The ‘truth’ about our own purpose in life may be closer than we think- a ‘voice’ from within that calls out to us to wake up and pay attention to something deeply visceral. Perhaps, we are too busy searching outside of ourselves… the ‘truth’ obscured as we tend to be consumed by what we have been socialized and conditioned to believe about our choices, relationships, and ultimately our own path in life. Do we often feel out-of-synch or off-track with the conditions and consequences of our lives? Is there a deep longing to harmonize what we value with how we live? Can we sense our need to ‘shift’, but yet ignore or resist the ‘calling’?

It takes great courage and fortitude to dive into the frontier of our own unknown. For many of us, we have been taught the meaning and value of an outer life often at the expense of mindfully connecting and realizing what is inherently most purposeful and fulfilling from right within ourselves. Often sweating the small stuff, we lose sight of our larger, more meaningful perspective in life.

Shifting from an outward to an inward inclination, we begin to open up, trust, and unfold with what calls us from within. To unfold with our life’s purpose, we need mental space and attention to listen closely from within, and to be open for honest & clear reflection. As we reflect, we may begin to realize the importance of our life’s failings and successes- all lessons and grist for the mill- when excavating what is truly purposeful in our lives.

To know where we are. It is here where we may begin to ‘shift’ our actions… and to discern from the feedback of our actions what is truly meaningful and relevant to a purpose we deeply long to actualize.

Despite the tentativeness of mind, we can courageously move forward stretching and pushing ourselves into what deeply moves us. Each day we can take pause to passionately envision and service our life’s purpose giving it and our consciousness the energy & power to make it both real and self-fulfilling…

Part of our ‘human condition’ is our innate tendency to avoid pain. It is often desire for ‘avoidance’ that prevents us from starting or sustaining new habits in life. The energy behind our desire to avoid pain tends to be stronger than the motivational force underlying our intention to make positive changes in our lives.

In our minds, we tend to inflate the transitional pain associated with making a change- we tend to identify with it as being more painful than not changing at all. More often than not, we remain ‘stuck’ and stagnated by habits that may be counterproductive and unhealthy.

To move forward with positive change, we need to empower our intention. We need to overcome our RESISTANCE by stepping out of our relative comfort zone, and begin to reap the potential benefits (rewards) in making the change. If we are soon to directly see & feel the benefits of our change… the rewards for ‘doing’ can become pleasurable- and a new motivating factor may replace our existing desire to avoid.

Consider the pain that may be necessary for disciplining ourselves to make positive change in our lives… does the price of this discipline outweigh the potential suffering we may ultimately experience from the pain of our regret?

“To do or not to do”- we all have this intrinsic ‘freedom of choice’. Is the discomfort associated with the transitional pain for change greater than the pain of having lived a life without genuine fulfillment or happiness?…

When we cease to try and surrender to awareness, the world takes on a different light…

“Ceasing to try”- ceasing to be anywhere else but here and now… sitting in stillness in quiet and calm awareness. There is nowhere else to be and no one else to be. Sitting in stillness with our ‘choiceless awareness’ is in direct contradiction to the core of our highly conditioned “self”- to be anything less than doing, striving, controlling, imagining, thinking, etc. We are constantly in motion, busy trying to influence the outcome of our moment-to-moment living. More often than not, our measure of doing and acquiring leaves us short of fulfillment.

In just being, the ’emptiness’ of this mind-body process allows us to stand where we are- to be ourselves without pretense or expectation to be anywhere or anything else. Just being ourselves is inherent to our practice- and allowing our moments into ‘choiceless awareness’ to flow forward to reveal the light of their truth- reflective and pure- and absent of self-conscious thought, opinion, judgment, etc.

Here where we sit quietly in the middle of our direct mind-body experience, we look for nothing as the awareness of self-observation reveals what emerges and becomes on its own.  The energy of our intention to simply sit and watch brings forth what shall come to be known in this ‘choiceless awareness’. Nothing, but to be with ourselves, and with whatever comes to be in our just being in the here and now.

With gentle attentiveness and relaxed alertness, we focus in on what is arising while remaining aware of our surroundings. To let be, life has an interesting way of breaking into our awareness to reveal the quality of our response to it. In the process of awakening, we merge with refined sensitivity into the act of “awarenessing”- focused yet expansive as we “dial” in and out the arising events of consciousness. Gentle yet determined, we remember even in our streams of unconscious endeavors to come back again and again to being wakeful- and to seeing how our mind states can be both fuel for our suffering and our happiness.

Today, doing more and having more are strong societal measures of our success, but inwardly we are still rather paupers in the fulfillment of true happiness. The longings of heart still burn deeply in our consciousness, but yet this frontier seems overlooked for the sake of pursuing the conventional and the conditioned. We communicate with such eloquence and opulence of speech, but yet the words often manifest as empty rhetoric. Our relationships appear to suffer as we are so busy tending a field of burgeoning technology rather than the inherently rich soils of shared and collective consciousness. Just being allows us to step back into the expansive frontier of the human psyche. As meditators, we are like “psychonauts” (R. Thurman) exploring and examining the unknown of our expansive minds for the sake of our own humanity.

The radical shift in our individual consciousness is to be more at home within ourselves… to be sensed, felt, and shared with the collective consciousness of others. The challenges to living more fully- with deeper happiness and less suffering- lie within the depths of our own consciousness. It is through the light of awareness that we begin to illuminate and penetrate our life’s obscurities. Just sitting and being may not seem all that important or meaningful- but for many who routinely do- it can be a real life changer.

Our brains have been hard-wired and our minds deeply conditioned to think and problem solve. Historically, we have survived, adapted, and evolved with an architecture and circuitry of a brain networked to receive sensory impulses for immediate processing- mainly for self-protection and preservation. There is significant angst and unrest when events of mind are left unfinished or unresolved. We have learned and aspire to put closure to things regardless of whether it is most appropriate for the situation or not. Our mental commentary might stream something like…  It’s done… let’s move on… there’s so much to do… and I am so busy and so preoccupied to leave this unfinished and hanging around my consciousness.

Using awareness we are able to disconnect from our mind’s problem-solving circuitry, and allow our consciousness to unfold into the emptiness of our “pause”- the “space” between our stimulus and response. Here we are free to spontaneously embrace a shift from doing to non-doing. It is here that we are allowing our brain and our mind the opportunity to learn a new way of being, which is calmer, quieter, and more stable.

It is here and now that we can learn to “see in new & fresh ways”- a state of mind where experiences are taking on a whole new look as the “thinking self” is relaxing and shifting into the “observing self”. In awareness, the observing self abides in openness, uncertainty, and the unknown as what we may regard as “unfinished business” is left to teach us more about how “to see” and less how “to think”. With ‘clear seeing’– the awareness of the observing self- we begin to see the influence spawned from our fabrications of mind to have and complete more. We can recognize and acknowledge the strength and power of our habits and conditioning to fuel and sustain our self-absorbed accomplishments.

It is the higher energy of awareness that allows us to penetrate and transmute the impulsive forces underlying our habit energy to be less driving, controlling, wanting, grasping, and expecting to “close” what may need to remain open- and to continue to unfold revealing the inherent “truth” behind our experiences.

It’s not that “unfinished business” remains unattended as the unresolved happenings of our consciousness are observed and examined openly in our field of awareness. The difference here is in how we “attend”- our underlying intention to “see clearly”- and the disposition we foster in our “seeing” of what is directly happening. It is having the courage and patience to let be and to let unfold in a more spontaneous and natural manner- to reveal to us how we may best respond both flexibly and adaptively.

Habitually, we are creatures called to constant action- doing, fixing, and finishing what we start. It takes much patience, practice, and even fortitude in our mindfulness training to relax in the face of what compels most of our waking attention to finish, complete, and resolve. Often we cannot just “stay with it” or “sit with it” as we are routinely overwhelmed and ultimately swept away by our recurring urges and impulses to be quickly reactive rather than patiently adaptive.

What holds us back? What keeps us ‘stuck’ from moving forward into a healthier, more peaceful place in our lives? What do we resist in our lives… and why?

Is our resistance a function of our inability to simply accept life as it is… here & now? Can we not skillfully let go of our views- our illusions & projections of how we think our life should be?

Do we perpetually cling to what is familiar because we are deeply frightened of the unknown- of what we might discover about ourselves… or about our world?

The more we resist, the greater the control it seems to hold over our mind and our sense of ‘being’. We create & empower its solidity by our inability to ‘see’ through its hollow nature. When we ultimately turn to face what we resist, it loses its ‘grip’ on our lives. Awareness, intent, and genuine acceptance allows us to penetrate the underlying fear.

As resistance melts away, we often become more flexible & fluid in our lives. What may have once been impossible now becomes workable. With acceptance… there is freedom to move forward with greater wisdom, understanding, & maturity.

It’s not what we would like or don’t have, but all that we do have…

It’s taking pause in our day… every day… to be still and simply reflect on what’s GOOD and what’s RIGHT about our own lives. We are enough and we have enough in our lives to be genuinely happy & content. We only have to look within to see and feel the abundance.

Allow your heartfelt appreciation to flow freely in both your Way of being & doing. Be grateful to yourself and to others… and as you come to see clearly the gifts in your own life, you also begin to see what is missing in the lives of others.

The present moment is here & now… embrace it… live it… and appreciate it… for the only moment we ever really have… is this one.

Be Aware & Be Amazed!

Attention or awareness is the essence of our practice, because every moment in life is absolute in itself. No two contiguous moments are the same. That’s all there is. There is nothing other than this present moment; there is nothing but “this”. So when we don’t pay attention to each little “this”, we miss details and qualities of our ever flowing and changing moments. Experiences slip by because they are riddled and obscured by our personal priorities- by our streams of thoughts and emotions. We forget to be present, and the space for directly experiencing reality often becomes filled with discursive “mental chatter”. Focused, concentrated attention disallows our mind’s “reverie” from taking front and center stage. We remain attentive to reality as it is right now. In our awareness practice, we notice how our thoughts affect the sensations in our body- and how they affect our behaviors. We are capable of taking it all in, with an intention to pay deliberate attention- and with an open invitation to receive and accept over and over again.

With this intention to pay attention, we are no longer the “center” of our experience in the here and now. We are part of this observational process…  this moment-to-moment awareness… seeing and sensing the subtleties arising in mind and body with clarity and precision. In awareness, we do not get “stuck” in our observation, because we witness these phenomenological arisings or events nonjudgmentally as they are. We explore all our happenings with curiosity, equanimity, and openhearted acceptance regardless of content as they may ultimately manifest as insight to help us to better understand, discern, and to liberate ourselves from a limiting process of self-identification.

Awareness teaches us that our events of mind are simply that. We are not what we experience, but our experience is of interest. Our thoughts and our feelings are made up. They are subordinate to the reality of what is happening and what we are directly experiencing. More often than not our “mental chatter” gets in the way of the flow of information from our direct experience. We cannot possibly know the truth if we are constantly caught up in the flow of our minds- nor can we effectively regulate the flow of information for contextual discernment with this obscurity and confusion of mind. Awareness is the antidote to our obscurity, confusion, and ignorance of mind.

Into awareness, we practice again and again working with our conditioned patterns of thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations- exploring & examining the boundless nature of our mind. With a daily regimen, we transcend the limits of our patterns to refine our open awareness, and our ability to freely and deliberately pay attention. To truly be aware is to be amazed at what our direct experiences may hold. In the purity of awareness, we are revealed a higher order of consciousness for learning, understanding, growing, healing, and transforming our lives. Practice and discover this truth for yourself…

Our “support” of mind is a stability of awareness.

Steady even through the turbulent winds of the mind. Awareness of awareness is the “support” of the mind. Through our regular awareness training with shamatha or attending exercises, we practice again and again to cultivate this “support”- this capacity to remain unmoved by the events of mind regardless of their content. Awake, we are conscious with some observational distance of what is happening. Seeing and noticing without indulging… and in this wakefulness, there is “space” or “emptiness” opening up within us… expanding and settling us into a clearer and calmer state of mind.

In this “space” we are simply watching and observing the activities of mind intimately and sensitively minus the “personal identification” with what is witnessed. The act of “awarenessing” is this stability of awareness- this simple acknowledgment of what is observed… sensed… felt…or thought… just as it is.

Thoughts, feelings, sensations, and images are all part of this moving and changing kaleidoscope of the mind. They rise, periodically intensify, and subside in a shifting and flowing rhythm. Abidingly, we observe their “dance” and their movement. They attract our attention without capturing it. We are meditative in our attention and the objects of attention help to develop our awareness. In awareness, our practice gives us space to view the “viewer” in a calm and abiding way. The relative fitness of our mind is conditioned by the strength of our capacity to sustain our full attention. Our “attentional muscles” are focused in small ways early in our practice and then gradually expanded into larger, more challenging realms as we develop greater concentration and confidence. Over time, our capacity to pay attention can become highly refined and discerning to do the difficult work of penetrating, stripping down, and transmuting our limiting habitual patterns.

We experience the power of mind- the energy to create and dissolve our psychic conditions through awareness and attention- through balanced effort- and through clear, purposeful intention. Stability of awareness sustains the ‘energy’ and ‘light’ of mindfulness. It is the “support” we need to come to know and to understand the activities of mind, as well as the nature of our own being.

Do we see clearly our condition of mind- all the assumptions and judgments? Do we see how we label and categorize perceptions of mind- what is “good”, “bad”, and “neutral”? Do we notice our fixation and grasping tendencies of what is labeled “good”? How about our rejection, denial, and avoidance of what is labeled as “bad”? That which we label as “neutral” or uninteresting, we tend to ignore. It is our perceptions that seed these habits of mind.

The mental treadmill of desire and aversion is an exhausting process- and much of what happens in between is rarely even attended. We cycle in and out of personal drama- a tug of war between grasping pleasure and comfort, and avoiding pain and discomfort. Genuine peace and happiness tend to elude us. We swim against the current as there arises growing resistance and tension to accept the constant change surrounding the potentiality to maintain pleasure and to avoid facing pain. Everything “ordinary “or “neutral” that arises in between is often missed as we are so enmeshed and caught up in our recurrent melodramas- from one end of the “continuum” to the other.

We come to see our psychic disturbances and patterns more clearly with a deeper understanding of their nature- their motives and mechanisms. Our mind becomes transformed by our heart-felt intent and understanding. We soften to let go and strengthen to embrace. We clear the way to see, relate, and adapt with a discerning yet expansively inclusive perspective. We learn to label less and experience more. What was once critical and judgmental becomes open and receptive. We see our patterns to perceive mainly out of our fear to just be and accept as we are. Our past is our present, and our ‘presence’ is our future.  When we come to understand by living this ‘Way’, then the light of our nature begins to illuminate a very different experience of the world.

Beyond the drama of ‘self’ there is ‘pure experience’. It is the wisdom to see the ‘truth’ in our experiences as an unbiased witness or observer directly connected to what is arising as it is happening. We become sensitized to reality and less enslaved by the illusions and projections of our mind’s self-perpetuating narrative. It is our practice and our ‘Way’ of being and living with mindfulness, mindful intelligence, and ‘mindsight’ that enables us to become sensitively aware of our thoughts, feelings, and deeds. As we “chase” & “avoid” less, we discover there is more to experience. It is with this sense of ease and freshness that our minds begin to settle and become calmer and steadier. There is less tension, fear, and anxiety. As we relax into understanding ourselves, we relate to our cognitive and affective experiences with greater equanimity regardless of their content.

See for yourself. See within yourself…

As best you can, make the time to practice and cultivate your capacity to experience and live mindfully. Don’t take my word for it. What I say or write is just words. You need to experience mindfulness directly for yourself. How and what you intend to experience either internally or externally is truly up to you…

Our conscious mental activity is a flowing and energetic process of sensory perception, cognition, and emotion. A great deal of our sensory information is often missed as it arises and passes so quickly within the awareness of a busy and preoccupied mind. Much of our sensory data is also perceived as an abstract or mental representation. The thinking or conceptual mind generalizes our situations- and often disconnects the observer from having an authentic, direct experience. Almost instantaneously, we see, hear, smell, taste, or touch- and then “label”. From this conceptual representation, we generate one label after another- and from these “labels” there arises an affective or emotional reaction to the thinking mind’s creation… to streams of habitual feelings of like or dislike, etc. It is here where the emotional mind drives our impulse for action- “to move” toward, away from, or to simply be disinterested. Within this cycle, there often appears to be a continuous, self-perpetuating, and repetitive stream of thought… “label”… and emotion. Conditioned and habitual, our perception routinely ends up distant from the actuality of the direct experience.

Our everyday mind is predominantly regulating and processing from a conceptual and emotional perspective- what psychologists typically refer to as “top-down” processing. Its integrated counterpart- “bottom-up”– our sensory and intuitive processing are often veiled in awareness by a neural network that is charged and activated by constant thought and emotion. When our affective (i.e. emotional) states are agitated or afflictive, we become even more distant and obscured from our direct experience… the “mind maze” becomes one obscure turn after another clouding our awareness and cycling our attention with habitual narrative and mental chatter.

Exhaustion with this cyclical process can often motivate our intent for inquiry into the conceptual nature of our labeling. We then ask ourselves how often do our labels truly represent our reality- and how often do they misrepresent it? How often do we get caught up in all the concept and emotion spun by our mind-made realities?  What are we bound to- and what may liberate us? Can we truly be mindful stewards and work with our own minds- with our awareness and attention to be open to honestly knowing the source of our confusion and ignorance?

Knowing how our mind works- the habitual cycles of thought and emotion- is key to opening our Way to liberation. In a mindful Way of being, we can become free to clearly see how our unwholesome patterns entangle us and limit our natural capacity for expansiveness, freshness, and direct connectedness to our experiences. Through refinement of this awareness and our capacity to clearly see the workings of the mind- we set the stage for the mind to free itself… to use free yet focused attention and open awareness to penetrate the exhausting cycles of mind that obscure our sentience and intuition from balancing and regulating our thought and emotion. It is here that we may discover the power of our own awareness and its capacity to directly change our lives by transforming our owm states of mind.

In our formal meditation practice- as we sit in our ‘breathing space’, feeling the breath, feeling sensations in the body, we can be aware of different emotions as they arise in our direct observing experience. There might be the feeling of happiness or sadness; there might be the feeling of joy or anger. We might feel quite light or buoyant. We might feel heavy or despairing.

Whatever the emotional state, it can be opened into, noticed, acknowledged, and let go. The practice is to be aware of any arising emotional states without identifying with them- not taking them to be “I” or “self” or “mine”, but seeing them simply as a stream of experience arising out of conditions. With our own inner capacity for mindsight- this free attention & open awareness- we may see them lasting for some time, changing, disappearing in the form of sensations in the body; or particular thoughts or images associated with the emotion; or as a certain texture or coloration of the mind. Each emotion has its own particular ‘flavor’, the flavor of sadness or happiness or joy or love or anger. Our intention here is to openly and curiously explore all of these aspects to be this way or that way- to react this way or that way.

In working with emotion in our practice, it’s important to first recognize what it is. Here, it can be very helpful to use mental noting to bring forth clear recognition, this is happiness, this is sadness, this is loneliness, this is excitement, this is interest, this is boredom, etc. Clear recognition can be very helpful. If other thoughts arise and associate with this naming process, simply practice again and again to the simple ‘naming’ of them.

When an emotion arises strongly in our experience, it’s useful to notice the different aspects of it. Feel the specific sensations in the body as best you can. Is there heat? Is the body contracted? Is it open? Is it soft? Notice whether there are particular images or thoughts associated with the emotion, and notice the ‘mind flavor’ of the particular feeling. As best we can, it becomes deeply meaningful and revealing to try and open to the subtleties in the mind and body as each of these feelings arises.

At times we may not be able to clearly recognize what the emotion is. No need to agonize over the absence of revelation, we can simply open to the feeling with the general note of ‘feeling’ or ’emotion’ until what it is becomes clearer.

Once we recognize and acknowledge then we need to accept, if possible. Here, there is often a tendency to resist or deny certain emotions, particularly if they’re unpleasant. There are certain emotions that we don’t like to feel. These can be different for each of us. In our practice, it’s important to recognize what’s arising and be accepting of whatever it is. It is acceptance that conditions our capacity for non-identification with our emotional states, and this contemplative practice of repeatedly seeing & letting be… seeing & letting go. These states are simply phenomena of mind- arising out of conditions and then passing away. They are non-personal with no one behind the emotion to whom it is happening.

Working with our feeling states is a real effort early in our practice. We are habitually conditioned to personalize and identify with our emotions. Quite often, we become so enmeshed in their presence that we cannot discern ourselves to be anything more. Mind training and cultivating our own mindsight of open awareness and free attention to see things clearly- as they are– has real power to transform us- and to liberate us from the avoidance or attachment we often experience with our emotions.

Are we aware of the karmic impact of our thought patterns?

Thoughts simply arise in our consciousness- sometimes they manifest with intention and on many occasions they stream into awareness out of the reactionary impulse of our automaticity– to be continually ‘charged’ and conditioned by a ‘thinking mind’. Although our meditation practice is not ‘thinking’, it can certainly emerge as clear awareness or ‘awarenessing‘ of thinking. To become aware of our thought process can help us to learn much about its inherent nature; the underlying emotions and unseen feelings that drive the repetitive frequency of our thought process; as well as the capacity to clearly discern the difference between getting caught up in thought from being mindful of it.

To closely watch our thoughts and thought patterns, we can begin to see where we get ‘hooked’. Once seduced by the sirens of thought, we can become enmeshed in identifying, energizing, and following their stream of content. The energy our thoughts hold depends greatly upon how we relate to them as they are inherently ’empty’ unless we energize their content. In awareness, it is both purposeful and meaningful to discern wholesome from unwholesome thoughts in order to know which to truly energize with our attention. In reality, our thoughts have the potential for karmic impact- to lead us into actions that have all sorts of consequences. The real significance in our practice with thoughts is choosing what to act on and which to simply let be & let go.

It takes genuine discipline to stay with our thoughts- a relaxed alertness and refined, abiding attention to observe their subtlety and ‘slippery’ nature to stream into our consciousness one after another. As the mind quiets with our evolving practice, the torrent of rushing thought begins to slow and our observing ability to freely attend (i.e. ‘mindsight’) grows clearer, stronger, and more reflexive onto itself. Consequently, there becomes less identification with our thoughts as well as fewer unconscious rides.With trained attention, their power to lead us astray can be diffused and transmuted by a refined or higher-ordered form of discerning awareness energized to simply witness our thought process as it is. Without indulging- and in the absence of identification with our thoughts, they remain ’empty’.

The conditioned forces behind our repetitive thoughts need to be greeted with curiosity, openness, and kindness. Becoming more sensitive to our thought process, and by paying careful attention, the unseen feelings often driving our patterns of cognition reveal themselves. Mindful insight continues to follow from a transformed quality of attention- a ‘clear seeing’ of the thoughts that shape and move our states of mind- and our states of being and doing. Mind training and cultivating a ‘mindsight’ of open awareness and free attention to see things clearly- as they are– has real power to transform us, and to liberate us from the streams of thought that often enslave us and lead us down unwholesome paths.

“The Guesthouse”~ Jelaluddin Rumi

What may seem so ordinary has extraordinary power to change the way we ‘see’ & live.

Mindfulness can offer us a wholesome Way of being aware, and with practice, a refined way of ‘seeing’ and relating to our ordinary, everyday experiences. When intended as a Way of being with our daily activities, it offers us a gateway toward a more vital mode of living. By ‘carefully paying attention’ in the present moment, we improve our capacity to regulate emotion; manage emotional dysfunction; improve patterns of thinking; and reduce negative mindsets, etc.

As a form of self-awareness, mindfulness practice can disentangle us from our conditioned (routinized) ways of perceiving and thinking. We can explore and examine our everyday experiences with a ‘freshness’ of perspective- open-minded and contextually sensitive to see things in a new, more expansive way. In the here and now, with everything we see, sense, and perceive to be in constant flux, we accept a form of ‘conditional learning’ that transcends what we experience as  ‘absolutes’- being aware of what’s happening as it is happening in a curious, open-hearted, and non-judgmental way- intentionally and on purpose.

Through routine practice of being mindful in our daily lives both formally and informally, a refined state of ‘discerning awareness’ can manifest to where the observer experiences a form of disidentification from the activity of his/her own mind… simply noticing waves of thoughts, feelings, images, and sensations as they naturally arise and fall in consciousness. This process of disidentification is both radical and liberating to the Western mindset. It is this disentanglement with the mind and the mind-body process… this discerning awareness that may be the most operant mechanism of the mindfulness practice responsible for ameliorating human suffering. It is also this discerning awareness that helps us to move beyond the automaticity of our mental habits and conditioning through routine attention training and the skillfulness of a refined ‘mindsight‘ or ‘witness consciousness’.

Cultivating a refined form of meta-awareness (i.e. awareness of awareness) is a direct outcome of our fortitude to practice routinely in the face of our life’s challenges, difficulties, and adversities. It is embracing both pleasant and unpleasant experiences with equanimity- with balanced temperament.  It flourishes from our focused intention, attention, objectivity, and care to discern what may be deeply wholesome in fostering health and well-being not only in our own lives but also in the lives of others. Compassion and empathy flow from this truly purposeful and meaningful process, and expands not only a deep sense of self-care, but also an altruistic level of care for others.

Mindful awareness is a seed for everyday change and transformation.. moment-to-moment… person-to-person. What may seem to be very ordinary may have extraordinary consequences in the transformational power underlying this truly revelational practice.

‘Equanimity’ is another one of those sublime virtues in our practice. It is the ground for wisdom and freedom, and often regarded as the protector of compassion, love, and tenderness. While some may think of equanimity as dry neutrality or cool aloofness, in its mature form, it produces a natural radiance and warmth of being.

The practice of equanimity opens our hearts to curiously invite and welcome all that lies before us without judgment or attachment… receiving, accepting, and befriending the whole of our experiences. As we carefully abide with equanimity, we foster an attitude and orientation not only supporting ourselves, but the interconnected nature of our own being with other beings- for you… and you… and you… and so on are ‘just like me’. We share the same seeds with others in our aspirations for living to be happy, and to be free or liberated from our suffering.

Our common ground may be difficult to see, but its sense can be felt in the heart of one who is open to curiously embrace the mystery of what is shared. Think of all that would truly flourish if it were similarly nourished with compassionate warmth, generosity, and kindness. It is this heart-felt curiosity of equanimity that opens and expands our spectrum of possibilities. We are all capable of giving and receiving this quality of heart.

Even in the face of difficult situations, and with people who don’t necessarily share our views- we cannot expect to soften to them unless we are willingly open to embrace them. The practice of equanimity helps us to let go of our familiar habits of preferring some experiences and people, and pushing away others. We come to see the whole of people and situations. The care and tenderness we cultivate for ourselves we bring to others. Through our practice of equanimity, we begin to stabilize our temperament and disposition of mind as our sense of being and ‘interbeing’ is softened with a heart-felt sense of calmness and gentleness.

The more we abide with equanimity, the stronger we become at ‘center’. The emotional waves that typically carry us from center to the fringes of our being seem less intense and shorter in duration with time. When the heart is filled and the center is strong, we are able to remain composed even in the face of adversity- ‘here’ we ride the mind’s waves of disturbances coming back ‘home’ to the place where we stand abiding with equanimity.