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I have a dream.

That one day, we will live in a world where we recognize all beings as one family.

I have a dream that on that day, when any one of my brothers or sisters, be they known to me or unknown, seen or unseen, animal or human, finds themselves in sorrow for any reason, a dark blossom will flower in my own heart and in yours and yours, until all of creation sways in the darkness of night, together, and together we sing the song of love.

I have a dream that when a brother or sister knows joy for any reason, I find myself also standing under that cascading waterfall and so do you and you and we are each refreshed, nourished, and cleansed by it together, and together we sing the song of love.

I dream that all beings of all the times in all realms have utterly open hearts and are thus capable of living in the great equanimity free from delusion, free from grasping, and free from hatred.

You have a dream.

What is it?

In the Shambhala Buddhist lineage, we say that meditation trains us to be warriors in our lives—fearless, open hearted, and genuine. Today I want to talk about fearlessness and its connection to meditation practice and I’ll start out by relating a story I heard Pema Chodron tell in one of her books. It is about her teacher, the founder of Shambhala Buddhism, which is the lineage I practice in: the Tibetan meditation master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

Trungpa Rinpoche and some attendants were approaching a monastery on foot and for some reason no one was there to greet them. A large guard dog, a mastiff, protected the entrance to the monastery and apparently he was snapping and fierce, frothing at the mouth, straining to get at them. At some point, the dog actually broke free and began to run toward them. Understandably, the attendants began to run the other way. Chogyam Trungpa started to run, too—right at the dog. At this point, the dog became afraid. He stopped. He looked at Trungpa Rinpoche. He turned and went the other direction. [Read more →]

As we move into a new year, I want to offer you a few personal reflections, some suggestions for your own process of reflecting, and opportunities to practice together into 2012.

For me, this week provides the perfect circumstances for turning within and asking myself honestly, how did I do in 2011? What do I hope for in 2012? How might I get there?

I’ve found that it doesn’t do to make lists of things I hope to accomplish but feel are lacking currently. This just makes me sad. Instead, I’ve found it more useful to begin training myself into the feeling state I know is most beneficial, which is to have an open heart and a sense of possibility. No matter how things are going in my life, if I know how to return to this state of receptivity and curiosity, then I have found the key to joy. And after all, this, a joyful life, is my objective, not making a gajillion dollars, weighing less pounds, or possessing a particular title. Not that there is anything wrong with those things but if my happiness is dependent on them, they are traps. Instead of requiring certain things to feel joyful, I could just feel joyful, on the spot. When I turn my attention to the truth of my experience rather than what I wish my experience was, this wakeful state is always what I find. And my favorite definition of joyful? Awake. [Read more →]

I’m sure you have felt gentleness time and again for those you love or admire: your child, lover, a hero of music or politics, even your pet. You think of this creature and your heart melts. You feel how deeply you wish for their ease, and not because they “deserve” it. There actually is no reason at all for this feeling, beyond love. Your heart is simply open.

When have you ever felt this toward yourself? It is very, very important that you look at yourself in just this way. Please, starting today: soften toward this precious and irreplaceable being: YOU. All you have to do is notice her. She is like no other and has gifts to give that cannot be sourced elsewhere.

From here, you are able to feel this way for everyone, not just those you already love. In this way, by opening your heart, first to yourself and then to all beings, you open up to your own life.

A question most of us will end up asking about our meditation practice is how do I know if I’m doing it right?

We sit there minute after minute, day after day, month after month and it is totally natural to wonder: Am I really doing anything? Is there a right way to meditate? Could I be doing it wrong?

There are several possible answers to consider.

1. The simplest one is this: if at any point during your practice, you notice that attention has strayed away from breath and you remember to return to it, you are doing it “right.” Case closed.

2. Another way to approach this question is with another question, best posed some weeks or months after having begun to practice: Have I noticed any differences in my life since beginning a meditation practice? Perhaps you feel a tad more cheerful or patient or equanimous. Or maybe you are becoming a bit more sensitive. If you are noticing any qualitative changes in your daily experience, you could imagine that your meditation practice is going pretty well, even if you think you’re a “bad” meditator, i.e. find it impossible to follow two consecutive breaths. I think it’s the commitment to practice itself that effects change as musch as anything and remember, the aim of meditation (if there even is one) isn’t to become a great meditator. It’s to become a great person—one who is kind, wise, and brave.

3. The final possible answer is this. Who knows?! Meditation is a spiritual practice and as such is an object of mystery. If we really understood exactly how meditation “worked,” I’d say we had failed to understand it at all.

So the best bet is to keep on practicing. Stay with it. Do the best you can. And when you look back over your life, don’t spend too much time on the question, “was I meditating right” and focus instead on “how well did I live?”

Please sign up for The Open Heart Project to receive meditation instruction twice weekly via email.

This morning I woke up with a feeling of depression. This is not unusual for me. Perhaps you can relate. I have struggled with depression for my entire life, since I was a small child. I really don’t know why and I sort of don’t really care why anymore. Nonetheless, I have had to find a way to work with it because it has bordered on being debilitating at many different points in my life.

The feeling I woke up with this morning was very familiar. A kind of heaviness in my body and a sense of being weighted down. A kind of mental activity I know quite well—that no matter where I looked in my life: my work, my relationship, my bank account, my home, my body, my future—it all looked bleak. Very bleak. Whenever this happens I dive into stories about how it got to be this way. True stories, I might add. I missed this opportunity. I made that wrong choice. My abilities are limited. Yes, true—on one hand. And utterly meaningless on the other. [Read more →]

Yesterday,  a new member of The Open Heart Project emailed to ask a very poignant question:

“How can you let go of fear of uncertainty?”

Of course we all fear uncertainty–and these days there is much to be uncertain about, whether our concerns are financial, romantic, health-related, planetary, and on and on. Of course I’m no exception.

I wish I had some magic Buddhist secret for how to stop feeling afraid and uncertain. if I did, you would be the first to know it.

Well, come to think of it, i DO know a magic Buddhist secret, sort of. [Read more →]

Sometimes we are just too agitated to meditate. It’s not even that we can’t find 10 minutes–it’s that when we do, it just feels too uncomfortable to sit. All the things on our to do list come up. The heart starts racing. The mind flips out. The more we sit, the more we freak ourselves out.

Sound familiar? This happens to me all the time. Here is what I do to get over the agitation that prevents me from meditating. [Read more →]

From a participant in The Open Heart Project:

Q: “How can I increase my mindfulness when all the stressors of my life come into play at once?”

A: I really appreciate your question about becoming more mindful when you are experiencing moments of particular stress. This is totally doable. However–if by becoming more mindful, you mean ceasing to feel stress, it’s not going to work. When you are stressed (or happy or sad or bored or frustrated, and so on) the way to become more mindful is by simply placing your attention on your experience.
[Read more →]

Hello everyone! A special hello to all the new subscribers who joined up in the past week. I look forward to getting to know you and helping you enter the practice of meditation. The Open Heart Project is growing by leaps and bounds and I’m thrilled to know how many people wish to learn meditation–which is synonymous with the wish to learn who you really are. Which is synonymous with awesome.

Today’s video (the one below on the left) is a little riff on why we meditate to begin with. Is it to become all spiritual? Unflappable? Is it to become more human? More genuine? Hmmm…. Check the video for the answer…

The second video (on the right) is today’s 10 minute guided meditation practice. Please give it a try.

Here is the audio version of video #1.

Here is the audio version of video #2.

Questions? Comments? Bring. Them. On. It make take me a little bit, but I answer all emails.

If you’d like to send a link this post and/or wish to comment on it, it lives on my blog here.