the creative chaos of life? How do we see our world as a place of kindness, and express our own loving-kindness every day? How do we expand our capacity for love and compassion?
Lately I’ve been hearing the words Kindness Community. I don’t even know what that might be yet, but the words are making a place in my heart.
What do you think of a Kindness Community?
If you could envision the perfect Kindness Community what would it look like? What would you expect to receive? How could it help you bring more loving-kindness, compassion and happiness into your life? What kind of place would it be that you could come to with your own heart full of gifts?
I would so love to hear your thoughts on this. We are in the very early Dreaming stages, nowhere near any kind of form, so I won’t even set up an advance interest list. But I would love to hear your thoughts on the perfect Kindness Community.
Prayer Dance
Photography as Meditation: The Friday Flower returns! Sometimes just photos. Sometimes with writing. Appearing on Fridays.
a new day © 2009 Mahala Mazerov
I’m finishing this first day of the new year as I finished the last day of the old.
Prayer Dance is what it sounds like, spontaneously arising dance for the purpose of healing and blessing. It’s not something I was ever taught, yet I suspect it’s pretty universal in practice.
Sometimes I move in silence. Other times I blast music as loud as I can. I don’t know why it works, but intense sound creates a cocoon rather than overwhelming my circuits.
Much of the music I’ve been playing these two days comes from Yungchen Lhamo, a courageous Tibetan woman with a voice that is beyond imagining. If you ever have an opportunity to hear her in person, you must go. Aside from her astonishing voice, I am absolutely certain she is a Bodhisattva walking among us.
Here is her song, Tara, from her album Ama. About this song she says:
Thematically , it is about Tara, the female Tibetan deity exemplifying feminine dignity, unselfishness, strength and compassion. Redemptress. When I was very young, I thought I wanted to be a man so that I could help more people. But my grandmother and my mother said you don’t have to be a man to help people.
They used to say “You pray to Tara.”
Now I understand what they meant by that.
Turn your speakers up!
Prayer Dance is beyond words. When I sat down to write afterward, here is some of what was in my heart.
Prayers
to love and feel loved
to belong
to know our inseparable connection to all beings
for suffering to lead to compassion until the world is free of suffering
to have blessing in our lives and be the source of blessings for others
to be free of doubts, fear, and ignorance
to trust
to value diversity
to honor our interdependence
to have all that we need
to practice generosity
to know our inner strength
for our love to be received
for the best parts of us to come forward
for happiness, laughter, and time to play
for freedom
for kindness wherever we turn
for stillness
to have enough and to be enough
to have equanimity, free of bias
for discernment
for beauty, meaning, and purpose
for comfort
for magic and dreaming
for healing
for understanding
for grace
for dedication and devotion
to heal the war inside us
for peace to prevail
for Bodhichitta to arise where it has not been born
for Enlightenment
What would you add to this list?
May 2010 be a year of abundant happiness for you, your loved ones, and for all beings. I’m grateful to have you in my life.
Three Conscious Breaths
Best of 2009 Moments of peace. An hour or a day or a week of solitude. What was the quality of your breath? The state of your mind? How did you get there?
© 2009 Mahala Mazerov
Almost every week I hear someone say they’d love to leave everything behind and live a blissful life in some remote monastery.
My mental response is “Oh sweetie. I’m not sure you understand. Are you ready to give up your job, family, cell phone, car, computer, favorite Thai restaurant, and shopping? I’m not sure leaving all your distractions and drama behind to work with your mind 24/7 is going to feel as relaxing as you think.”
Now, if you know me at all you know my love and incredible admiration for people who have committed themselves to monastic lives (or even month-long meditation retreats.) But most of us have not developed the quality of mind to be able to engage in such practices in a way that would lead to clarity and calm.
Fortunately, and maybe even because our minds are so untamed, we don’t need a monastery.
All we need is three conscious breaths.
Just three breaths, in and out. Nothing special. Just three breaths where we know that we’re breathing.
You can easily put these into your day by choosing a specific time or action when you will take them. Washing dishes, brushing your teeth or just after you finish the meal are three possibilities. Other times might be when you get into a car or when you’re in the grocery checkout line.
These are just ordinary breaths. You can do them in public and no one will know the difference.
I love these breaths. They have a restorative quality.
Quiet mind. A warm, full sense of well-being. Space.
For one tiny moment I imagine how lovely it would be, working continually with my breath in a mountain top monastery.
Then the fantasy bubble bursts. I return to my day, but at least with a greater sense of embodied peace.
The Dalai Lama on Waking Up:
Getting Out of Bed on the Way to Enlightenment
Photography as Meditation: The Friday Flower. Sometimes just photos. Sometimes with writing. Appearing on Fridays.
© 2009 Mahala Mazerov
How we start our morning influences our entire day.
Some of the fortunate, disciplined and/or devoted among us manage to start with meditation, yoga or some small ritual to ground the day in mindful awareness.
But most of us simply hope to take care of the needs of children, partners and pets with a minimum of stress, not gulp down breakfast and be organized enough to rush out the door without leaving anything behind. Even if we’re single or work at home, we spin our way into the chaos of the day far too rapidly.
From my experience, the influence of the day begins in our firsts fluttering moments between sleep and waking. When the alarm clock goes off, with one foot still in dream land and the other slipping out of bed to touch the floor, we’re in a supremely subtle and impressionable state.
This is a precious opportunity to infuse our day with love and awareness. A moment that can easily be lost or destroyed.
When I was an undergraduate in college, the first weeks of my freshman year were punctuated with violent nightmares just as I was waking up.
One morning I woke before my clock radio alarm and discovered I was waking, not to music, but to the local crime news report. In those moments before I was fully conscious I was hearing about beatings, break-ins and other crimes. I changed the station, as well as the time the radio played to ensure that I heard music and not reporting.
The nightmares ended instantly.
I’ve never forgotten how actively my mind is engaged, whether I’m aware of it or not.
Now my morning wake up is another way to bring meditation into my day, much like the prayers I regularly bring to mind. My clock plays dvd music as the wake-up alarm. I wake to music and familiar prayers in Tibetan.
…and I bring to mind these words by the Dalai Lama:
A Precious Human Life
“Every day, think as you wake up,
Today I am fortunate to have woken up,
I am alive, I have a precious human life,
I am not going to waste it
I am going to use
All my energies to develop myself.
To expand my heart out to others,
To achieve enlightenment for
The benefit of all beings,
I am going to have kind
Thoughts towards others,
I am not going to get angry,
Or think badly about others,
I am going to benefit others
As much as I can.”
How do you wake up on your way to enlightenment?
A Brief & Beautiful Prayer
Photography as Meditation: The Friday Flower. Sometimes just photos. Sometimes with writing. Appearing on Fridays.
blush of compassion. © 2009 Mahala Mazerov
One of the themes you’ll hear me talk about on a regular basis at Luminous Heart is the concept of meditation beyond the cushion. By that I mean more than bringing the fruits of practice into life, and even more than trying to bring mindful awareness into our activities.
For most of us life is moving too fast. Our meditation practices (if we have them) are not established enough to be in the palm of our hands or at the top of our mental response when we most need them.
So when I talk about meditation beyond the cushion I’m referring to ways to continually train your mind in love, compassion and awareness as you move through your day.
One of my favorite practices is a brief and beautiful prayer called The Four Immeasurables. It comes from the Buddhist tradition, but the qualities it exalts are universal. Anyone, of any spiritual practice can recite this prayer:
- May all mother sentient beings boundless as the sky have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May they be free of suffering and the causes of suffering.
May they never be separated from the happiness which has no sorrow.
May they rest in equanimity free from attachment and aversion.
The wish that all beings have happiness is love. The wish that all be free of suffering is compassion. Happiness which has no sorrow is joy. Freedom from bias, attachment and aversion is equanimity.
The Four Immeasurables are traditionally recited three times during meditation sessions, but I love taking them beyond the meditation cushion. I like having something memorized. I recite them when I’m waiting for something or someone, when my mind is chattering or when I’m ungrounded. In truly challenging moments, when I want to reach for some kind of spiritual support, The Four Immeasurables are right there for me.
There’s actually much more meaning than you would imagine condensed in these four lines, but I will leave a detailed exploration for another time.
I believe simply repeating the prayer (silently or out loud) will take you where you want to go, opening your heart and developing the qualities of love, compassion, joy and equanimity for yourself and others.
Recite the prayer for yourself, and let me know how it feels. I’d also like to know the prayers you take beyond the meditation cushion. (Even if you never actually sit and meditate.)
Your Turn To Ask, A Meditation Survey
First, let me offer profuse thanks to everyone who responded to my Help Wanted prayer request.
It was a huge leap for me to publish it out loud, all the more because I thought I was just tapping the universe on the shoulder. I never in a million years expected anyone to step up and say “I will help you with this.”
Whether you offered specifics or just cheered me on via email or here on the blog, I want you to know how much your responses made my heart soar.
Having said that, let this be your turn to ask. PLEASE tell me what you want or need to learn about meditation. Let me know how I and LuminousHeart.com can serve your heart’s desire for a life of loving-kindness, compassion and clarity.
I’ve set up a simple survey, 4 questions, all of them optional, plus space to add your own thoughts.
Click Here to take the meditation survey. It’s short and sweet, and I promise to listen.
FYI, your name will not be added to any mailing list if you take this survey. You’ll have the option to join my list at the end, but it’s completely voluntary. I just want to hear from readers and people interested in meditation how I can best serve you.
Meditation Beyond the Cushion
Without thinking about it, form a picture in your mind of You. Meditating.
Where are you? What does your meditation look like? Are you sitting on a cushion? Doing walking meditation? Gazing into a cloudless blue sky?
While I don’t know exactly what you’ve envisioned, I think I can safely assume you didn’t picture yourself dragging bags through a crowded airport when all flights have been canceled, sitting with a breaking heart as you watch the evening news, or watching a child (and a parent!) have an emotional meltdown in the grocery store.
I doubt you imagined yourself struggling with exhaustion, having a huge argument with someone you care about, or sitting with a friend who is grieving.
Let me tell you, these are exactly what my meditation practice looks like. These are the moments I need to bring the heart mind “tools” of awareness front and center. They’re the moments when love, compassion and awareness can truly bring benefit.
Can I be on the spot with an open heart?
In these moments I come face to face with the naked truth of practice.
Maybe I will catch a happy glimpse of fruition, “Ah, I handled that a little better than I would have in the past.” Just as often I will see my lack of skillful means, the button that got pushed again. Both provide their own motivation for continuing to meditate.
Meditation is a dynamic process of cultivating heart and mind while actively engaged with the world. Sometimes it will look like sitting on a cushion, but just as often it will be called forth in response to daily life.
I call that meditation beyond the cushion.
