Charlotte Center For Mindfulness // Podcasts

“Don’t meditate to fix yourself, to heal yourself, to improve yourself, to redeem yourself; rather, do it as an act of love, of deep warm friendship to yourself. In this way there is no longer any need for the subtle aggression of self-improvement, for the endless guilt of not doing enough. It offers the possibility of an end to the ceaseless round of trying so hard that wraps so many people’s lives in a knot. Instead there is now meditation as an act of love. How endlessly delightful and encouraging.” Bob Sharples, from Meditation: Calming the Mind Dipa Ma, the beloved teacher of Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield and others summed this very simply: “Meditation is love.” How do we embody this in our practice now?   Please note: no talk this week.

I took five weeks away from CCM for “family need.” What I quickly learned was that I needed the time out of my usual pace of life just as much as anyone in my family. Today’s sharing is reflections on what time and space can open.

There is a normal ebb and flow in all parts of life, including our meditation practice. We can learn to move with the naturalness of opening and closing by allowing body, breath, and senses to be a home anchor as needed.

This talk explores the Buddhist concept of citta and draws heavily from the beautiful talk available on Dharmaseed, Making a Suitable Home for the Heart, by Chas DiCapua.

This meditation uses a phrase for practice from Thich Nhat Hanh: May I have compassion and understanding for myself just as I am.

In this sharing, we explore one of the poems from the beautiful book, The First Free Women: Original Poems Inspired by the Early Buddhist Nuns, by Matty Weingast. When used as practice for examining our own relationship with our mind, life and practice, these poems are powerful possibilities for insight. This sharing involves an inquiry practice with the poem: Victor: When everyone else was meditating, I’d be outside circling in the hall. Finally I went to confess. I’m hopeless, I said. The elder nun smiled. Just keep going, she said. Nothing stays in orbit forever. If this circling is all you have, why not make this circling your home? I did as she told me, and went on circling in the hall. If you find yourself partly in and partly out – if you find yourself drawn to this Path and also drawing away – I can assure you, you’re in good company. Just keep going. Sometimes the most direct path isn’t a straight line.

This meditation includes the poem Victor, from the beautiful book, The First Free Women: Original Poems Inspired by the Early Buddhist Nuns, by Matty Weingast: Victor: When everyone else was meditating, I’d be outside circling in the hall. Finally I went to confess. I’m hopeless, I said. The elder nun smiled. Just keep going, she said. Nothing stays in orbit forever. If this circling is all you have, why not make this circling your home? I did as she told me, and went on circling in the hall. If you find yourself partly in and partly out – if you find yourself drawn to this Path and also drawing away – I can assure you, you’re in good company. Just keep going. Sometimes the most direct path isn’t a straight line.

How mosquitos move through a raindrop is a powerful metaphor for the attunement of mindfulness. The Mosquito Among the Raindrops byTeddy Macker The mosquito among the raindrops… It’s equivalent to getting hit, says the scientist, by a falling school bus. And hit every 20 seconds. And the mosquito lives. In fact she doesn’t even try to avoid the drops. No zigzagging, no ducking. No hiding under the eaves. How does she do it? No resistance to the force. She hitches a ride on the blow, a stowaway on that which brings her down. She becomes “one with the drop,” knowing that to fly again she must fall.

“Don’t meditate to fix yourself, to heal yourself, to improve yourself, to redeem yourself; rather, do it as an act of love, of deep warm friendship to yourself. In this way there is no longer any need for the subtle aggression of self-improvement, for the endless guilt of not doing enough. It offers the possibility of an end to the ceaseless round of trying so hard that wraps so many people’s lives in a knot. Instead there is now meditation as an act of love. How endlessly delightful and encouraging.” Bob Sharples, from Meditation: Calming the Mind

Noticing how the mind can confuse a stick for a copperhead can teach much about three basic truths of reality as named by Buddhist psychology.

This is a meditation in using noting practice, skillfully to acknowledge validate and return home again as needed.

When we don’t pause long enough to really know what’s here, the mind will fill in the holes with its own information from its stores– and it often does this with the worst case scenario, or in a way that covers up what we might not want to see… So this is one more reason that practicing moment to moment mindfulness with what’s here is so important in our lives.

This practice explores how noting helps us get more clear as to what’s really here. What one takes in by contemplation, one pours out in love. –Meister Eckhart   The Way It Is, Lynn Ungar One morning you might wake up to realize that the knot in your stomach had loosened itself and slipped away, and that the pit of unfulfilled longing in your heart had gradually, and without your really noticing, been filled in—patched like a pothole, not quite the same as it was, but good enough. And in that moment it might occur to you that your life, though not the way you planned it, and maybe not even entirely the way you wanted it, is nonetheless— persistently, abundantly, miraculously— exactly the way it is.

Once there was a wise old sage, and people would travel a long ways to receive his teachings. He always taught one thing, a mantra to say to everything in life: Thank you, I am grateful for everything. One time a man received this teaching and said it with everything for a year. At the end of the year, he was still irritable, impatient, frustrated and tired. So he traveled back to the wise old sage, shared his story and asked what to do now. The sage said, “Thank you, I am grateful for everything.” The man almost broke down in frustration and then suddenly laughed, saying, “thank you I am grateful for everything,” and left free. What changed? How do you make sense of the shift that happened for this man? Understanding the essence of this shift is how we open in the direction of the true authentic healing of mindfulness.

How we meet the moment of waking back up, makes all the difference in our practice. This city meditation is an opportunity to deeply explore that moment of re-awakening.

Today we continue to look at how re-anchoring in moment to moment awareness is a powerful practice in finding a better way to navigate any day. This talk draws from Tara Brach’s practice of Four Remembrances: Pausing, Yes to Life, Turning toward love, and Resting in Awareness.

This meditation draws from Tara Brach, teaching on four remembrances for practice: Pausing, saying yes to life, turning towards love, resting in awareness. What It Is It is nonsense says reason It is what it is says love It is calamity says calculation It is nothing but pain says fear It is hopeless says insight It is what it is says love It is ludicrous says pride It is foolish says caution It is impossible says experience It is what it is says love Erich Fried

This talk explores how bringing moment to moment mindfulness into daily life has nothing to do with “being good!” and everything instead to do with “being sane”.

in this practice, we explore opening to the wholeness of what’s here, the gratitude and release as well as the contracted and reactionary.

We were grateful this week to have David Viafora and Jessie Raye from Greatwoods Zen Retreat Center guest lead again this week. Unfortunately we were not able to record their first visit, but this week’s sharing works fine as a stand alone. They shared from Thich Nhat Hanh’s teaching called the Seven Mantras of Love. These are: Darling, I am here for you. Darling, I know you are there and it makes me happy. Darling, I know you suffer. Darling, I suffer, please help. This is a Happy Moment. Darling, you are partly right. Darling, how may I best love you? Here is also a link to Thich Nhat Hanh sharing about six of these: https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/the-six-mantras Jessie’s poem can be found here: When You Are Old Enough (Meditation: 00:00-25.15, Talk 25.20-End)

How a brutal motorcycle trail race teaches us all about being alive and using our practice to wake up.

This meditation again draws from the Somatics work of Amanda Blake and Embright Organization, and is offers a strong way to use the body as a rooting anchor of support.  

Today’s sharing on safety is an inquiry practice into the qualities that make a friendship a safe place and how these qualities are manifesting, or not, in our mindfulness practice. Note: One quality named was “perspective”. It needs to be acknowledged that a friend offering a larger perspective on an issue can be either helpful or unhelpful— depending on how it is offered…

Opening up to the shared physical nature of our being is an avenue for contemplative experience of safety, connection, and respect.

This time we look at a reliable sense of safety more through the lens of neuroscience/modern psychology as well as introduce the Buddhist practice of lovingkindness– which was originally taught as an antidote to fear.   Discourse on Good Will From teachings of the Buddha, complied by Jack Kornfield May all beings be filled with joy and peace. May all beings everywhere, The strong and the weak, The great and the small, The short and the long, The subtle and the gross: May all beings everywhere, Seen and unseen, Dwelling far off or nearby, Being or waiting to become: May all be filled with lasting joy. Let no one deceive another, Let no one anywhere despise another, Let no one out of anger or resentment Wish suffering on anyone at all. Just as a mother with her own life Protects her child, her only child, from harm, So within yourself let grow So a boundless love for all creatures. Let your love flow outward through the universe, To its height, it’s depth, it’s broad extent, A limitless love, without hatred or enmity. Then, as you stand or walk, Sit or lie down, As long as you are awake, Strive for this with a one-pointed mind; Your life will bring heaven to earth.

How do we learn to meet ourselves, just as we are, in a way that provides an internal sense of safety? Erich Fried, translated by: ANNA KALLIO It is nonsense says reason It is what it is says love It is calamity says calculation It is nothing but pain says fear It is hopeless says insight It is what it is says love It is ludicrous says pride It is foolish says caution It is impossible says experience It is what it is says love

We look again at the necessary nourishment of an internal sense of safety that is not dependent upon having things be the way we want them to be– this time primarily from a spiritual standpoint, drawing from leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Dalai Lama, and the writings of Etty Hillesum.   Please note: Bad audio distortion from 13:49-14:10.

This meditation draws heavily from Amanda Blake of Embright Organization and the field of somatics. Much as we would know we can rely on the support of a strong mature tree, this mediation uses the imagery of learning how to lean back and rest upon the tree of our spine.

We come back again to safety, connection and respect this week– this time with inquiry questions to consider these qualities for yourself. Consider a time in your life where you know something about these 3 qualities, some place with a palpable sense of these qualities. What is that felt sense of being met in this way for you? How do these come up in your practice? How are you practicing safety, connection and respect with your own self? How might you cultivate each of these more?   First Lesson- By Philip Booth Lie back, daughter, let your head be tipped back in the cup of my hand. Gently, and I will hold you. Spread your arms wide, lie out on the stream and look high at the gulls. A dead- man’s-float is face down. You will dive and swim soon enough where this tidewater ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe me, when you tire on the long thrash to your island, lie up, and survive. As you float now, where I held you and let go, remember when fear cramps your heart what I told you: lie gently and wide to the light-year stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.

Again, drawing from the field of Somatics’ understanding that an inner sense of safety, connection and respect are foundational for our well-being, we use the body as a focus in cultivating these qualities within ourselves.

Just as sunlight, water and soil are basic nutrients for plant life well-being, safety, connection and respect are basic nutrients for our own human well-being. In this sharing we explore how we might offer this kind of nourishment towards our own selves in order to be more available for meeting these needs in our world.

This meditation considers how opening in the direction of safety, connection and respect is useful in our formal practice.

This week we explore inquiries around the challenges that arise in practice and what skillful ways we might be learning to work with them.

Your hand opens and closes, and opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings. -Rumi

Chenoos are Native American mythological angry monsters. Looking at a Chenoo story from Joseph Bruchac is a beautiful lesson in how we might use mindfulness to meet both our anger and fear.

From the Tao Te Ching, translated by Ursula LeGuin: …Hard and easy complete each other long and short shape each other high and low depend on each other note invoice make the music together before and after follow each other… The things of this world exist, they are; you can’t refuse them.

Today was an opportunity for an inquiry exercise to explore the intersection of mindfulness practice, spirituality and prayer. This includes how Thich Nhat Hanh’s poem, Call Me By My True Name, might be considered as a prayer.

Today’s sitting practice includes a body scan Informed deeply by wisdom and kindness for what’s here.

We continue our exploration“connection with spirit,” which Polyvagal Theory names of as one of the 4 foundational connections needed for human well-being. Today we look at this through the lens of prayer. Where might these words, prayer, devotion, sacred get hung up for you? Where might they be useful in pointing to an aspect of mindfulness practice worthy of your cultivation? How might you invite this into your practice? Helpful Resource: Thich Nhat Hanh, The Energy of Prayer

This practice is about greeting what is here, not trying to force ourselves into what we think should be here instead. What does that look like for you?

Drawing from Suleika Jaouad, Jon Batiste and Rumi, we look at how we can be wise and compassionate with the challenges that arise.

Bringing curiosity to whatever happens: Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace. -Frederick Buechner

Drawing from a sharing from Byron Katie about doing the dishes, we look at learning to love whatever we need “to do.” We can use this to skillfully navigate the joys, the sorrows, the challenges and the mundane in a way that life becomes a practice of care.

This is an opportunity to practice being receptive to your own being. Koshin Paley Ellison: Being receptive is essentially being open to learning from everything. Some people hear this and are frightened. Others hear it and are excited … But true receptivity is a lot harder than it seems. And yet, if you can stay open to the lessons that are the most difficult to grasp, you can learn to swim, not drown, in the ocean of life.  

This sharing draws from Sheryl Chard’s practice, Constellation of Belonging, from grateful.org You belong. Everywhere. Yes, you—with all your history, anxiety, pain. Yes, everywhere—in every culture, community and circumstance, you belong in this body. You belong in this very moment. You belong in this breath…and in this one. You have always belonged. -Sebene Selassie That we belong is a given fact. -Br David Steindl-Rast If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. -Carl Sagan Independence is a political term, not a scientific one. -Evolutionary Biologist, Lynn Margolis

In this sit, we open to exploring all of what’s here in this moment, not just the often very small story of “who we are vs who should be…”

This session explores how a meditation on a “triggering” children’s movie helped me see how the compassion in the term “compassion fatigue” is probably not compassion at all…     Please note: slight distortion from 00:00-03:00 and briefly around 15:00

We can learn to use a practice of skillful pendulation in our sitting practice, and in the whole our life as a means of grounding with challenge. This is a practice of flowing with a natural movement of coming and going, contraction and release, breathing in and breathing out, tides moving in and out, day moving to night and back to day, movement of seasons, and the up and down of bird wings. Rumi, translator-Coleman Banks The Essential Rumi: Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as bird wings.

This sharing explores the congruency between refuge in the Dharma and modern behavioral medicine, particularly drawing from Judson Brewer’s gears model for habit change. If you want more information on Judson Brewer, please see this Ted Talk.

Revisiting the poem, “What It Is“ is an opportunity to explore even deeper opening into what is here with compassion and wisdom.