Posts from — August 2011

This is an outline of what you could do as your daily meditation practice:

1. Make offerings

2. Request blessings

Do your practice (this is a 10-minute sit)

3. Dedicate the merit

This video explains each step.

Let me know if you have questions, ideas, concerns, confusion, jokes, insights, stories…

Some thoughts to consider:

1. Choose a practice that is rooted in a lineage that is older than, say, 2,500 years. Not saying you have to adopt another culture or act all eastern, just that it’s good to find something time-tested and honed. Thus you can have confidence–and confidence in the practice is always step one along the spiritual path.

2. Learn the technique from someone who has been trained to teach it. Teaching meditation is more than an explanation, it is a transmission. It is passed down from one who has learned from his teacher, who learned from her teacher, and so on. The longer the chain, in some sense, the greater the power of the practice. (This is only one reason that lineage is important.)

3. Don’t accept anything watered down or instant. There are many skillful and intelligent ways to present the practice simply and I’m not referring to any such attempts. Just that meditation takes effort and will at some point be uncomfortable and boring. Any practice that promises otherwise should be investigated especially carefully. Stay away from things that can be done in 5, 7, or 57 steps. It’s just not that simple.

4. Don’t make stuff up. This is one area of life where it’s really important to get the instruction and follow it very closely, exactly. At some point in your practice maybe you’ll figure out some personal tweaks to the technique. But hold all tweaks for months, years, and lifetimes. The thing with practices that are rooted and long-lasting is that they are soaked in wisdom. They’ve seen all the tricks we do to avoid actually looking at our own lives. Thus, no detail is casual. It’s all there for a reason. Respect and love the technique and it will respect and love you back.

5. At the same time, whatever practice you do, it will only come to life when you make it very, very personal. There are wonderful guides who can help you enter the practice and maybe at some point you will even find a Teacher. In any case, at every step, you are on your own and charged with bringing what you have learned into your own life. You have got to figure it out on your own. Don’t take anyone’s word for anything. Trust, verify. Trust, verify. Repeat. Your experience IS the path; there is no other path. So stick with practices that encourage deep inward looking and personal responsibility.

6. Avoid practices that suggest that the point is bliss. Or transcendence. After all, we want to be right here. No one even knows what bliss is, anyway. I don’t. All I know is that it’s something other than feeling super happy and unaffected. (When asked what bliss felt like, Tibetan meditation master Choygam Trungpa said, “To you, it would probably feel like pain.”) Practice makes you more human, not less. This may not make you all peaced-out, but it will do something way better and, let’s face it, more practical: It will make you more authentic. Practice introduces you to the brilliant, confused, grumpy, joyful, and deeply tender person that you already are and opens door after door for this amazing being to enter the phenomenal world–for her benefit, yes, but also for the benefit of all sentient beings.

Of course, my opinion is that my lineage of Shambhala Buddhism fits all these parameters. I can also heartily recommend the practices associated with other schools of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as Zen and Vipassana. But whatever you choose should obviously do more than fit a list of qualifications. We’re talking about your spiritual path, here!  Heart connection with a lineage, teacher, or community trumps everything on this list.

So definitely try things out. However, at some point it is important to choose one path (or no path–this is best for some folks) and stay with that way.

Visit your local Shambhala Center. Sit Zazen. Go on a silent Vipassana retreat. Your life will thank you profusely.

Thoughts? Ideas? Questions? Please post below!

A few weeks ago, I gave a 90-minute (LOOONG, fast, and loose) talk on an Introduction to the Enneagram. If you’re interested, here it is.

I have to say, the Enneagram is the most helpful day-to-day skillful means I’ve ever learned–it is a way to see your blind spot, soften toward yourself, and feel the pain and joy of others without boundary. It’s big.

Some reminders about why it’s such a good idea + a 10 minute meditation for today.

1. As we have been discovering in recent years, there are tremendous health benefits, most significantly by reducing stress. It has been shown to lessen activity in the right prefrontal cortex (associated with anger and anxiety) and increase it in the left prefrontal cortex, which is associated with happiness and positivity. Because it lowers stress, it can positively impact diseases that have a clear stress related component such as ulcers, heart disease, asthma, and immune deficiencies. On the emotional side, when included as part of treatment for depression, researchers have shown that those who meditate are 50% less likely to relapse, which is awesome. [Read more →]

Today’s videos!

In the first video, I mention 3 reminders about meditation practice.

1. What is meditation anyway? (A non-religious, non-woo woo definition.)
2. What is my attention and how do I locate it?
3. The single most important quality to bring to your practice.

In the second video, your meditation instruction for the day.

Here is the audio-only version of video 1 (4:22)
Here is the audio-only version of video 2 (10:56)

In the first one, I talk about 3 steps to make your meditation ore than simple self-help–but into a spiritual practice. The second video is our 10-minute practice session.

The steps are:

Make offerings (the best offering is always who and what you are in the moment)
Request blessings (of your lineage or lineages; be they traditional (Buddhist, Catholic, and so on) or of the heart (perhaps you are of the lineage of artists or fathers or geniuses or gardeners or activists or Celts…)

Dedicate the merit (at the end of our practice, we make the aspiration that it could–somehow–benefit all beings, which includes you, remember)

Here is the audio-only version of video 1 (7:53)
Here is the audio-only version of video 2 (12:01)

Questions, comments? You know what to do. Email me or post to a comment below.

In video #1, I talk about making offerings and such. It can be helpful to have a shrine or altar table at home. To create an altar or shrine in your home, keep it simple. Don’t get carried away. A bookshelf, bedside table, or windowsill is good. A table covered in brocade holding a candle and a photograph is awesome too. It’s not important to make your altar table the most beautiful in the history of the world. It is important that it be neat, clean, and show sincerity. Typically, altars contain things that evoke the senses, such as images, fragrances, and so on. These are the most non-conceptual offerings. You can place on your altar an image of something or someone precious, flowers, a candle, and/or incense. Here are some examples.

Books to read:

Today’s 10-minute meditation:

I was in a discussion online yesterday about certain insights into meditation practice and one person posted something like “I wish I had known this, but maybe it’s best to learn by experience.”

Fortunately or not, there is no way to learn without bringing something into experience. otherwise, it simply remains information, not wisdom.

So while it’s of utmost importance to practice, it’s of equal utmost importance to study. Study (meaning reading, taking classes, and also simply spending time thinking about stuff) gives rise to the proper view. Holding the view is important. Without it, you don’t really know what you’re doing on the meditation cushion. It’s like trying to walk from here to Brooklyn without knowing where “here” is. you could wander around for awhile and stuff, but who knows where you’ll end up.

So, in the name of holding the view, i’d like to recommend some books that have been ridiculously helpful to me. Check the video for more info.

PS I broke today’s session into two videos: the first one (about 10 mins) is the book suggestions and the second one is our 10 minute meditation for the day.

A 4-min video for your viewing pleasure.

When the iron bird flies and horses run on wheels, the Tibetan people will be scattered like ants across the face of the earth. ~ Guru Padmasambhava (8th Century)

I can’t wait for this film, described this way by the producers:

When the Iron Bird Flies traces the astounding path of one of the world’s great spiritual traditions from the caves of Tibet to the mainstream of western culture and asks: In these increasingly chaotic modern times, can these age old teachings help us find genuine happiness and create a saner, more compassionate 21st century world?

Hello. As you do your practice today, it’s important that you feel that what you are doing is important. Please try this attitude on for size.

Check the video for more on this topic.

Here is the audio-only version.

Enjoy! Stay beautiful! xo Susan