How do we meditate on compassion for politicians when we’re completely fed up with politics as usual, or when our preferred party doesn’t seem to be getting it right (or maybe our least preferred party seems to be getting it “wrong!”) Try these four steps:
This week's Meditation Tip of the Week will be preempted with a special announcement: It's radio interview time!! In the spirit of helping others to help others to help themselves, I'd like to encourage you all to listen in to the live radio interview that will be happening on Monday, August 6th, at 9pm EST. If you can't listen to the live broadcast, please feel free to listen to the archived interview, it's sure to be an entertaining evening. RN.FM Radio is the brainchild of Keith Carlson and Kevin Ross, two nurse-entrepreneurs, who are working to empower nurses to speak [...]
What Stops You in Your Tracks? I've always been a sucker for guitar solos, especially ones that invoke a strong emotion of sadness or intensity. For me, when the message of the music hits the heart of the lyrics, it brings me to a state of stillness or reflection...similar to meditation. When I think of something that can stop me in my tracks, something that causes me to catch a glimpse of something beyond myself, music stands out clearly in my mind. What about you? James Joyce used the phrase of "aesthetic arrest" to describe a state where [...]
Meditation is the practice or the art of non-distraction and compassion (in meditation) is the art of being compassionate for ourselves when we are distracted.
(Photo courtesy of Audrey Nadia Rubenstein) At first I felt as though my heart had been ripped open. Then my mind went into a state of disbelief and confusion. I felt a sort of numbness and despair. Finally, my heart and mind came to rest in a state of meditation and compassion… and I didn’t even know her. I just learned of the suicide of a brilliant young woman, Sharoni Stern Siegel, a local artist who was beloved by those who knew her and had shared in her art and her passion for life. Her Facebook page has [...]
In the past two weeks, we've talked a lot about meditation and compassion, and how the meditative mind opens up the heart of compassion. This week we'll continue on this topic by reflecting on a comment made by Sogyal Rinpoche, meditation master and author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. In a teaching that Sogyal Rinpoche presented on July 6, 1999, at the retreat center in Lerab Ling, France, he stated that, "...without an open heart, the practice of your mind [meditation] won't work...The true nature of your mind is wisdom and compassion..." I had to think about [...]
In last week's post, Meditation and Compassion, Part I: The Man in the Mirror, we discussed the need to examine ourselves and the nature of who we call the "self" as a means to entering into an understanding of the relationship between meditation and compassion. This week we'll continue with that theme and "get real" with ourselves as a means to engaging in our most compassionate nature. What does "getting real" mean to you? Does it mean getting honest? I know that sometimes when someone says "get real," I think of honesty...to the point of being "brutally" honest. But, what [...]
Looking at oneself honestly is about having compassion for who we are. Meditation is also about having compassion for who we are.
Cultural anthropologist and writer Margaret Meade once wrote the oft-quoted line, "Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has." When we meditate on compassion and on how we, in our smallness, can make a difference in the world, let's embrace Meade's view of what a "small group of committed people..." can do to change our world. When we begin to practice meditation, we can find ourselves caught up in our claustrophobic sense of self, lacking compassion for ourselves as well as for others. [...]
HOW DOES COMPASSION HELP YOU TO MEDITATE? Good question... Let's start this post with the wisdom of a wonderful writer, James Finley. I've used this quote in other posts and keep coming back to it because...it's so good! Our feelings of impatience and frustration with ourselves in meditation are certainly understandable, especially when they persist in spite of our best efforts to overcome them. But as we sit in meditation we can begin to recognize the subtle violence inherent in our impatience with ourselves. As our awareness and understanding of our limitations in meditation continue to deepen, we begin to [...]