Journal

Buddhist teachings tell of a mental maneuvering called dukkha dukkha, which means suffering caused by suffering. It is when we identify personally with a difficult or unpleasant inner experience, and strain to manipulate it through our thoughts, making it last longer and occupy more head/heart/body-space than need be. In this meditation, we will practice dissociating from the added layer of personal identification, and see our inner world to be what it is, an ever-changing space of instances.

Settle into gently guided meditation to explore our relationship with contents of consciousness. First we relax our body to the pulse of the breath. Then when our impulses begin to settle, we investigate our perspective on what arises in the thinking mind and feeling body. Does it feel like yours? Or are you simply aware that it is?

Settle into gently guided meditation to explore our relationship with contents of consciousness. First we relax our body to the pulse of the breath. Then when our impulses begin to settle, we investigate our perspective on what arises in the thinking mind and feeling body. Does it feel like yours? Or are you simply aware that it is?

Are you trying to catch up with your life; responsibilities, creative projects, relationships? It's hard to exist in the present moment when we feel out of step with it. But in meditation, we create space and time to zoom into our life as it is right now, to catch up with what is really going on, effortlessly. When our energy is not bound to task-oriented efforts, we can see with a wider perspective, and re-engage with our lives mindfully.

The field of consciousness contains everything we experience; it is an open realm with no natural boundaries. However, from our typical viewpoint, we compartmentalize it through what we dwell on, cling to, and ignore. In meditation, we often work to quieten the mind by concentrating our attention on a specific thing or process. But in today's meditation, we will open our attention to the wholeness of the field, and expand the boundaries of our attention beyond what is most salient, to the underlying glimmer of undivided experience.

Whenever a limiting belief arises in our mind (a judgement, a story...) a reflection of it shows up in our body. Limiting beliefs close the window on possibilities and personal or interpersonal growth. Sometimes they cause a stress response (flight, fight, or freeze), and sometimes they arise because we are under stressful conditions already. In today's meditation, we work with a universal mantra so-ham to help us see beyond limiting beliefs. The mantra so-ham translates from Sanskrit s "I am that", which reminds us that it is possible to know ourselves instead in a vaster sense of the greater whole.

Especially in difficult times, our mind readily builds walls to keep out what feels unwelcome, and protect what we rely on. These limiting beliefs narrow our viewpoint; they can be judgements, opinions, or even stories that frame our experience in a particular way. In this meditation, we begin to recognize the appearance of these limiting beliefs in our mind and body, and notice how the energy of holding a liming belief draws us away from the present moment.