Search Results for: Sounds True – Page 96

Miles Neale: Entering a Tibetan Buddhist Flight Simula...

Miles Neale is a prominent member of the current generation of Buddhist teachers, championing the emerging field of contemplative psychotherapy. With Sounds True, Miles has published Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Miles about Lam Rim, the Tibetan Buddhist framework for moving into enlightened awakening step by measured step. They discuss the difference between gradually awakening and coming to enlightenment in a sudden burst, as well as the potential interplay between the two. Miles also leads Tami and the audience in a seven-step mentor bonding visualization that takes advantage of the mind’s capacity to create a “flight simulator” for felt experience. Finally, Miles and Tami talk about the need to re-embrace religion and ritual in order to transcend the “cinderblock civilization” of materialism and nihilism. (69 minutes)

Tami’s Takeaway
When Miles led us through a brief version of the mentor-bonding process that he teaches, I was surprised by who showed up in my mind’s eye. It was not a spiritual mentor, business mentor, or a psychological guide, but someone who has recently begun helping me become physically fit. This underscored for me how many different dimensions there are to mentorship, as well as how important it is to be utterly open to receiving help from a surprising source.

Zainab Salbi: Wielding Our Sword of Truth

Zainab Salbi is an author, humanitarian, and media commentator who founded the nonprofit organization Women for Women International when she was only 23 years old. With Sounds True, she has published the book Freedom Is an Inside Job: Owning Our Darkness and Our Light to Heal Ourselves and the World. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon and Zainab discuss what it means to be an agent of social change while also navigating the everyday journey of being human. They talk about why it’s necessary to let go of what no longer works in our lives in order to embrace our most deeply held truths. As an Iraqi-American, Zainab speaks on engaging with people whose values oppose ours—especially those who currently oppose Muslim immigration to the United States. Finally, Zainab and Tami talk about the healing power of making amends and what “freedom” really means. (83 minutes)

Tami’s Takeaway
Zainab teaches how we can befriend people who hold opposing views not through debate, but through embrace and a strong, open stance that is curious about the other person’s underlying needs and emotions. I believe this skill—truly understanding people who disagree with us and feel “other”—is one of the most important skills we need to be peacemakers and bringers of love in all of our interactions.

Rhonda Magee: We Are Embodied and Embedded: Bringing M...

Rhonda Magee is a law professor at the University of San Francisco, a longtime mindfulness teacher, and a fellow of the Mind & Life Institute. Rhonda is a featured presenter in Sounds True’s Waking Up in the World—a 10-day online event showcasing prominent voices who embody the meeting between social action and spiritual exploration. This special episode of Insights at the Edge is drawn from a previous presentation given by Rhonda as part of our Mindfulness Monthly subscription program. Here she explores how mindfulness practice can be used to uncover our biases and help us understand any privilege we carry in our interactions with others. Rhonda encourages us to fully consider how aspects such as race, gender, and economic background have come to shape our perception of the world. Finally, Rhonda leads us in a guided meditation to inquire deeply into how our environments have guided us to this moment in our lives. (63 minutes)

Tami’s Takeaway
We often hear how mindfulness can help us discover our common humanity. Here, law professor Rhonda Magee helps us embrace what is unique about each of us: our embodied experience as a particular person with a specific human inheritance, residing in a particular place, with a particular position, skin color, gender, and sexual orientation. We are applying mindfulness to what makes us different. And what a critical skill this is if we are going to learn to take a different person’s position and work together to bring mindfulness to what Rhonda calls “the cutting edge of mindfulness”—shifting our institutions and social structures to reflect our deepest values.

Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush: Walking Each Other Home

Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert) is a world-renowned spiritual teacher and the author of the indispensable classic Be Here Now. Despite suffering a massive stroke that left him with aphasia, Ram Dass continues to write and teach from his home in Maui. His longtime friend Mirabai Bush is the founder of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, and was the one of the co-creators of Google’s Search Inside Yourself program. They have teamed with Sounds True to publish Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying. In this special episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush about changing our society’s dysfunctional relationship to dying, focusing on how to ease fears around the process. They talk about facing a lifetime of regrets and why going into our last moments consciously is so important. Finally, Mirabai leads listeners in a practice designed to help release attachments and comments on why grieving is an important act of love. (63 minutes)

Tami’s Takeaway: Ram Dass, who is now 87 years old, has planned at the time of his death for there to be an open-air funeral in Maui. He has even secured a government license for this to happen. Ever the teacher (even when it comes to his own death), Ram Dass’s intention is to introduce Westerners to teachings from the East—in this case, the value of sitting with a burning corpse while contemplating impermanence and living whole-heartedly. Of course, we don’t need to wait until we are at an open-air funeral to engage in such contemplation. We are each asked to die in some way every day, to let go of an old image of ourselves or an outmoded configuration of some kind. Can we embrace the dying we are going through right now? And in the process, experience our hearts breaking open so that we can live and love fully, without constraint?

Terry Real: Standing Up to One Another with Love

Terry Real is a family therapist, public speaker, and the founder of the Relational Life Institute. Terry’s written works include I Don’t Want to Talk About It, How Can I Get Through to You?, and The New Rules of Marriage. With Sounds True, he has created the audio program Fierce Intimacy: Standing Up to One Another with Love. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Terry about his somewhat unusual, do-or-divorce approach to couples therapy. They talk about deal breakers in relationships and why they don’t necessarily need to end a partnership. Terry explains what it means to hold a “core negative image” of a partner, why this is all too common, and why recognition of that core image can actually strengthen a relationship. Finally, Terry and Tami discuss what “fierce intimacy” truly entails and why canny relationship skills are the very same qualities that will help the human race rise to meet the challenges of the future. (64 minutes)

Gary Gach: Pause. Breathe. Smile. Spiritual Awakening ...

Gary Gach is a writer, meditator, and mystic who draws on his diverse life experiences to inform his nonfiction and poetry offerings. He is the author of What Book!? and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Buddhism. With Sounds True, he has most recently published Pause, Breathe, Smile: Awakening Mindfulness When Meditation Is Not Enough. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Gary about the titular process of pausing, breathing, and smiling—how it can center you immediately, plant seeds of awakening, and help light the way on the path to peace. They talk about the “mouth yoga” of the half-smile and why meditation is only “part of the menu” of daily mindfulness practice. Gary and Tami also discuss what it means to exist in three kinds of awakening reality: the spaces of impermanence, interbeing, and selflessness. Finally, Gary shares his love of reading and writing haiku, offering a spontaneous haiku poem that arises in the course of the interview. (59 minutes)

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