We know we need to let go of harmful habits like obsessive worry, blame and over consuming to experience true well-being, yet much of the time we are stuck and judge ourselves for being out of control. This talk explores what’s so difficult about letting go and how we can’t will it but we can be willing. We then explore the shift to awake awareness that enables a natural dissolution of clinging and resistance, and the deep peace and freedom of letting be.
After a review of the nature of the judgmental mind and the inner practices to transform it, we begin to work with how to practice with judgments in the context of interaction and communication. We start with looking at views and our attachment to views, offering three practices for the next week.
As we commit to our meditation practice, we can see patterns that are helpful to understand and use to deepen our experience. This is an important part of the training and can give us confidence in the practice and our experience.
Our lives are shaped by our evolutionary past - the fears and wants that arise from a separate self sense - and the pull of our evolutionary potential - our awakened heart and mind. This talk explores the power of these pulls, and the teachings and reflections that make us most available and responsive to the calling of our future self.
Contentment and relaxation are supportive conditions for the development of samadhi. Transforming our relationship to the breath allows us to deepen the connection.
Mary Oliver wrote: "Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too was a gift." When life brings us unwanted suffering it's sometimes possible to use the experience to deepen our wisdom and compassion, what has been called "grace disguised as obstacles."
Our lives are shaped by our evolutionary past - the fears and wants that arise from a separate self sense - and the pull of our evolutionary potential - our awakened heart and mind. This talk explores the power of these pulls, and the teachings and reflections that make us most available and responsive to the calling of our future self.
