Daily Reflection Sit

Time and patience! Also using positive imagery can be helpful.

The Buddha didn’t suggest that we only practice mindfulness on the cushion, he wanted us to learn how to inhabit a mindful view all day long.

Setting up our practice with the deliberate intention to hold whatever may inevitably knock at our doors. This is practice!!

Nested within a multitude of holding environments—universe, galaxies, solar systems, Earth’s ecosystems, communities—the one we have the most agency with is the inner holding environment of these bodies.

Attachment to thinking and insufficient faith in the practice are most common.

Returning to the breath as often as needed to support our holding environment for body and mind.

Recognizing that our holding environment is present in all our ordinary moments and actions.

Patience as an essential quality in our meditation practice.

We create the Holding Environment, the foundation of practice. We create a feeling of home. This is how we set up the practice.

It is far more than a technique; it is a home base and a portal.

When we are caught in reactive states it is often because we don’t yet know how to be with something that is difficult.

Working with phrases to help notice and slow down patterns of striving in our meditation practice.

This time of the year offers us plenty of opportunities to practice the Brahmaviharas towards others and ourselves as we navigate the winter blues and the season when we may feel pressured to perform or be jolly.  Let’s light the fire of our heart minds with wisdom and empathetic love.

Here are some images and metaphors that help us to explore and experience what is perhaps the most challenging of the Brahma Viharas

It brings patience to metta, steadiness and acceptance to karuna and lessening of our selves to Mudita.