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In this issue we bring you an exclusive article, as well as news of the
events running in November. We hope you can join us on one of them!
1. Waking
Up: Stepping From Delusion to Freedom in This Very Life
Nov 1–Dec 31
The whole point of Buddhist practice is to bring about freedom from
suffering. But while can free ourselves from some of our suffering by
becoming more ethical, more mindful, and more compassionate, “becoming
a better person” isn’t enough. In order to bring about complete freedom
from suffering we have to radically change the way we see ourselves and
our world.
This change comes about by developing insight. In this two-month online
course we'll explore a variety of approaches to insight meditation, and
come to appreciate how all Buddhist practice, including ethics and the
practice of kindness and compassion, is part of the path of cultivating
insight.
Join us to
change the way you see yourself and the world!
2. How to
Stop Beating Yourself Up: Learning the Art of Self-Compassion
Nov 1–28
We all long for someone who will love us unconditionally. But what if
that person is us?
Self-compassion is the radically healing practice of treating ourselves
with the kindness, respect, and gentleness that we would ideally offer
to those we love. Most us us have the habit of being hard on ourselves,
but research shows that self-compassion promotes emotional well-being,
reduces our risk of anxiety and depression, supports healthy habits,
and leads to more satisfying personal relationships.
This 28-day online meditation course teaches the four skills of
self-compassion — mindful awareness, acceptance, self-kindness, and
compassionate perspectives — so that we can learn to give ourselves
unconditional support, love, and encouragement as we do this difficult
thing of being human.
Sign up now to
learn this radically healing practice!
3. Living
With Kindness: Lovingkindness Practices for Awakening the Heart
Nov 1–28
"My religion is kindness." The Dalai Lama.
One of the most astonishing things is that we can train ourselves to
become kinder — to become more accepting of ourselves, deepen our
appreciation of and care for our friends, become kinder and more
patient with relative strangers, and learn to let go of resentment and
negativity.
By learning the powerful and effective techniques for developing
kindness that we introduce on this course, you'll learn how to
transform your relationships, bringing greater empathy into daily life.
This event is suitable for people of all levels of experience,
including complete beginners.
Join us to
learn the power of kindness!
Finding
Meditation’s Intrinsic Rewards
The mind is pulled
in two different directions in meditation.
Peace, calm, and
joy are the intrinsic rewards that meditation offers, and in
theory that reward system should help keep you anchored in your direct,
moment-by-moment experience. That can happen, and in fact that’s a good
description of the experience of jhana (dhyana in Sanskrit). Jhana is a
state of “flow” in which meditation becomes effortless because the
rewards of joy, pleasure, and calmness keep you immersed in your
present-moment experience. The rewards of meditation can pull you into
your practice. That’s the first pull.
But it’s not always easy
to experience those rewards. There’s another pull, which we’re all too
familiar with: the pull of our distractions. We’ve evolved to have minds
that are constantly searching around looking for things that are wrong.
Our ancestors’ survival (and thus our present-day existence) depended
on a heightened awareness of anything that might threaten our chances
of continuing to exist. And although our lives are pretty safe compared
to the days when you had perhaps a one in three chance of dying
violently, those circuits are still active.
So your ability to become
absorbed in calmness and joy is hampered by the mind obsessing about
some future event you’re anxious about, or a careless word from a
friend that hurt your feelings, or some pleasant experience you hope
will happen.
The parts of your brain
that are responsible for those patterns of thought have been around for
a long time and have had a lot of practice in getting your attention.
They’re deeply wired into the rest of the brain and have the ability to
hijack the brain's “higher” centers, which are more recently evolved.
And so the powers of
distraction are strong. You can let go of a distracted train of thought
and return to your sensory awareness of your moment-by-moment
experience, only to find you’ve become distracted again, long before
you had a chance to get to the “rewards” of peace, calmness, of
joy.
Two approaches I’ve found
are useful for helping break out of this dynamic are these:
1. Really
appreciate the experience of the breathing.
There is a shift in the
quality of your experience when you disengage from a distraction. The
shift may be slight, but it happens. It's there. There’s just a little
more calm, a little less tension.
Practice noticing those shifts. Really appreciate them. Allow yourself
to feel that you’re coming home as you return to the breathing. You can
even say words like “Yes,” or “Thank you,” or “Coming home again.”
Doing this will help to
enhance your experience of the intrinsic rewards of meditation, so that
they become stronger, easier to notice, and more compelling.
2.
Disengage from distractions respectfully and empathetically
Treating your
distractions as the enemy is a mistake. They’ve evolved to keep
us safe and alive. Those are important tasks, and we should
appreciate that they are what our distractions are trying to do.
They’re not trying to mess up our meditation practice. They’re not
trying to make us tense, stressed, upset, or depressed — even if that’s
what they end up doing. From their point of view, they are crucial to
our survival, and our happiness doesn’t even register to them.
So first, stop reacting
to your distractions. This is common advice, of course, but accept that
distraction simply happens. It’s no big deal. You can just let go and
return to the breathing.
But before you do, say
“Thank you.” Say “Thanks. I’ll deal with that at a more appropriate
time,” or “Thanks. It can wait, though,” or “Thank you.
Later.” Maybe you can come up with phrases that are better than
mine.
If you’re signaling to
those parts of the brain that their input is valued and will be
attended to at the right time, they’re more likely to stop bugging you.
Otherwise, they’ll think that their crucial role in keeping you safe is
being ignored, which means they think you’re endangering yourself,
which means they have to try
even harder to get your attention.
This two-fold approach,
of valuing but politely disengaging from distraction, while also
savoring any increase in calmness, can help make our distractions less
insistent and our moment-by-moment sensory experience more compelling.
It can help us get more quickly to the rewards that meditation offers.
With love,
Bodhipaksa
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