ZenLife Blog
A Marvelous Victory
“We don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human being should live in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory”. ~ Howard Zinn
Gratitude and Living a Life of Openness
Our Foundation of Mindfulness classes start soon, offering a comprehensive set of teachings on mindfulness and how to begin living a Zen-inspired life that leads to a deeper love and resilience based on joy and compassion. In these classes you will discover that meditation may not be easy to do. It requires patience. And patience is based on trust. To find the deeper truth and love of who you really are, requires letting go and trusting that life is enough. Your life is a seed that will flower if you take good care of it.
Meditation from the Inside–Out
In our beginning classes at Zen Center, we teach “meditation from the inside out”. When beginners think of meditation they may imagine someone sitting in full-lotus in some exotic place. This externalized, ideal image is not helpful, because meditation takes place where you are, in your domestic situation. It is not a vacation. It is not a luxury.
Mindfulness in an Age of Distraction
If you don’t take back your attention, others will do it for you. Mindfulness is an embodied awareness that can help you be intimate with yourself and others. It takes intention. It takes practice. It’s not a technique. It’s an act of courage in which you decide once and for all, to reclaim your life.
Spiritual Practice for Difficult Times
So here's the strange thing about this. I know that bag is still there though I can no longer see it and something about that breaks my heart. It's like the sickness of this planet. I know the planet is unwell, though I can not always see it. So when I open to that my heart breaks open. And what follows after that is tenderness. I don't have to try and be good or kind. That is already here in full measure. I just have to be willing to not look away. It may be the bag in the tree. It may be a homeless person on the street. It may be bleached and dead coral reefs. It may be a brutal war in Ukraine.
If Only We’re Brave Enough To Be It
When a storm comes and confusion or strong emotions arises we lose our way. With practice we have the presence of mind to pause and reflect. We dance asking Kaiona for help, for insight to point out the pathway. We practice patience through sitting or dancing and we find that we are the flower most fragrant right before a storm. We sense a deep stirring of courage and love within. We see that our sparkle, our light, has always been here, and we have always been it.
38 + People Comment on the Benefits Meditation Has Brought Them
This is a collection of stories and comments people have sent us on the wonderful benefits meditation has brought them, published with the hope of inspiring YOU to try meditation for the first time (or pick it up again if you’ve just been lazy with it 🙂 ).
Turn the Face to the Wall
I've learned through my mindfulness practice that our bodies always remember feelings that haven't been resolved or integrated. If we stamp down our feelings and distract ourselves from emotional pain, the pain will return. My practice of meditation gives me space and time to build courage to face feelings that are uncomfortable.
Mindfulness: Mystery and Not Knowing
In Foundations of Mindfulness, Class 4: Living a Life of Openness, we speak about the first of the three tenets of a Zen Peacemaker: Not Knowing. What it is to not know something? In this culture of quick response time that technology demands, we react fast and faster.
Mindfulness Road Map
At the Zen Life and Meditation Center we speak of mindfulness meditation as intentional awareness that is embodied and non-judgmental.
Mindfulness: Clarity vs. Certainty
I told my friend that direct experience is what Living a Zen Inspired Life simply is. Embodied. Direct. On the ground. Domestic. He wanted an example of being Zen and I told him: wash a plate. Is it that simple? Yes.
Mindfulness and the Gap
Mindfulness, our practice of meditation, helps us learn to stop, pause, breathe, and pay attention. We learn to swim in the gap. Bask in it if we like palm trees and warm waters,
Mindfulness: Ephemeral Art
I place one flower in the center of the given space - yard, floor, table - and make concentric circles until I have used up my materials. Two feet to twelve feet in diameter for various kinds of celebrations and rites of passage: an eightieth birthday, a wedding, a passing, a remembrance. After I sit with the completed piece, I sweep up the component parts, put them in a woven bag, and release it all into a nearby river, ocean, lake or pond.
Mindfulness: Facing Fear
Some decisions are met with a turn-on-a-dime reflex - our brain stems takes care of that. Others require clear communication as well as thoughtful and skillful means to best sort through possible outcomes.
Seeking Refuge
I drove down Lake Street in our worn, twelve-year old mini-van. Hot fury heaved in my chest and shoulders and transformed into a high-pitched scream that poured out of my throat for two whole blocks. I screamed until I had no more energy. I screamed until my voice was hoarse. Had I been a superhero, Wonder Woman say, the scream would have been a siren shattering every van window. But I was just a regular woman, terrified and furious and grieving, trying not to speed or do something reckless as I drove.
Normalize Discomfort
So when things arise in your practice and your meditation that disturb you, you may easily get discouraged. This isn't what you signed on for. So I want to suggest that you normalize discomfort; that you proceed by allowing and acknowledging that suffering is part of your life and to walk on a spiritual path means to engage and transform this suffering, but not to avoid it.
Symmathesy: A Word in Progress
Symmathesy (Noun): An entity composed by contextual mutual learning through interaction. This process of interaction and mutual learning takes place in living entities at larger or smaller scales of symmathesy.
10 Tips for Reducing Stress in the Workplace
1. Be Proactive If you procrastinate and put off things that are pressing on you, they weigh on you and effect every thing else you do. Learn to recognize when something is pressing on you and remove the pressure by addressing it now.
Habit is Not Destiny
It turns out that neuroscientists have identified three things that make up a habit. Habits are not destiny. Once you understand the habit loop, you can have greater insight into how your brain lets go of intention and choice and moves into a less effortful, automatic mode of behaving.
Five Steps for Working with Fear
Fear is one of the most difficult emotions to work with. You may try to forget it or try running away from it, but these strategies only make the fear bigger and more entrenched. Begin by acknowledging the fear. There is some intelligence in the fear. It's important to have a proper relationship with your emotions. You need to touch the raw quality of the emotion before you can move through it. Can you be with the fear with more gentleness? Can you sense how it resides in your body? Can you watch the story you tell about the fear?