Daily Reflection Sit

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.

Without cultivating this, our practice cannot flourish.

Importance of being patient as we set up the holding environment and settle into our meditation practice, recognizing that places that may chronically feel stuck, activated, blocked, tight or disconnected may be the very places in us that have long tried to protect our minds, bodies and hearts.

Who or What or Where helps us to remember that we are lovable and that we belong?

The holding environment is cultivated as a place where strength and tenderness are developed to allow us to be courageously vulnerable and open-hearted to the pain as well as the joy of life.

"As space is to form and silence is to sound, so is awareness to all phenomena”. Using this quote by Master Hua to understand the nature of awareness and how it connects to the Holding Environment.

Our world is in a liminal space, a time of transition in so many ways, full of uncertainties. The holding environment allows us to explore this, and be a steadying force in the world.

The importance of having an inviting, relaxing, inspiring place to meditate using the principles of the inner holding environment.