Embodied Presence
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores why awareness of the body is core to your meditation practice.
You'll learn the about the relationship of the body to the mind, emotions and states of consciousness as well as strategies for how to practice mindfulness of the body. You'll also learn how practicing awareness of the body can lead to deep insights in the three characteristics of reality.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Five Reasons Why a Daylong Retreat is a Great Investment
I am just back home after leading a daylong retreat "The Questions That Can Heal and Set You Free".
I feel refreshed, inspired and touched by a day with such kind and thoughtful folks.
If you have thought about taking time out of your busy life for a daylong retreat, here are five reasons I think it’s one of the best investments you can make:
1. You make a clean break from your routines and habits.
Sometimes spiritual practice is not so much about what you do but what you don’t do.
Imagine a day without email, voicemail, reading, writing, web, movies, Facebook and twitter. Add to that the possibility of not speaking for a day. Just the practice of consciously stepping back from these activities for a day can be transformational.
When you get lost in routine, it’s easy to forget what’s most important.
Stepping away helps you remember.
2. You hang out in non-ordinary experiences and non-ordinary states.
Having put aside external stimulation for the day, a retreat allows you to immerse into new experiences and practices.
Have you ever meditated for hours in one day? The way a daylong retreat is designed and paced allows you to experience what happens when you intensify your attention.
Ever spend a day in silence? The supportive structure makes it possible.
A retreat helps you to sustain a level of attention that is simply not possible in a busy, distracted day.
The results can be quite extraordinary.
3. You meet and hang out with like-minded people.
When you join in a day of intensive practice, you’re joining in with some extraordinary people.
You’re in the mix with those who value these practices and are actively exploring how they can apply the principles of mindfulness in their relationships and work.
The Buddha described engaging into spiritual practice as “swimming upstream.” You are swimming against your own conditioning but also swimming against the conditioning of the culture. Our culture is not really interested in slowing down and exploring what it means to be truly free.
A retreat provides the optimal space for not just your own internal dive, but a sense of real intimacy with those you may find inspiring.
4. You return to your daily life with new tools.
After a hours of practice you come away with new techniques and refined skills you bring back into your daily life.
Many report a residual effect of feeling less reactive, more kind and more creative in the following days and weeks.
5. You will inspire and inform your daily practice.
Most of us struggle with maintaining a daily practice. Intensive immersion helps to solidify your commitment, providing insight and often inspiration that will carry you forward. You’ll probably hear from others who are lit up about their practice and and will inspire you as well as from others who also struggle - often with the same issues you have.
Inevitably you’ll find both the inspiration and the realization that you are not alone in your endeavors to be helpful as you craft your daily meditation.
There is a saying: “The more you have going on in your life, the more you need to be on retreat.”
I find that absolutely true. When you can step away from your routines, immerse into intensive practice, be with like-minded practitioners, you’ll find inner resources available to you that were not there before.
The next retreat I’ll be leading is called “A Meditative Journey” on November 15th. This is a practice retreat. Only a few short talks to orient you to the practices and then you’ll dive into mindful movement flows, deep relaxing (lying down) body scans and sitting meditation.
For more information and to register.
http://imcw.org/Calendar/Events/vw/3/sm/613/itemid/979/Daylong-A-Meditative-Journey.aspx
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Memorial for my Father
Quaker services are all about the moment. We meet in silence and members speak when they feel moved.
We held a memorial service for my father at our summer Meetinghouse in Maidencreek, Pennsylvania this last weekend. It’s a one-room unheated, simple stone building surrounded by trees.
Gathered in the comfortable silence generated by Friends, I shared the awe and inspiration I felt from my father, so beloved by many. He managed to turn the trauma of being in the tenches in WWII into a personal inquiry into creating both inner and outer peace.
An earlier post on his life here: http://jonathanfoust.com/letting-go/
Here’s a slide show commemorating him: http://youtu.be/GsLF0nwDo0g
No altar, no icons. One simple room dedicated to being present.
Preparing to bury my parents’ ashes
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Change Yourself, Change the World
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores the theme of Earth Care Week and how the stress and suffering of what you see around you can be seen as a mirror of your internal world.
You'll learn how, by reflecting on the core teachings of 1) the fact of suffering, 2) the cause of suffering, 3) the cessation of suffering and 4) the path that leads to the cessation of suffering, you can change yourself. And by changing yourself, you can truly change the world.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
The Art of Yes
Special AUDIO:
The talk explores some fundamentals of a meditation practice and how (sometimes) saying 'yes' to what is present can dramatically shift your relationship to the here and now.
You'lll learn my favorite definition of mindfulness, the art of 'saying yes,' how every 'no' actually means yes - and the classic instructions to more intimately deepen your mindfulness practice.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Twenty Minute Guided Meditation
Special AUDIO:
In this 20 minute meditation you'll begin with a few rounds of conscious breathing, move into a brief body scan, then select an anchor that feels right for you. You'll end with a brief reflection on gratitude and the felt sense of the here and now.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
A Short Weekend Retreat
It’s only fitting I would lead a short weekend meditation retreat with, well, two short people.
Tara, Ruth King and I led a three-day retreat at Pearlstone Retreat Center in Reiserstown, MD last weekend.
Traditionally we offer a weekend as part of a seven day retreat. That was always problematic as we’d have a disruption on Sunday before the rest of the participants would settle in for the long haul. With so many folks battling to get into the week longs, we’ve now separated them out. (We’re actually going to a lottery system soon.)
This brings up a question I’m asked from time to time: Is a weekend meditation retreat worth it or is it better to hold out for a longer retreat?
It’s quite common, when you settle in for a meditation retreat, to come in contact with fatigue and exhaustion. The first day and often the second and third can be filled with sloth, torpor, sleepiness and lethargy. Some people find they are just beginning to feel some clarity when it’s time to pack up and head home.
I assure folks who are struggling with sleepiness on a retreat that if they slept the whole time, their life would feel very different afterward. We are an over-stimulated, exhausted and depleted culture and no doubt, as yoga says, “the more dynamic your rest, the more dynamic your activity.” If you can afford the time and fortune to do a longer retreat, by all means, lock one in. It can reshape your life. You’ll feel more energized and alive.
If you can’t do a longer one, do consider a weekend retreat. You may not ‘break on through to the other side,’ as Jim Morrison would say, but you’ll start to reset and recalibrate your body/mind in a way that is both direct and sometimes quite dramatic.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
The Awakened Heart and Mind
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores what happens when the forces of greed, hatred and delusion fall away.
You'll learn how present-moment awareness can help you identify and let go of what is between you and feeling free and how the characteristics of 'bodhichitta' - a heart and mind awake - emerge and can transform your life.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Inquiry as a Path to Awakening
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores how the questions you ask yourself can not only help you make better decisions, but can also reveal who and what you really are.
You're learn about the power of thoughts and beliefs, how questions can cultivate greater intimacy with life, how questions can sometimes dramatically turn around problematic situations and how inquiry is used to take your awareness beyond the linear, rational mind.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
20 Second Meditation with Cormorants
The Keys to Lasting Happiness
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores how you can cultivate lasting happiness.
You'll learn how to avoid the biggest trap in seeking happiness and how you can cultivate happiness both externally - through wise and skillful action - as well as internally - by how you pay attention.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
A Touch of Grace CD
In 1996, Mike McAvoy, Tod Norian, Carol Wahler and I hunkered down in Mike's sound studio in his basement and shut off the furnace so we had some quiet. We then launched into four fifteen minute cuts which you'll find on my CD, "A Touch of Grace."
I've often joked that I gave this the wrong title. It should be called, "Music to Drool By." What really works is that it offers just enough tonal shifts that it stays interesting and engaging without being over-bearing. It's perfect for meditation, yoga, massage and relaxing.
I'm immensely grateful to my co-creators and that this has been so helpful for so many. To purchase please email Jonathan Click here
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Further Evidence I’m Not Dead Yet.
I do one Facebook post a year, entitled, “Further Evidence I’m Not Dead Yet.” It’s a way to thanks folks for their birthday wishes and take a photo to chronicle my vitality.
I’m immensely grateful to be this healthy.
My mother was a health food nut and worked hard to feed us well. She was a disciple of Linus Pauling and I remember being in kindergarten taking my 500mg of vitamin C every morning at breakfast. They were huge robins egg blue and I was proud I could choke it down without complaint. We got our eggs from Harry and Edna Dietrich, who lived over the hill and unpasteurized milk, before it got picked up by the dairy, from another neighbor up the road. Our food came from the garden or the local farmer’s market and the meat we raised on the farm or bought from neighbors.
Living in the ashram, I was fascinated with the relationship between diet and consciousness.
I became macrobiotic, inspired by George Ohsawa and Michio Kushi. I joke that as I became more grim I became macro-neurotic and finally, for a period of time, a fully blown macro-psychotic. I led group fasting retreats for years at Kripalu Center, did a six month immersion into the living foods diet at the Ann Wigmore Institute in Puerto Rico - nothing heated above 112 degrees. In my studies I’ve done high colonics, panchakarma retreats, had my tongue read, my nails interpreted and taught people how to analyze their poop.
Part of my good health is genetic. I take after one side of my family in particular. They are tall, skinny folk who, as my dad used to say, ‘Have to be nailed in their coffins.’
Part of my good health is lifestyle. I try to listen to my body and what gives me energy.
I’m a lot more relaxed about what I eat, though, than ever before.
A turning point for me was a time in the ashram when I was particularly grim and fanatic about diet. I was frustrated how the kitchen was falling short in providing us the purest foods possible.
I laid out my case with one of the directors, complaining they needed to seriously up-level their offerings.
“Let me ask you just one question,” he said. “What do happy people eat?”
I paused and after a few moments said, “OK. I get it. I’m done.”
When studies revealed the French were healthier than Americans even though they ate more fat, alcohol and sugar, no one could figure out why. Maybe it was the wine! They isolated resveratrol, a chemical in red wine and started marketing that as a supplement.
No one thought to measure happiness while eating and the fact that French meals were eaten over a long period of time in a relaxed setting. As my friend and fellow ashram-mate Marc David, founder of The Institute for the Psychology of Eating says, “Food is best consumed in a state of celebration.”
That seems to be the key.
Happiness leads to relaxation. Relaxation leads to moving out of the linear confines of the mind. Moving out of the linear mind opens us to new possibilities and to what is actually happening.
From that place, we respond rather than react.
A votre santé.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Serve and Savor
EB White once said,
“I wake up each morning torn between a desire to serve the world and to savor it. This makes it difficult to plan the day.”
I’m just back form a nine-day intensive with co-director Larrisa Carlson, our great staff and a gathering of amazing teachers, practitioners and adventurers.
We did a lot of heavy lifting in this retreat. We cranked up the heat by practicing strict social silence for a number of days and each day was packed with hours upon hours of deep yoga, breathing and meditation.
And in the midst of the falling away, the letting go, the transformational journey, something arises that is both light and deep.
It’s a sense of connectedness and a quality of presence that is effortless.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Even More on Letting Go
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores even more on the essence of spiritual practice: the art of letting go.
You'll learn how letting go happens in the mind, but also (and especially) in the body.
You'll explore through a guided meditation some inquiries that will help you sense who you are not limited by contricting beliefs and what your life might be like if you truly let go of what's between you and feeling free.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Having Tea with Your Demons
Someone once said, “In this life you spend most of your time either trying to dominate or trying to avoid domination.”
In that same way, when you are visited by old, undigested memories, feelings and neurosis, chances are you either try to dominate them by making them go away or avoid being dominated by spinning off into anger and blame, distracting yourself with planning and fantasy, getting sucked into depression or paralyzed by doubt and fear.
When these situations arise there is a counter-intuitive approach. Have a cup of tea with the experience. Sit down together and hang out a little bit. Listen. Learn what you can learn from this experience.
It’s easy to say, but not so easy to do. In this talk I explore a bit how this works. The blurb:
Tea with Your Demons If you practice non-judging awareness in meditation or in your daily life, you are bound to encounter challenges and undigested experiences.Rather than fighting, avoiding, nuking or falling into old habitual patterns, you can, when the circumstances are right, explore what lessons might be encoded in your experience.
This talk explores how to have tea with your demons and includes an open period for questions.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Your Obstacles are Allies
I’m just back from from the IMCW Spring Retreat, a week of supporting folks in intensive mindfulness practice. Days upon days of silence and rigorously paying attention to what is arising inevitably surface old scars, beliefs and undigested life experiences.
Turning attention directly to what is between you and feeling free is a radical act. It requires non-judging awareness, concentration, relaxation, energy, curiosity and determination.
Naturally, when something unpleasant arises, you’ll want to nuke it or shift your attention to something else. It’s possible, though, to find new ways of being with these challenging situations.
For example, many people experience doubt. Doubt can be paralyzing. It feels self-limiting. It reinforces the ruthless inner critic.
Can you imagine on some level, though, that doubt is your friend?
On some level, your doubt is an ally. On a good day, it provides discernment and clarity. It helps you remember what is most important and forces you to employ both intellectual rigor and some quality of faith.
Any challenge you encounter, you might explore as to how that feeling or mental state, on some level, is doing it’s best to serve you.
The Blurb:
When you practice non-judging awareness you'll naturally begin to notice everything between you and feeling free.There is a natural tendency to want to 'nuke' the issues that arise - to either not feel them or make them go away.
When you can remember that in some way what you are resisting in your life is actually, on some level, trying to support you, you might feel a shift in your relationship to it.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
On Forgiveness and Letting Go
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores how the practice of forgivness breaks old cycles of separation that hold you back from feeling free.
You'll also explore some of the blocks you'll encounter when you enter into an intention to forgive.
You'll learn and practice two forms of forgiveness, one more classical and one practice that draws on more contemporary language.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Power of the Pause
I'm just back from a seven day retreat.
Usually we lead a weekend plus five days for those who want to extend but this time we decided to make it an entire uninterrupted weeklong intensive.
We had 99 participants and it was a deep dive.
It's always an honor to serve this retreat with my codirectors Pat Coffey, Eric Kolvig, Tara Brach and this time, Trudy Mitchel-Gilkey. Our stellar managers, La Sarmiento and Janet Merrick, made the event seamless.
I say this every time, but if you can possibly find the time to do one of these events, it is truly one of the best investments of time and fortune you can make.
Every great tradition speaks of the power of the Pause. When you step away from all of your habits, routines, relationships and commitments and simply rest in silence, amazing healing can occur.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.