This is a practice that brings in ease to the mind and body, offering relief from our dukkha while also supporting more mental clarity to see through some of our confusion and aversion.
It can be used for stress, grief, and being overwhelmed. It can also be used to prepare for more concentration and steady mindfulness when the mind or body is a bit stirred up.
After even a few days of insight meditation, we can begin to see clearly that thoughts are only concepts in the present. We can also see the impermanent and ever changing conditional nature of all of our experiences.
Starting with metta practice, then turning it towards what's going well in a good friend's life, and offering them mudita or appreciative joy using the reciting phrases method of practice
Meditation becomes truly freeing in the moments when there is no controlling whatsoever; when nothing is resisted or grasped after. This guided meditation begins with a simple body scan, relaxing and awakening to sensations in the body and then including the play of sound. Then we let go of any doing, and simply notice and allow the changing flow of experience, letting life be just as it is. In this pure allowing presence we become aware of the background silence that is listening. The invitation is to relax and be the awareness that is conscious of all that is unfolding.
Most people get depressed at times, and many suffer greatly from bouts of major depression. At the heart of the suffering is the experience of severed belonging—of being imprisoned in the pain of separation, unworthiness, unlovability and hopelessness. These two talks explore several meditation practices that reconnect us with our natural aliveness, openheartedness and awareness. They empower us to develop our inner resources, energize us to awaken, free us from rumination and remind us that we are not our depressive thoughts and feelings. The growing realization of the loving awareness that is our home heals the very roots of depression.
