Special PODCAST:
This talk explores how, once you know what you want, how to sustain focus on your goals. You're also invited to take on a practice for thirty days of 'one observation and one restraint.'
You'll learn the importance of knowing what is most important, how to discern the best practices to help you get there, how to sustain attention and how to course correct along the way.
Subscribe to Jonathan's podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jonathan-foust/id455422434?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
To receive a monthly newsletter, please signup here.
This month Tara and I spent much of the month on a working sabbatical at the ancestral Brach home on Cape Cod.
Tara is working on a book proposal. I was grinding on some writing projects and taking a deep dive into photography projects.
Unstructured space has advantages and disadvantages. I love being able to wake up naturally and spontaneously go for walks and swim when it "feels right."
I struggled, though, when it came time to strap myself in for serious writing. You may be familiar with the term, 'monkey mind', which describes the essential scattered quality of the mind. I had monkey mind on caffeine. With all excuses removed, I had to churn and burn in the creative process.
I finally hit my stride and got more comfortable locking myself in for the grunt work but making sure I had time to play. I realized eventually it all comes down to balance, as in all things. Not too tight, not too loose.
I'm excited about the creative process and what is coming forth.
I hope your life is both in balance and in full expression.
Upcoming Events
October 3:
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington
Learn More
I’m hooked. It’s among the first things I think of when I wake up. I look forward to the upsurge in clarity and pay a price for it later in the day. I don’t like being that dependent on a substance.
To counter balance something I want to let go of, I’ve got something I want to do. I have rehab exercises for some damage I did to my foot I know they are good for me. But I never seem to get to them. I’m perpetually feeling guilty about that.
It’s perfect timing for One Observation / One Restraint!
If you're looking to reboot, kickstart a new habit or make a change, this is a great practice. Perhaps you’d like to join me this month.
The rules for One Observation / One Restraint are simple:
1. Choose one activity you intend to do every day for thirty days.
2. Choose one activity you intend to refrain from every day for thirty days.
3. Get a calendar and mark each day you complete. Your goal is to keep the visual chain going.
Fall is a perfect time to refresh your focus. If you’d like to join me, you can listen to the Podcast here, and you can download a Handout here and a Calendar here.
Here’s what I’m committing to:My observation: 20 minutes of these rehab exercises each day.My restraint: No coffee. Tea is OK, but no java for 30 days.
Some additional tips:
1. Keep it simple. One observation / One restraint
2. Try the Seinfeld Method. Put a calendar in a visible location and mark each day when you complete it. You keep the visual chain going. (Link to a calendar below.)
3. Get a practice partner. Very important! You’ll have ups and downs and you’ll receive incalculable benefits from someone there who is not only your cheerleader, but holds you accountable.
I will be offering a talk at the beginning of the month on my podcast (link) if you’d like some inspiration. And if you’re coming to Monday night at UUCA, we’ll have some support groups after class.
What’s one thing you could commit to this month?
What’s one thing from which you’d benefit from restraint?
Water. Heat. Bugs.
Sometimes sunsets are drab, sometimes they are like this."They are not sunsets," my uncle used to say. "They are earth-turns."Cormorants stop by on migration.A full moon set.The next day. A super-low tide.An untouched photo with real-life color.The Zen of sunset.
Video: Meditation on Letting Be
I’ve been sittin’ on the dock on the bay.
OK, not a dock, but on the bay.
I love the feeling of sitting under a big sky with an uninterrupted horizon. When perception gets so big, a natural sense of effortlessness arises.
I put together a little meditation with some video clips you might enjoy. This is a meditation that emphasizes your capacity to let it be.
Events with Jonathan and the Insight Meditation Community of Washington
I’ve got a few daylong retreats coming up in the near future.
A Meditative Journey: Dynamic Meditation
Saturday, October 29
Bethesda, MD
Created in 1970 by the teacher, Osho, Dynamic Meditation is a powerful method of releasing deep-seated tensions and cultivating a state prime for meditation. I offer a variation of the technique consisting of five phases:
Phase 1: Energetic movement
Phase 2: Free flow movement
Phase 3: Chanting
Phase 4: Sitting meditation
Phase 5: Deep relaxation
Dynamic Meditation is safe, fun and deeply engaging. No prior experience in yoga or meditation required. The afternoon session is more classical, with both seated and lying down meditations.
Click the Banner to Learn More
The Inquiry Intensive: Exploring the Questions that Can Transform Your Life
Saturday, December 3
Bethesda, MD
"What is the most important question in your life right now? Discover that, and your journey begins."
The right questions can help you change your perspective, make important decisions and solve problems and most importantly, point your attention toward your true nature.
Click the Banner to Learn More
Right livelihood is when what you do aligns with your core values.
Lise Metzger has a passion for photography, writing and agriculture. She does beautiful profiles of ‘grounded women’ who feel called to the farming lifestyle.
I highly recommend you check out her images and prose.
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Is this a good time in your life to make a commitment to practice? If so, read on.
You'll select 1 observance and 1 restraint. Choose practices you sense will enliven you in some way. Make them specific and measurable.
How to Maintain Momentum
It can be challenging to keep your practices vibrant. Here are two ways that might support you:
1. The Seinfeld Method
Print out a monthly calendar. Put a big RED "X" for each day you practice. (You might use a different color for the observance and restraint.) Keep the calendar where you can see it. The idea is to keep the visual chain going. Try doing with pen and paper. Go analog!
2. Enroll a Practice Partner
Find someone who might like to be an ally for your practice. Determine what kind of support you’d like and might offer to your partner.
Some Options:
* Send a daily or weekly email about your practice and your experience. This can be as simple a putting the information in the subject line. Your partner doesn't have to respond. But they notice.
*Schedule a series of calls or meetings with your partner to share observations and challenges.
Special PODCAST:
This talk explores how you can jumpstart your practice.
You’ll learn about the call to practice, where to start, what happens when you practice and all about the power of taking on a discipline for 30 days focusing on one ‘observance’ and one ‘restraint.
Special PODCAST:
This talk explores how generosity can not only free up your heart, but can reveal your true nature.
You’ll learn how you create a false sense of a separate self and how to recognize and heal that sense of separation by cultivating altruism as a spiritual practice.
Subscribe to Jonathan's podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jonathan-foust/id455422434?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
To receive a monthly newsletter, please signup here.
Welcome!
To be reminded of change all I have to do is wander around outside.
Larger flocks of geese just started moving through. It’s been hot and the water is quite warm now, supporting moss, mold, algae and everything that feeds on them.
Mornings are filled with clouds of bugs that ramp up their activity this time of year as if they know their time is limited. Spiders are weaving more and more webs.
A fisherman I often see at sunrise told me he hung out with some baby river otters last week.
I hope, in the midst of all that is changing around you, you are finding some peace and presence.
I had just inflated my Paddleboard with a 12-volt pump. I hook up the cables to the battery terminals for power.
I usually just drop the open hood and it clicks into place. But this time it was different.
I dropped it again. No familiar click.
I dropped it and pushed down. No luck.
Irritated now, I dropped it and put some weight behind it. No way.
Angry now, I tried again. I smashed the hood down. Nothing.
Hmm. Maybe something was in the way?
I found the culprit. My iPhone!
Dread turned to relief as the iPhone case saved it from being destroyed.
When things don’t go our way, we have some pretty predictable reactions. They usually fall into these categories:
* Aversion: Anger, judgement and blame
* Craving: Planning, Fantasy and mental disassociation
* Worry: Anxiety, Restlessness
* Sloth and Torpor: Losing energy
* Doubt: Self-Judgement and the ruthless critic
In this case, I defaulted to anger.
All of this could have been averted with a little more awareness.
When something challenging arises, the RAIN acronym comes in handy.
(R) Recognize what’s happening
(A) Allow it if you can
(I) Investigate and be intimate with what’s happening
(N) Nourish what is there with awareness and compassion
This month I’ve given a bunch of talks on "Strategies." While the RAIN acronym lies at the heart of working with challenges, I’ve got other tips there as well.
Water. Heat. Bugs.
A gang of cormorants at morning meditation.Swallows take a short break from feasting on clouds of bugs.The Stockbridge Bowl, pre-morning swim.A storm brewing on the Potomac.Summer foliage on the river.Geese on the move.One of thousands of webs in the meadow.
Video: Five Breaths: August on the River
This short video invites you into slow, full deep breathing with images from the Potomac from this last month.
The Energy Intensive: Meditation, Yoga and Breathwork at Kripalu Centers
September 29 - October 2
If youre looking for a three-day weekend intensive dedicated to slowing down, de-stressing and enlivening your practice, you might like to join me and my co-leader Shobhan Richard Faulds at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, MA.
This weekend is highly experiential, mostly in silence and designed to raise and stabilize energy and awareness.
The program culminates with a morning session of powerful breathwork using a technique that for many, provides deep release and insights.
For more information and to register.
Two-Minute Meditation: Move from Thought to Sensation
In a recent talk on Strategies for Changing Your Relationship with Anxiety, I shared a quick technique for moving from obsessing thinking to the here and now.
It only takes a few minutes and can be quite dramatic.
To listen, check this out:
Itunes podcast: Listen Here
Youtube: Watch hereThe technique:
1. Take in a long slow deep breath and for a moment, hold the breath. Exhale slowly.
2. Again, take a long slow deep breath and for a moment, hold the breath and exhale slowly.
3. Let your eyes open and take in the three distinct separate images. Notice the color, shape, quality of light and texture.
4. Close your eyes.
5. Open your attention to sounds. Notice three distinct separate sources of sound.
6. Turn your attention to feeling. Notice three distinct separate sources of sensation.
7. Notice what may have shifted in this exercise.
I find this practice to be deceptively simple. Consciously shifting awareness away from thought to direct experience can sometimes dramatically help you move out of strong, pervasive and challenging mental states.
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Special PODCAST:
This talk explores how you can find freedom and peace in the midst of patterns of addictive actions and thoughts.
You’ll learn how transforming addiction is all about seeing clearly, recognizing pain, the 'unmet need' and learning how to open to compassion and kindness.
Subscribe to Jonathan's podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jonathan-foust/id455422434?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
Special VIDEO:
This short video invites you into slow, full deep breathing with images from the Potomac from this last month.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.
Special PODCAST:
This short meditation helps you shift from thinking to sensing, particularly images, sounds and sensation.
This can be a helpful tool when you find your mind caught in strong mental states.
Subscribe to Jonathan's podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jonathan-foust/id455422434?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
Special PODCAST:
This talk explores how you can shift your relationship with anxiety, worry and restlessness.
You’ll learn how anxiety can be an ally, how to look for the cause of anxiety and some approaches as to how to be with it or let it go.
Subscribe to Jonathan's podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jonathan-foust/id455422434?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
Special PODCAST:
This talk explores some fundamental ways you can work with anger when it arises.
You’ll learn how anger arises, how to identify the cause and strategies for releasing anger and opening to new possibilities.
Subscribe to Jonathan's podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jonathan-foust/id455422434?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
Special PODCAST:
This talk explores how to bring non-judging awareness to the experience of physical pain.
You'll learn some essential teachings of Buddhist psychology as well as strategies that draw on the power of present-moment awareness including your capacity to 'zoom in' on sensation as well as how to 'zoom out' to a more expanded sense of the space that surrounds and infuses unpleasant sensations.
Subscribe to Jonathan's podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jonathan-foust/id455422434?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
To receive a monthly newsletter, please signup here.
Welcome!
Here in the mid-Atlantic it’s been hot.
Beyond hot.
With the heat index over 100 for much of this month, I get out on the river as early as I can and still come back soaked in sweat. It's a bit disconcerting to be paddling in water that feels not just tepid, but alarmingly hot.
Our ecosystems and environment feel so fragile right now. It seems more than ever, given the drama of heat, weather and the upheavals in our society, it's on us to pause, find our center and respond from presence.
Best wishes to you in your practice and in your life.
Upcoming Events
August 1:
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington
Learn More
August 7:
The Still, Small Voice Within: Meditation, Focusing and Intuition Training at Kripalu Center (5 days)
Learn More
August 8:
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, Guest Teacher
Learn More
August 15:
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington
Learn More
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington
Learn More
August 29:
Evening Class at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington
Learn More
Some Recent Dharma Talks
I sent out a survey awhile back asking for topics I might explore in an evening talk on Monday night in Arlington. If you're in the mood to listen to a talk, you might find one of these three recent ones of interest.
On Non-Attachment to Non-Attachment
Who doesn't want to feel free, spacious and at peace?
Its a most worthy goal. We have all experienced moments when we are deeply at peace, aware of the vastness of it all and the mystery of this life.
Spiritual practice gets tricky, though, when you get attached to that state of freedom and bliss.
This talk explores the states that get in the way of presence and how to recognize them. You will also explore the importance of tracing back your desires to ensure they are in alignment with your deepest intentions.
How to Embrace Challenge as a Spiritual Practice
Recent studies indicate that stress is not necessarily what kills you. Its your attitude toward the stress. If you think the stress is good for, it will be good for you.
This talk explores not just the power of clarifying what you really want, but looking closely at how you can change your attitude toward your challenges. You will also explore some strategies that can help you embrace the obstacles that make you more resilient.
How to Stay Focused on What is Most Important
Have you noticed how hard it is stay focused with so much information coming at you all the time?
This talk explores the transformative power of a concentrated mind. It also explores how and why you lose focus.
When you really want something and you are committed to it, you are setting yourself up for both challenges and breakthroughs. Having a map and a sense of best practices can make the difference between staying stuck and opening to entirely new possibilities.
You can subscribe to my iTunes podcast here, check out talks on youtube here.
If you have suggestions for a talk, please do let me know. And if you have time or interest, please offer a review of the podcast on iTunes.
Thanks!
Fresh Photos
Cormorants and herons dominate the river this time of year. A few perspectives:
A cormorant heads up river at sunrise.An annoyed heron leaves its perch.Another annoyed heron. Something itches.Me flying at 3,000 feet. Banking toward Provincetown just above the clouds.A rock-solid vriksasanaa (tree pose).Four cormorants decide its time to roll.Stealth bomber cormorant.Ta-daaaa!
Video: My Paddleboard Set Up for Photography and Video
Here’s a quick and dirty video as to what I use and carry on my paddleboard.
I love the paddleboard as it’s so light and quite stable with a tripod. I love the zazen position that affords good power but great posture for meditation.
I have a list of the items I use on my site.Geek Alert: All video was shot with the iPhone 6s Plus with an 18mm Moment lens. (I gave up trying to edit the video on my iPad and put it together in Final Cut Pro.)
The Energy Intensive: Meditation, Yoga and Breathwork at Kripalu Centers
September 29 - October 2
For the past fifteen years or so Shobhan Richard Faulds and I offer up a highly experiential and frankly, a pretty intense retreat at Kripalu Center.
Some call it ‘classic Kripalu,’ in that much of what we do is highly experiential and draws on the core Kripalu teachings that explore how to develop greater awareness of the play of energy (prana) and awareness (chitta).
Though you don’t have to have extensive experience in yoga, the three-day retreat is intensive in nature and includes social silence. You’ll explore in-depth Kripalu Yoga with it’s roots in tantra and raja yoga.
You’ll learn how to open body, heart and mind through carefully sequenced guided experiences that take you deep inside as well as in relationship with fellow retreatants. Many participants take this retreat again and again and you’re welcome to join us.
To learn more and to register:Click Here
Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program
My wife, Tara Brach, and Jack Kornfield will be offering a Mindfulness Meditation Certification Training in 2017.
This program has been years in the making, and promises to be a gold standard in secular programs for teaching awareness and compassion-based practices.
The two year professional training will include three 5-day residential retreats, a monthly mentoring session, monthly live q/a phone sessions, and a teaching practicum.
One of the prerequisites for this program is their 7-week online Power of Awareness training, next offered starting November 7, 2016 (you can register now).
Enrollment for the Teacher Certification Program is opening now. More information is available at: www.MindfulnessMeditationCertification.com.
If meditation has transformed your life, you may feel drawn to deepening your own practice and bringing these practices and teachings into the world.
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Special PODCAST:
The talk explores how to sustain attention on what’s most important in your life.
You’ll learn about the power of concentration, how and why you lose focus, how staying present to your goals sets you up for a transformational ride and some practical strategies for sustaining attention on the most important things in your life.
Subscribe to Jonathan's podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jonathan-foust/id455422434?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
Special PODCAST:
This talk explores how, once you know what you want, how to sustain focus on your goals. You're also invited to take on a practice for thirty days of 'one observation and one restraint.'
You'll learn the importance of knowing what is most important, how to discern the best practices to help you get there, how to sustain attention and how to course correct along the way.
Subscribe to Jonathan's podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jonathan-foust/id455422434?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
