Category: Mindfulness

This is your gift to the world

The fear of being abandoned. The terror of being lonely forever. The anxiety of being utterly dependent upon another. The panic of unbearable vulnerability and exposure. The dread of the looming death of yourself and everyone around you. These are the great fears that come as you wake, as you fall asleep, and as you dream through this life.

But perhaps the greatest fear of all is the fear of being loved. We don’t really see it this way, though. For when you are really loved, when you are entirely seen, when you are fully held, it is the end of your world as you know it. You will never be the same. You will never again be able to pretend that you are other than perfect and precious as you are. And that is terrifying.

Life is always seeing you in this way.

You long to be loved, to be seen, but please know that the implications are immense; they are cosmic. To allow yourself to be loved in this way a part of you must die. Everything you thought you weren’t must be surrendered. You must let go of the stories of the unlovable one, the awakened one, the special one, the imperfect one, and the despairing one. Love wishes to reveal your nakedness, to remove your clothing, and to burn away all that is false and less than whole within you. What you are is a raging firestorm of creativity, sensuality, openness, warmth, and kindness. Love will never stop until you know this.

In this way, love is a destructive process, for it comes to re-order everything you thought you knew. But will you step into this sweet annihilation? Yes, something will be shattered; actually, everything will be taken away. All that will be left is your wholeness and your raw, tender heart. This is your gift to this world.

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Mindfulness as an Act of Love

Tami Simon speaks with Saki Santorelli, the director of the internationally acclaimed Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts and the executive director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society. Saki is one of the premier teachers of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), and has worked with Sounds True and Florence Meleo-Meyer on the upcoming MBSR Online Training Course. In this episode, Tami speaks with Saki about the medical evidence for the benefits of MBSR, how mindfulness helps us interrupt and change our habitual reaction to stress, and if there is a correct “dosage” of mindfulness practice and training. (68 minutes)

The Heart Center Meditation

One of the most important aspects of awakening, says Dr. Ann Marie Chiasson, is the opening of the heart. The heart is a floodgate which, when open, enables the world’s great mystical teachings and realizations to pour through.

Here, Ann Marie guides you through a short, heart-centering meditation, which you can practice daily, or anytime you wish to access the mystery and intelligence that is your own heart.

Unconditioned Awareness and the Challenges of Everyday...

Friends, many of you commented that you really enjoyed the online video dialogue we recently offered with Peter Fenner and Jeff Foster, moderated by Sounds True founder Tami Simon.

Many of the world’s great wisdom traditions speak of the “natural” state, one of unconditioned awareness where we meet reality directly as it is. What is this experience of unconditioned awareness and how is it related to healing and transformation? Is it some sort of resting place? Is it something we can cultivate through spiritual practice or in some other way? And most importantly, how does the experience of unconditioned awareness shift the way we relate with difficulties in our lives, challenges around intimacy and relationships, our work in the world, and the way we experience feelings and emotions?

I hope you enjoy the dialogue and that you find it meaningful and useful in your life.

When Deep Faith Meets Deep Reason

Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Ashok Gangadean, who has been a professor of philosophy at Haverford College for more than 45 years. Ashok investigates the primal internal logic of human reason and the deep dynamics of communication between diverse worldviews. He is the author of Meditative Reason and Between Worlds, and with Sounds True has created the six-session audio course Awakening the Global Mind. In this episode, Tami speaks with Ashok about breaking out of limiting patterns of “ego-mental thinking” by deepening our dialogue with ourselves and others, and what it might mean to find the “missing grammar” of supreme universal consciousness he calls “Logos.” (57 minutes)

Interspiritual Invocation by Mirabai Starr

I wanted to share with you the invocation given by our dear friend and author Mirabai Starr at the recent Wake Up Festival. Invoking the great wisdom traditions throughout our world, Mirabai led the community in prayer and gratitude as we opened this year’s event. Several of you mentioned that you were really moved by Mirabai’s words; we wanted make make a copy available here. May you drink deeply.

Beloved One,
Living Light,
Spirit of All That Is,
we give thanks.
Thank you for welcoming us
to this sacred circle.

We come from everywhere,
and we find you wherever we are:
inside the holy houses of each of the world’s faiths,
and out in the wild places of the earth;
shoulder to shoulder in the mosque,
bending to press our hearts to the ground in surrender;
in the haunting Hebrew melodies of our ancestors
as we call on the Shekinah to infuse us
with her indwelling feminine spirit;
in the communion bread and wine,
which we take in remembrance
of the Prince of Peace.
We hear your voice joining with ours when we chant the Divine Names
in Sanskrit and Tibetan, Tiwa and Maya and Maori.

We meet you high on alpine trails,
where we stop to rest among fragrant wild herbs,
beside a stream rushing with melted snow.
We feel you holding us when we float in the arms of the ocean
and she sways us with her breath.
We kiss you when we are making love;
we mourn you when an elder releases her final exhalation;
we soothe you when we rock a tired child in our arms.

We look for you in the pulsating emptiness,
search for your true form in the heart of formlessness,
unexpectedly recognize you when we give up and turn away.

You shine through the ecstatic stanzas of the poets and mystics,
each one singing your praises in a different language.
You well up in our aching hearts
when we cry out for the pain of the world.
You are the call to justice,
and the answering response of mercy.
You are in the wounding of the earth
and you are the only hope for mending her.

Oh Great Spirit,
Father-Mother God,
True Self and No-Self,
Invisible animating energy of Life:
We claim our place at your table
and find ourselves home at last.
Here may we eat and be filled,
drink and become unbridled,
lay down our burdens and take refuge,
drop into your sacred silence and remember.

And let us take this remembrance back out into our lives,
That we may truly be of service
in this broken and beautiful world.

AMEN.

-Mirabai Starr

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