Daily Reflection Sit

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.

Importance of relating to fear with wisdom and compassion.

Explore how the cultivation of each precept supports us on and off of the cushion.

Exploring how the elements of earth, air, fire and water can nourish and support our practice

To take refuge is to orient our heart/minds toward what supports us in the direction of well-being. What does it mean to embody refuge?

Oftentimes our formal meditation practice slows down during holidays and summer vacation for most of us lay people. However, we can create temporary holding environments wherever we are. And we can always remind ourselves to breathe, ground, settle and soothe while on the go. Extending boundless love to all (ourselves included ) is the ultimate holding environment.

How to wisely cultivate a strong and gentle holding space to keep our Heart/Minds open and caring, integrating new learning and awareness.

On the importance of creating an inviting, calming physical space to more easily and warmly engage with meditation and mindfulness practices.

Instead of rejecting the uncomfortable parts of our experience we create a sense of home for all of ourselves.  This is a foundation for our practice.