meditation | Luminous Heart

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.

It’s so strange to reconcile all the changes we go through in our lives. How easy it is to forget about pain, until suddenly we (or someone we love) are engulfed in hardship.

My meditation practice is filled with wishes of “May You Be Happy.” And that is what I want for everyone, happiness in all it’s forms. But, speaking from personal experience, my life became more clear and more powerful through my pain. I want to give voice to the potential that lies within those experiences.

We don’t have the ability to control our circumstances in any given moment. But we always have choices in how we respond.

We get to choose who we are and who we become.

Maybe we have to make that choice more than once. Maybe we have to keep re-inventing ourselves, especially when life turns upside down.

What do we do when we don’t know who we are? Or when we can’t be who and what we want to be? How do we find security in the middle of loss or change or lack of control?

Meditation, specifically heart meditation on love and compassion, became my lifeline through my darkest days. It helped me stay in contact with daily reality. At the same time, it showed me something much bigger. Pure love, the ground of our being.

When you hear the word meditation, you may have some kind of image in your head. But I’m talking about more than sitting on a cushion. Meditation is continual process of greeting mind and heart. It may mean sitting. Just as often it includes engaging awareness “on the spot” throughout the day.

I understand suffering. Right now your wish may be as direct as freedom from fear, grief, or anger. You may need a break, the blessing of one single moment of ease. You may feel the most you can hope for is less stress and a little peace of mind.

Meditation will help you find a quality of spaciousness you didn’t know you possessed. Space to rest and heal, clarity to face what is real for you, compassion for yourself and for others.

Meditation provides a vehicle, a chariot, for transformation. You can hope for more than stress-relief. Make room to shift beyond self-grasping to discovering comfort in the world. Make room to become who you are inside, regardless of outer circumstances. Believe, for just a moment, you can develop a heartfelt connection with all beings

Loving-kindness meditation is a good place to start. Begin by developing genuine, unconditional love for yourself and expand it in every widening circles.

In time, something unexpected and almost magical will happen. As your capacity for compassion deepens, you’ll begin to experience a quality of love beyond anything you’ve ever known. You’ll catch a glimpse of what it must be like to have the heart and mind of a great leader or spiritual master.

Your clear mind, your unobstructed heart is not different from these great Teachers.

You, we (!) can become a source of blessings in these times.

Tag Archive: meditation

Meditation Beyond the Cushion

Who We Become