I’m excited to share several deeply fulfilling opportunities for inner growth that I have experienced over the past few months.
Category: Dharma Life Page 2 of 6
In class last week I was reminded of a simple, beautiful teaching I learned when I first started practicing Buddhist meditation and that I’ve never forgotten.
It’s that a skillful aspiration is not to learn everything or to know everything but to remain open as the soil to the rain. If the soil is hardened, the rain runs right off. But if the soil is loose and friable, the rain can soak right in.
Six months later, I’m still thinking about something a sangha member said in class early one morning.
Another sangha member had invited people to offer healing suggestions relative to a particular problem she was struggling with. My contribution was to recommend Metta meditation, in which we offer lovingkindness to ourselves and others, and ultimately to all beings without reservation, which can be tremendously healing for all.
Would you name curiosity as an essential ingredient of the spiritual life? It surely is if you’re on the Buddhist path.
The concept of making space in our heart is a favorite approach I learned as a beginning meditator that I have employed ever since to wonderfully positive effect.
As I sat on a cushion in beginner’s class trying to get the hang of meditating, the teacher shared a visualization to help us calm our minds. Imagine the surface of a lake, she suggested. It might be rough right now, but as our mind calms, it can become as smooth as a mirror.
As I started on my walk last Sunday, it hit me: This is a miracle! All of it! The sky, the trees, the light, the squirrels, the chilly air.
I took notes.