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: mindfulness
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.
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?
