Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.~A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
Good evening and welcome to Monday Group Meditation, we will be sitting from 7:30 to 10:00 PM EST. It is not necessary to sit for the entire extended time, which is set up to make it convenient for people in four North American Time Zones; sit for as long as you like and when it is most convenient for you.
Monday Group Meditation is open to everyone, believers and non-believers of all stripes who are interested in gathering in silence. If you are new to meditation and would like to try it for yourself, Mindful Nature gave a good description of one way to meditate in an earlier diary, copied and pasted below:
"It is a matter of focusing attention mostly. In many traditions, the idea is to sit and focus on the rising and falling of the breath. Not controlling it, but sitting in a relaxed fashion and merely observing experiences of breathing, sounds, etc. Be aware of your thoughts, but don't engage in them. When your mind wanders (it will, often), then return to focus on breath and repeat.
Note: Starting next week I'm going to fiddle a bit with the diary format and the title in order to make the link more inviting when I post it on Facebook. The title will always start with the word "Meditation" and be followed with a word or two referring to the subject of the post. I have friends who are not Kossaks who meditate with us, and as long as I'm posting the link on FB, I may as well try to make it look more interesting. :-)
Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.~W.B. Yeats
We don't have to be Irish to find it difficult to turn our focus away from all the noisy attention grabbing negativity loose in the world. When we first start to work with our minds, it takes a real act of will to remember the joy and beauty that is still present in life. It takes practice.
Along the way we notice the teachings work and we begin to have faith in them; we practice with greater intention and devotion. As we loosen our attachments to our reactive emotions we begin to gain greater and greater clarity and we begin to see things as they are. Along with the increasing clarity a dawning awareness of compassion and loving kindness blooms in our hearts and after years of practice we discover we can hold it all in our attention, the good and the bad, the joy and the sorrow, the sacred and profane, and love every bit of it. Then we can welcome the world with the joy and wonder of a child.