The Art of Balance
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores how you can cultivate steadiness and equanimity in your life.
You’ll learn the story behind the Buddha’s discovery of the ‘middle way,’ how to balance effort and non-effort, the cosmic balance of energy and awareness as well the cultivation of the fruit of spiritual practice: your capacity to be balanced and at ease no matter what arises internally or externally.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
The Art of Listening
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores listening as a spiritual practice.
You’ll learn about the painful consequences of not listening, how empathic listening to others opens up unimagined possibilities, the importance of listening to yourself and how the practice of listening leads to liberation.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Up with the Chickens
Well, not chickens, but Great Blue Herons.
It seems the Great Blues congregate at night and then disperse during the day and stake out their hunting territory. I was out early enough this morning to mingle with them before they went off to work.
As we have a rookery just downstream, it’s hard to be out of sight of a Great Blue or egret in these summer months.
Here are a few photos of the Great Blues as I gently herded them upriver while on my paddleboard.
A grand-daddy Heron books it upriver.
Where’s Waldo?
Profiles.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
The World is One Family: Healing the Wounds of Racism and Discrimination
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores how we can live with a wise heart in a world filled with turmoil.
You’ll learn how recognizing delusion and ignorance is critical to waking up, how delusion forms and persists and how we can heal and restore a sense of our shared humanity.
This talk is part of a series of talks given by teachers around the planet, speaking to how we can heal racism and discrimination.
There are some wonderful talks out there on this topic from teachers such as Tara Brach http://imcw.org/Talks/TalkDetail/TalkID/812, Ruth King http://imcw.org/Talks/TalkDetail/TalkID/760 and others.
This is my very personal take on the topic.
Read here for more on a “Call to White Buddhists” http://buddhistsforracialjustice.org/call-to-white-buddhists/
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
July Greetings from Jonathan Foust: Intention and Karma, Apps that Support Mindfulness, and More
To receive a monthly newsletter,
please signup here.
Welcome!
After a few full days of intense focus in a program room at Kripalu Center, I headed to the lake with my paddleboard for an afternoon adventure.
Under clear skies I paddled for about 45 minutes straight into a lively wind toward the center of Lake Mahkeenac. Within what seemed like minutes, I was enveloped in a massive set of dark clouds.
Could I make it to shore before I got hit with rain and wind? The race was on.
I lost.
When I realized was destined to get soaked, I remembered that it’s summer, it was 80 degrees and all was truly well. The drenching felt refreshing, actually, and pretty quickly the atmospheric drama ended and the skies cleared again.
No matter what weather systems are passing through in your world, I hope you enjoy your adventures.
Intention and Karma
What are your plans for tonight? Answering that question may determine your destiny. I’ve developed a template for my dharma talks over the years. My outline begins with three questions: "Why is this topic important?" "If this was my last talk, what do I most want to say?" "How do I want people to feel at the end of this talk?" These questions help me tap into my passion and emotion. They also help me focus on the most important points and how to most effectively share them. They set the course for my talk. The clarity of your intention has direct impact on the outcome of your life. Your intention informs your habits and actions, which shape your destiny. I have found it to be be immensely helpful to reflect not just to reflect on my long-term intentions, but also on my short-term aspirations. To listen to a recent talk entitled "How you Inherit and Create Your Karma" click here.
Upcoming Events
July 6:
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
July 13:
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
July 20:
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
July 27:
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
August 3:
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
August 8:
Conscious Relationships (with Tara Brach) Learn More
Fresh Photos
A gang of cormorants on the move.
Stillness above the Great Falls.
Clouds and sky merge.
Heron skimming the tree tops.
Taking meditation and asana out into the world. Graduates of “Guiding Meditation for Transformational Yoga Teaching” at Kripalu Center.
Video Clip
Here’s another "Five Breaths / Five Scenes" video for you, this time featuring Waterbugs.
The Still, Small Voice Within: Meditation, Focusing and Intuition Training
August 16–21, 2015 Sunday–Friday 5 nights Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health Have you had a 'sense' that something wasn't going to work out but you did it anyway?
I often ask people who've gone through a break up in a relationship when they 'knew' it wasn't going to work out. Oftentimes people say, "I knew in the beginning." On the other hand, have there been times when you followed your gut, took a leap and found yourself in unexpected, wonderful adventures?
How do you discern the difference between 'the still, small voice' of your intuition versus the 60,000 thoughts that pass through your consciousness each day?
This is our exclusive focus in this five-day residential retreat at Kripalu Center.
Intuition arises through the visual, auditory and kinesthetic channels. (Sometimes - rarely - you might experience what is called "direct cognition," a sense of just, somehow, "knowing".)
You can develop each of these pathways, but the most reliable and perhaps most challenging faculty to develop is the kinesthetic - the gut feel or the "felt sense."
Meditation training develops your capacity to see clearly. Your sense of the interconnectedness of mind and body become more refined.
Meditation and 'felt sense' inquiry draw on the questions you ask yourself and paying intimate attention to what arises in the body and mind.
The process can be nothing short of amazing when it comes to problem solving, making important decisions in your life, healing whatever is between you and feeling free and investigating your deepest life questions.
I've had a long-time fascination with the nexus between meditation and intuition and love sharing these techniques, especially at Kripalu Center over five days, where you can immerse yourself in such a supportive and nurturing environment.
You'll learn skills that will enhance your meditation practice as well as support you in navigating through life's inevitable challenges.
To learn more, please visit: https://kripalu.org/presenter/V0000107/
This course draws on my 6.6 hour audio course through Sounds True, called Body-Centered Inquiry: Meditation Training to Awaken Your Inner Guidance, Vitally and a Loving Heart.
Latest from the Blog
Five Breaths, Five Scenes: Waterbugs
Against the Storm
Work Life: Jonathan in conversation with Michael Potts
How You Inherit and Create Your Karma
Happiness and Work: Finding Right Livelihood
Meditation, Resistance and the Practice of Compassion
Weather Systems
June Greetings from Jonathan Foust: Effortless Awareness, Fresh Photos and More
Apps that Support Mindfulness
In this post, I list a few of my favorite apps that support mindfulness, http://jonathanfoust.com/a-few-apps-that-support-mindfulness
I am what you would call an "early adapter."
Pretty soon after it came out, I was writing copy on a Tandy TRS 80 (with the huge floppy disks). I was among the first with a PalmPilot, a laptop and an iPhone. I made the switch over to a micro four thirds camera system (the Panasonic GH4) and have been known to download the beta version of new software. I’m healing my geek impulses, but I’ve been a junky with Cool Tools and Kickstarter.
(If you are interested, here’s my Cool Tools write up on the Kawasaki KLR650.)
So I am pretty fast on the draw when it comes to trying a new app for the iPhone or iPad that might streamline my flow or aid in meditation.
Here’s to better living with technology!
To receive a monthly newsletter,
please signup here.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
The Best Technique
Special AUDIO:
This talk reveals the best technique for awakening heart and mind.
You’ll learn about techniques that awaken your capacity for sustained present-moment awareness, techniques for cultivating awareness of change, techniques for purifying the heart and techniques for opening to the mystery. And at the end, the best technique of all.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Five Breaths, Five Scenes: Waterbugs
Work Life: Jonathan in conversation with Michael Potts
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores the art of bringing life to work.
You’ll learn new ways to think about your relationship to work. When work has lost its meaning, what do you do? And where does mastery come from?
Michael Potts is a long-term meditator, businessman, CEO and entrepreneur and is currently writing a book on the intersection of purpose and performance in work.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
How You Inherit and Create Your Karma
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores the essential law of cause and effect.
You’ll learn how the clarity of your intention has direct impact on the outcome of your life, how habits shape your destiny, the potency of clear long-term and short-term aspirations and some strategies for cultivate more conscious awareness of your deepest intentions.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Happiness and Work: Finding Right Livelihood
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores how you can find happiness in your work.
You’ll learn the importance of finding work that resonates with your purpose, how to cultivate life/balance and what can happen when you view your work as your spiritual practice and an expression of selfless service.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
June Greetings from Jonathan Foust: Effortless Awareness, Fresh Photos and More
To receive a monthly newsletter,
please signup here.
Welcome!
Little fuzzballs are roaming the Potomac. I’ve seen baby geese and mergansers and am waiting for the Great Blue Herons chicks to start exploring the riverbanks. The fox has come by more often, no doubt looking for more protein for her little ones and soon the baby owls in the woods will start testing their vocal chords. Snakes are on the move and the fish are jumping.
As Tarzan said to Jane, "It’s a jungle out there!"
I hope this spring and summer season brings you a new sense of aliveness and delight.
Effortless Awareness
"I’m really confused," a woman said in a class a few years back. "When we meditate, are we supposed to concentrate or are we supposed to relax?" I paused and took a breath. I never heard the question put that way. After a few moments I had the answer and smiled. "Yes." Meditation instruction can be quite confusing. Jason Siff, in his book "Unlearning Meditation," http://www.tricycle.com/community/unlearning-meditation-what-do-when-instructions-get-way put it well when he said that any tradition you train in, you can find another tradition that gives you the opposite instruction. * Eyes closed? Eyes open? * Palms up? Palms down? * Breath at the nostrils? Breath at the belly? I find it helpful to think of meditation in stages. The first stage is about arriving. This has a willful quality. You guide your attention back to your ‘anchor,’ whether that be breath, sound, feeling, mantra, compassion. The second stage is about noticing. As the observer, you notice what is flowing. You notice your relationship to the cascade of sensations, thoughts, emotions and states of consciousness that arrive and fall away. The third state is about being. You inquire into what it means to simply let it all be, just as it is. You rest in awareness itself. Meditation training spans this vast terrain, from techniques that help you focus and drill into the here-and-now, to methods that help cultivate a sense of the witness to specialized instructions for opening into presence. I have found that as my practice develops and I become more aware of what is here and how and I’m holding it, there is a profound question that helps me determine the quality of attention I might cultivate. That question? "How does this moment want me to be with it - right now?" I find that if I’m wound up and tight, I find balance by relaxing and softening. If I’m scattered or reactive, a concentration practice helps me gather my attention again. Oftentimes we think of meditation as concentration. In this culture, learning how to sustain attention on one object is an important aspect of training the mind. But perhaps it’s more about seeking balance. Sometimes that calls on us to cease effort and explore what it means to simply rest in presence itself. You might enjoy this talk I gave at the Spring IMCW Vipassana Retreat entitled "Effortless Awareness." This talk explores what can happen when you turn your attention to rest in awareness itself. You’ll learn about the practices that help you arrive in the here and now, how to set optimal conditions for your practice, techniques for turning your attention to awareness itself and how awakened awareness cultivates an awakened heart.
Upcoming June Events
June 1:
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
June 8:
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
June 15:
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
June 19-28:
500-Hour Kripalu Yoga Teacher Training: Guiding Kripalu Meditation and Advanced Asana Learn More
June 22:
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
June 29:
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
Fresh Photos
Flox follow right on the heels of the Bluebells.
It's a banner year for spiderwebs.
Party on!
Parents shepherd their little ones to safety on a remote island on the Potomac.
Vibrant spring growth.
Video Clip
Here’s another “Five Breaths / Five Scenes” video for you, this time featuring Spring goslings. Due to popular demand, I’ve lengthen the inhalation and exhalation to five seconds.
The Still, Small Voice Within: Meditation, Focusing, and Intuition Training
August 16–21, 2015 Sunday–Friday 5 nights
Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health
How do you really "know" something?
I've had a life-long fascination regarding the relationship between meditation and intuition.
That’s what this five-day residential retreat is all about. I've been leading variations of this for about twenty years and have some to trust more and more in the cultivation of 'kinesthetic intuition,' the bodily felt sense.
Kinesthetic intuition is the slowest to develop but the most reliable. It's the 'gut feel,' 'knowing something in your bones.'
Intuitive inquiry is pragmatic. It will help you decide what car to buy next, but it will also help you look directly at who and what you truly are.
For all levels.
Albert Einstein said, "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." To climb out of any rut, resolve problems, or sense your path from a new perspective, you have to shift your awareness. This retreat is designed to immerse you in practices that generate such a shift.
Vipassana (insight meditation) teaches you to pause and recognize what is present, allowing you to see with increasing clarity into the nature of things. Focusing is a tool that trains the mind to investigate what arises from the field of direct sensation, offering access to wisdom and compassion. Combined, these two techniques generate a unique in-depth experience of awakened heart and mind.
Through practice, talks, presentations, exercises, and discussion, you dive into self-inquiry and develop skills to carry with you for the rest of your life.
Recommended listening: Jonathan Foust, Body-Centered Inquiry: Meditation Training to Awaken Your Inner Guidance, Vitality and Loving Heart CD set.
Note This retreat is intensive and may preclude other activities. Much of the retreat is held in social silence.
CE Credits
This program is eligible for
* 26.5 credits for Athletic Trainers (BOC), $30 additional charge
* 26.5 credits for Yoga Alliance (YA), $30 additional charge
Latest from the Blog
300,000 Downloads
The River from Above
Five Breaths, Five Scenes: Goslings
Being, Doing and Q/A
Kripalu and the Berkshires
Meditation, Resistance and the Practice of Compassion
How to Ask the Right Questions
Effortless Awareness (Retreat Talk)
Taking a Break from the Nest
Open Focus
Can you feel or imagine the space between your forehead and the back of your head? When you try that, you may notice a certain internal shift. There’s something here about the perception of space. One of my challenges as a photographer is to train myself to see the space around objects. When I do that, a new view opens up. Open Focus meditation is a modern form of ancient practices that can help you perceive space and the form inside space. That sounds a little abstract, but the technique can be quite powerful. If you’d like to try it, check out the following guided mediation I led at the IMCW Spring Retreat. If you feel a little ungrounded or disoriented during this meditation, you might turn your attention to feel your hands and feet, or even momentarily open your eyes.
To receive a monthly newsletter,
please signup here.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Five Breaths, Five Scenes: Goslings
Being, Doing and Q/A
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores the balance of effort and effortlessness in meditation practice.
You’ll learn about the role of willful practice, how to cultivate the practice of self observation without judgement and the role of non-doing. We’ll also take time for practice questions.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Kripalu and the Berkshires
I’m just back from Kripalu Center, leading a three-day intensive and head back up in a few weeks for more.
If you’ve not been, do consider a retreat in the Berkshire Mountains, next to Tanglewood, the home of the Boston Symphony and right on the Stockbridge Bowl. The land was once a sacred Native American Indian site and home of Andrew Carnegie toward the end of his life. His dream was to retire back to Scotland, but the u boats were patrolling the seas and he chose this property as it reminded him so much of home.
The Jesuits had their home here at the hub of activity for New England, then sold it to our community back in 1981. Since then it’s been a mecca for all kinds of program.
I’ll be leading Guiding Meditation for Transformational Yoga Teaching starting June 19th (9 days), The Still Small Voice Within: Meditation, Focusing and Intuition Training starting August 16th (5 days) and The Energy Intensive starting September 24th (3 days). To learn more, click here: https://kripalu.org/presenter/V0000107
In the summer, among many things, you can do long swims in the lake, hear the BSO across the lawn and savor the New England summer.
Early morning looking over the Stockbridge Bowl
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Meditation, Resistance and the Practice of Compassion
When I’m sitting with a group of people who are brand-new to meditation, I ask them to close their eyes and call out words that come to mind when they think of meditating. Often they come up with words like bliss, ecstasy, no thoughts. And then there’s one person in the back of the room, with a little smile on his or her face, who’s actually meditated, and that person will say words like obsessive thinking, pain, humiliation.
A lot of people have a concept of what meditation is, but when they actually engage in the practice, they recognize the real challenges of what it means to be present.
My interest is in bringing meditation to different populations in such a way that they can relate to it and see its value and want to learn more. I’ve taught meditation in corporate settings, in adult evening classes, and for stressed-out high school students. It’s immensely satisfying to help people recognize that there are strategies that can not only help them improve the quality of their lives but also give them a real, palpable sense of inner freedom.
To read more, link here: http://kripalu.org/blog/thrive/2014/01/30/meditation-resistance-and-the-practice-of-compassion
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
How to Ask the Right Questions
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores the power of inquiry as a transformational practice.
You’ll learn about the questions that cultivate wisdom and compassion, the questions that can help you reframe you experience, the questions that help you solve problems and the questions that help you turn your attention to awareness itself.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Effortless Awareness (Retreat Talk)
Special AUDIO:
This talk explores what can happen when you turn your attention to rest in awareness itself.
You’ll learn about the practices that help you arrive in the here and now, how to set optimal conditions for your practice, techniques for turning your attention to awareness itself and how awakened awareness cultivates an awakened heart.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
May Greetings from Jonathan Foust: Three Kinds of Faith, Photography and More
To receive a monthly newsletter,
please signup here.
Welcome!
A coin has two sides.
Here in Northern Virginia it has been remarkably cool and wet, which has prompted yearning for some consistent and reliable warmth.
On the other hand, it's probably the most vibrant year I've ever seen for wild flowers. The cool weather has retarded the leafing out of the trees and has made for an optimal environment for the the ecosystem of the forest floor.
May you flourish through the spring and onward.
Three Kinds of Faith
Years ago I was driving through the deep south. I turned on the radio and heard a preacher say, "To be a good Christian, don't think. Obey. Obey what your preacher tells you." "Wow," I thought. That's one way to live your life. The more I thought about it, the more I realized thats exactly I lived my life for many years in relationship with a spiritual teacher. "The guru sees what you cannot see,” we were told. “If there is any discrepancy between what you think and what your guru tells you, follow your guru." There's some wisdom in that teaching. If someone is further along in their spiritual journey, one would hope they have cultivated a greater sense of wisdom and compassion and can serve as an helpful and benevolent guide. There's a shadow to this teaching, too. Many people believe what their doctor tells them and would not dare question the opinion. Many believe what the news tells them and what the leaders of their particular political party tell them. When we fail to question authority, we lose our power. Blind Faith cultivates an innocence that can be sweet, but can also be naive. There's another kind of faith that comes with practice and rigor. Verified Faith. The Buddha repeatedly said, "Do not believe a word of what I am telling you. You need to investigate through your direct experience and determine if it is true for you." Verified faith only comes with intentional investigation and a healthy dose of doubt. For example, consider the 'Three Characteristics of Reality' as outlined in Buddhist philosophy: Anything born of causes and conditions is subject to change? Anything you try to control will lead to stress, dissatisfaction and suffering? There is a relative self and an absolute self? We can take these three characteristics of reality with blind faith, but true transformation arises when you verify them for yourself. Follow this link if you’d like to listen to a talk I gave recently called "Three Kinds of Faith", or play the video below.
Upcoming May Events
May 2:
A Meditative Journey: Mindful Movement, Meditation and Deep Relaxation Learn More
May 4:
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
May 11:
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
May 14-17:
The Energy Intensive at Kripalu Center Learn More
May 18:
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington Learn More
Photography
Bluebells are the first to emerge in the Spring.
Since its been like a refrigerator around here all Spring, the bluebells have stayed longer than ever.
At sunrise.
Canada Geese stars pairing up early.
Defending the nest. Youll find nesting geese about every thirty feet along the islands. This year most of the nests may be flooded out by the river, which rose about three feet due to recent storms.
The local Great Blue Heron rookery, way up high, is safe on a remote island just above the falls.
Nature looks a little insane sometimes.
Baby Skunk Cabbage.
Early blossoms.
No Time for Meditation
"I like what you say about meditation, but I have no time to practice!"
A manager at the World Bank, where I was teaching a course on meditation, was complaining about how busy her schedule was.
"Do you have, say, ten minutes a day?," I asked.
"No! I do not have ten minutes!," she said emphatically in her thick eastern European accent.
"How about five?"
"No! I do not even have five minutes!"
I steered the conversation to what we call, "mindful moments," creating rituals during the day to pause or shift your attention.
Some of my favorites:
* Take a breath before you answer the phone.
* Close your eyes connect with the breath while your computer is booting up.
* Take one slow deep breath at a red light.
* Drive with the car radio turned off.
* Pause before eating a meal.
* She liked some of these ideas and then rushed off to her busy day.
* The next week she came into the classroom beaming.
"I have figured it out! I now have my meditation time! When I put my electric tea kettle on in the morning for my tea, from the moment I plug it in to when it whistles, that is my meditation time! I breathe, I scan, I relax!"
I was happy for her. What a clever way to find a ritual for pausing.
Later I wondered how much water she actually puts in the tea kettle.
Latest from the Blog
Meditation: Space and Effortlessness 30′
Conscious Conflict
Trainings and Retreats
Three Kinds of Faith
Going for Refuge
The Hero's Journey
Upcoming at Kripalu
I head up to Kripalu Center to lead The Energy Intensive with Shobhan Richard Faulds in a few weeks. This intensive three-day program is heavily experiential. We joke that the didactic section is about seven minutes long. The program focuses on raising both energy and awareness. Here are Seven Principles of Energy that serve as our guide:
1. Yoga teaches that our universe is made up of prana and chitta, or energy and awareness.
2. When our inner flow of energy and awareness is blocked or out of balance, we experience separation from our true nature.
3. As we release into the flow of energy and awareness, we return to a natural state of harmony and balance. Balancing energy and awareness is the Kripalu path.
4. When energy and awareness flow freely through the emotional body, we experience optimal emotional balance and health.
5. When energy and awareness flow freely through the mind, we experience inner peace, clarity, and insight.
6. Energy is intelligent and evolutionary.
7. Energy follows awareness.
To learn more or to register for the retreat, click here.
Five Breaths, Five Scenes: At the Falls
These scenes are from Great Falls, one of the largest waterfalls on the east coast of the United States where the Potomac River falls 80 feet in a quarter mile. The river is in mild flood stage, providing some nice drama with the morning light.
Previously these videos used a four-second inhalation and exhalation. This one stretches it a bit with five-second inhale and exhale.
Best at high definition.
To receive a monthly newsletter,
please signup here.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Meditation: Space and Effortlessness 30'
Special AUDIO:
This meditation guides you into an inquiry into the internal and external perception of space.
Based on the principles of Open Focus, this technique uses questions to cultivate a sense of effortless attention.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.