Special AUDIO:
This talk explores how you can bring non-judging awareness to challenging relationships.
You’ll learn the importance of both knowing yourself and the other, four questions that can bring clarity into your communications and what it means to undertake the practice of "seeing yourself in others and others in yourself."
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
If you’ve sent me an email recently and never got a response, it’s partially due to a streak of non-stop teaching of two intensives back-to-back.
Michelle Dalbec and I led a 300-hour “Guiding Meditation for Transformational Yoga Teaching” through Kripalu Center. Luann Fulbright, owner of Dream Yoga in McLean, VA sponsored this event. Yoga with meditation is a perfect blend, moving from the gross to the subtle, to the subtlest.
Graduates of the 300-hundred hour “Guiding Meditation for Transformational Yoga Teaching" program at Dream Yoga in Mclean, VA.
The Spring IMCW Retreat is a full seven-days of silence and intensive practice with about 100 fellow practitioners. There’s nothing like the experience of ‘being alone together’ that occurs on retreat. Each morning starts with ChiGong and alternates sitting and walking meditation with a yoga flow in the afternoon and an evening talk each day.
Your retreat is supported with two group interviews and one private interview with a teachers.
I’ll have my two evening talks online soon and directions to catch the other talks and guided meditations.
After seven days of silence, practitioners finally get to talk.
The Retreat Team (Teachers and managers): Trudy Mitchel-Gilkey, Pat Coffey, Janet Merrick, Tara Brach, La Sarmiento, Jonathan Foust
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores how suffering and stress can be dramatically altered when you turn to Awareness, Truth and Love.
You’ll learn various interpretations of each Refuge and how you can pragmatically use these teachings to influence your life journey.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores the elements of the hero’s journey as reflected in the life of the Buddha.
You’ll learn how you can apply the steps of the hero’s journey in your own life as you feel called into greater aliveness and vitality.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
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We’re in that wacky transition time here in the mid-Atlantic when the emerging daffodils and crocuses are covered with snow, but warmer weather seems inevitable.
The term ‘global warming’ is perhaps better described as ‘global weirding,’ (a term coined by Hunter Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute).
Whatever weirdness you may be experiencing, I wish you well.
I was about six when I got my first migraine. I lay in bed trying not blink as any movement felt excruciating. Someone slammed a door downstairs and the sound waves passed through my body like a tornado with claws. I desperately tried to figure out what I’d done wrong. I can still access that memory of deep confusion and suffering. Since then I get regular, severe headaches. Sometimes they come in clusters, sometimes I’m free for months and start to feel cocky, only to succumb again. There is a popular formula offered in the mindfulness world: PxR=S. Pain times Resistance equals Suffering. Just as it’s possible to feel pain, resist it mightily and suffer mightily, it’s also possible to feel pain, not resist it and not suffer. It doesn’t mean the pain isn’t there. It simply means you are not adding anything to it. I’ve gotten pretty good at separating out the sensations of pain from my reaction and narrative about it. It’s come with a lot of practice. Grudging practice, I must add. No matter what is happening in your life, one thing you do have control over is how you relate to it. Recently I was at the dentist getting a deep cleaning on my teeth. I noticed that I kept fixating on the sensations in my mouth and tensing up. I scanned my body for where I actually felt OK. My hands felt fine. As we continued through the session, when I noticed I was fixating on the unpleasant sensations of her digging and probing into my gums, I came back again and again to the sensations in my hands and again and again, re-relaxed. I didn’t make the unpleasant sensations go away, but I was able to accompany them without tensing. If you like, you can listen to a talk I recently gave on this topic called “Transforming Your Relationship with Pain”. Below I'll share one of my favorite techniques for working with unpleasant sensations.
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
Guiding Meditation and Advanced Asana at Dream Yoga, McLean, VA Learn More
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
IMCW Spring Retreat Weeklong Learn More
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
A Blue Jay contemplates Spring
First, it started like this: Ice forms on the edges.
Then this: The ice continued to creep and close in our winter visitors.
Then this: The local waterfowl finally give up and move on from a frozen river.
And now to this: Things are flowing again. Muskrats and beaver are out and the neighborhood is busy.
I'm in nature almost every day. It's where I go to get balanced and inspired.
Five Breaths / Five Scenes offers up five select clips from my wanderings, with a twist. As the images come and go you do focused, deep breathing throughout and at the end end, take a moment to relax and feel.
It's an interesting way to relax in under two minutes.
Ever notice how positive events are like teflon and painful events are more like velcro? We tend to take positive experiences for granted and fixate on the painful ones. The following meditation can be helpful for working with pain. The trick is how you pay attention. You can read the directions below and if you like, follow the guided instructions in my talk, "Transforming Your Relationship with Pain."
2. Notice where you feel sensations the most predominant. (unpleasant)
3. Label this area "Zone #1."
4. Take a few moments to sense the shape, texture or any colors associated with Zone #1.
5. Notice anywhere in your body you feel sensations that are either pleasant or neutral.
6. Label this area "Zone #2."
7. Your practice now is to keep your attention in Zone #2.
8. Let your attention move freely in Zone #2 and label, as best you can, the body part and the quality of feeling. (Example: "Left palm, open". "Right hip, relaxed".)
9. Your attention will want to go to Zone #1. When you notice this, escort it back to Zone #2.
10. Notice anything that might shift or move inside.
When I practice this, almost every time I have a realization that goes something like this: "Wow! 94% of my body actually feels OK! 6% is freaking out, but 94% is fine." Something shifts for me. I find when I practice like this I move from being reactive to a sense that I can "be" with the pain. You may notice a sense of Zone #1 'bleeding' into Zone #2. The edges might blur and you may feel a bodily felt shift toward greater relaxation. If it feels safe and you have the presence of mind, you can then investigate Zone #1, labeling the body part and quality of sensation. If your pain is content and chronic, do seek appropriate medical help!
For the last fifteen years or so, a few times a year Shobhan Richard Faulds and I offer a three-day intensive program at Kripalu Center called The Energy Intensive: Yoga, Meditation and Breathwork. Yoga says you are made up of two fundamental elements: Awareness (chitta) and energy (prana). Balancing these two elements can be described as the path of yoga. Through intensive yoga, meditation, deep relaxation, bodyork and breathwork, you’ll be guided into a journey into what can be for many, profound transformation. You can read more in depth hereand sense whether this might be the time in your life to take a step back and dive into some intensive, rejuvenating practices.
The States of Consciousness Research Team at Johns Hopkins needs your help.
We're conducting an anonymous, internet-based survey to characterize experiences of personal encounters with God, Higher Power, or Ultimate Reality.
If you have ever had such an experience, we would greatly appreciate it if you would take our survey. If you know of others who have ever had an experience of such an encounter, please send them the link and encourage them to participate. This includes people who had such an experience long ago.
As you may know, our team has conducted survey and laboratory studies investigating spirituality, religion, and altered states of consciousness. This new survey is an important extension of our published and ongoing research on mystical experience, spiritual practice and spiritual transformation.
Please share.
Flyer.EncounteringTheDivine.org
http://www.encounteringthedivine.org
We deeply appreciate your help. Thank you.
Roland Griffiths, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
IRB approved application NA_00054696
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iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Special AUDIO:
I’m in nature almost every day. It’s where I go to get balanced and inspired.
Five Breaths / Five Scenes offers up five select clips from my wanderings, with a twist. As the images come and go you do controlled deep breathing throughout and at the end end, take a moment to relax and feel.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
I’ve been waiting for this.
Out of the frozen muck come the Blue Bells. Riverbend Park is renowned for having some of the most dense populations of Blue Bells. In peak season, acres of them.
Though it was cold this morning (around 22 degrees), the one’s closest to the water’s edge have started in earnest.
Spring has arrived!
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Special AUDIO:
In this meditation you’ll start with a few slow, deep breaths and be guided to sense and relax specific body parts. You’ll select an anchor for your continued practice. You'll hear a few reminders inviting you to deeply relax and pay attention to what is changing and at the end of the meditation, to rest deeply in awareness itself.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores the Three Characteristics of Reality and how you might more readily remember them in your practice and in your life.
You'll learn about the characteristic of impermanence and how your relationship to what is changing determines the degree to which you will feel happy or suffer. You’ll explore the characteristic of ‘not self,’ inquiring into the teaching, “Nothing is to be clung to as “I” or “Mine.” This talk includes a number of short guided reflections
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
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We've been locked in a deep freeze here in the DC area. This weekend we ended a retreat early and my return home, which normally takes about 25 minutes, took 3 hours of white-knuckled navigation. I called on every bit of training I've had as a resident of Wisconsin and New England to navigate through slush, ice, blizzard conditions and most dangerous of all, traumatized southern drivers.
Blessings in your winter experience and may you have some warmer weather soon!
Slip and Slide on the Beltway
Tara and I recently made our annual trek up to the Forest Refuge in Barre, MA for a period of self-guided meditation. The Forest Refuge was created for long-term meditators. I was on my own for the entire time with no set schedule. The only requirements during a week are two 15-minute interviews with a teacher, two evening talks and a daily 'yogi-job'. I seemed to be pegged now as prime pot-washer material when I go up there. I love waking up in the morning on a retreat knowing that I will be in silence for days and days ahead and with open, unstructured time other than the grueling mid-day encounter with pots and pans. You may know this classic analogy for meditation practice: Imagine a glass of muddy water set on a countertop. Over time, the muddy water settles. The mind becomes clear. My mind was not just muddy. It was as if it had just been poured out of a high-speed blender. The more I tried to settle my mind, the more I experienced restlessness and agitation. Eventually I recognized the agitation as some kind of generalized anxiety. Restlessness begat more restlessness and I became more and more frustrated with the unending sessions of fidgeting and unease. I looked closer and saw that what I called 'anxiety' was more like plain old fear. In a morning meditation I had a thought that screamed something like this: "Screw this! Quit dancing around with this anxiety. Let's go to the root." A great yogi once said, "The greatest wonder in the world is that everyone dies. The second greatest wonder of the world is that no one thinks they will." "I am not afraid of death," Woody Allen said. "I just don't want to be there when it happens." The Buddha said when you intimately and sincerely investigate the 'Heavenly Messengers' of sickness, old age and death, it can radically reframe your life. The more I kept my attention on the fact of my eventual death and the inevitable death of everyone I know, the more I surfaced waves of fear, anxiety and grief. I'm not a stranger to death. I grew up on and worked on farms for many years and was present and often responsible for the death of many a creature. I was with my father for his last exhalation last year and have accompanied a handful of people through their transition. Despite all of this, I could feel a consistent clench, a dread, inside. At one point I recalled a near-death experience I had when I was revived in an emergency room after going into anaphylactic shock. As I replayed the event - the trip to the hospital, my experience of slowly but quite consciously losing a sense of time and space and the quite clear memory of floating near the ceiling watching six people feverishly work on my body - I remembered that the process was surprisingly interesting and even blissful. When spatial and temporal awareness became more distorted and fell away, there was a rush of 'home coming,' a widening of awareness that felt light, free and vast. Over time on my retreat, the inner clench relaxed. The more I embraced the reality of death and impermanence, the more I saw how I held back from life. I recalled relationships where I had not forgiven and others where I need to ask forgiveness. I understand more deeply than ever that my capacity for aliveness and creativity is directly related to my capacity to die fully into each moment. If you can make the time to take a retreat this year, I consider it one of the best investments you can make. You can listen to a talk I gave called "Lessons Learned on My Retreat" here. Here is what happens to me on retreat - it's a two-minute video: "The Blessings of Stillness":
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
IMCW Daylong retreat in Fredericksburg, VA Learn More
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
“Accessing Your Inner Wisdom” daylong retreat at Psychotherapy Networker Conference, Washington, DC Learn More
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
Wind-Blasted Trees at the Forest Refuge
Early Morning by the Frozen River
Above Great Falls
New England Snowscape
The Year of Living Mindfully started this last weekend and I'm revisiting again how I might develop routines that give me more energy and focus.
One key to creating habits is to start small.
Too many times I set a high bar, hoping to invoke some kind of massive change. Each time, I fall short.
Then I heard about "the minimum effective dose," from Tim Ferriss. What is the smallest amount of effort that will result in the maximum amount of change?
For me, this meant lowering my standards, starting small and creating routines that are easy to keep going.
A few successes:
1. Seven minutes of yoga every day means I do something daily and often more because I enjoy it and don't feel guilty when I do the minimum.
2. Journaling with no targeted word count means I write a few times a day, sometimes at length.
3. Shooting one photo and one video clip a day means I'm more inclined to get into super-creative flows and generate ideas for projects.
4. Meditating until I feel 'done' means I sit every day, guilt-free, often more than once and sometimes for longer sits.
You might enjoy this article from James Clear, who speaks of what gets in the way of creating change.
If you are interested in a painless way to be reminded to meditate, check out telesangha. Created by Mo Edjlali, founder of ZenCEO. You can sign up for a time when you'd like to meditate each day. At the appointed hour, the phone rings and you are connected with a community. You'll sit for 20 minutes, have a brief check in and get on with your day. This is an amazing way to join a community, create accountability and track your efforts.
If you are interested in working toward your 500-hour Professional Certification in Yoga and want something local to Washington, DC, you might check out an eight-day training I am co-leading with Michelle Dalbec called Guiding Kripalu Meditation & Asana: Exploring the World Within, schedule for April 8 -15 at Dream Yoga in McLean, VA.
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iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Special AUDIO:
You’ll start with a simple stretch and a slow motion release of your hands. Conscious slow breathing draws your attention inward. After a few minutes you’ll release control of the breath, relax key parts of the body and select an anchor for your continued practice.
Some gentle reminders though this meditation will help you to re-relax, sense your capacity for self-observation and what it feels like to rest in effortless awareness.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores the relationship between what you think and who you are as the one who is aware.
You’ll learn about the antidote to over-identification with thinking and how deep investigation of beliefs can lead to a heightened sense of freedom as well as provide insights into the nature of awareness itself.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores strategies to help you shift how you relate to pain and physical discomfort.
You’ll learn what the Buddha taught about being with physical distress, how discovering your reactive patterns can reduce unnecessary suffering and how to apply specific techniques that can help you use unpleasant sensations as a transformative practice.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores two distinct and critical elements of your meditation practice.
You’ll learn about the qualities and benefits of concentration, tips and tricks for sustaining attention by creating habits and rituals, the qualities and benefits of mindfulness and suggestions as to how you can cultivate balance in your practice and in your life.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores lessons learned on a personal retreat at the Forest Refuge in Barre, MA.
You’ll learn some of the essential factors required for transformational practice: humility, the willingness to face fear, a desire to know the truth and the power of sustained commitment.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
I’m just back after a week at the Forest Refuge in Barre, MA.
Among a week of perfect silence and a supportive environment, one of my most favorite things about the Forest Refuge has been long walks deep in the New England woods.
Fat chance this time.
A full two foot base grew and grew with snow almost every day. One morning I went out just to say I was out in -27 degree windchill.
Take away something and something else opens up. The lack of nature adventures forced me to slow down and 'make friends' with my over-eager mind. It took days of watching a deep inner restlessness that I finally recognized as fear.
Fear become my inquiry and much grew out of that willingness to sit with angst.
I’ll be sharing some of this in my dharma talk, along with some images I captured in my nordic wanderings.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Special AUDIO:
This ten minute meditation comes from the Kripalu Yoga tradition. It explores who you are as a being of energy and who you are as a being of awareness.
Breathing, Relaxing and Feeling turn your attention to the aliveness of the moment.
Watching and Allowing cultivate a sense of non-judging awareness.
Use this as complete meditation or as a way to enter into a longer self-guided practice.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
