Since the election there has been a flood of wisdom shared on social media by many, many teachers. This evening I will be sharing some of what I considered the best of the best.
Good evening and welcome to Monday Group Meditation. We will be sitting from 8:00 to 10:30 PM Eastern Time. 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, 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: You are also welcome to join us on Sunday mornings at 10:00AM for the Dkos Sangha Open Threads which are hosted by davehouck.
The following quotes are either excerpted or lifted whole from here.
From Pema Chödrön:
During difficult times like this, I’m feeling that the most important thing is our love for each other and remembering to express that and avoid the temptation to get caught in negative and aggressive thinking. Instead of polarizing, this is a chance to stay with the groundlessness. I’ve been meditating and getting in touch with a deep and profound sadness. It’s hard to stay with that much vulnerability but that’s what I’m doing. Groundlessness and tenderness and sadness have so much to teach us. I’m feeling that it’s a time to contact our hearts and to reach out and help in anyway we can.
From Norman Fischer, Everyday Zen Foundation:
It’s OK to freak out, grieve, and vent for a while. Holds each others’ hands. Then we can get back to work, as always, for the good.
Think of what the Dalai Lama has gone through in his lifetime. He maintains daily practice, he maintains kindness for everyone, though he has lost his country and his culture at the hands of a brutal regime. Yet he doesn’t hate the Chinese and finds redeeming features in them. He maintains his sense of humor. He has turned his tragedy into a teaching for the world.
Lets do the same.
From Zenju Earthlyn Emanuel, Still Breathing Zen Meditation Center:
Today, after the 2016 elections in the U.S., we are living out the example of what happens when what goes unacknowledged surfaces and it feels like a new reality but you know in your heart it is not. To suffer based on expectations is to live haunted and hunted. But we are fortunate. There could be no other answer to our meditation and prayers in dissolving hatred than to be placed front and center with it and be exposed. When a shift in a system has occurred, especially one that causes fear and discomfort, it allows for something strikingly different to appear, furthering our evolution as people. We can only know where we are going when we get there.
Many of us have been practicing Buddha’s teachings or walking a spiritual journey forever and preparing for every moment of our existence. We are ready and have been waiting for this time. Our rage, pain, and anger are to be exposed if only for us to transform and mature with it. In Buddhist practice we say congratulations because now is the time we have been practicing for. No more just practicing the dance. We must now dance. And this is not a dress rehearsal.
The following quotes were excerpted or lifted whole from here.
From Thich Nhat Hahn:
[Though no reference to the election was made in this Facebook post issued on November 11, it’s not a stretch to see it as a response to the current news and climate.]
After 9/11 I was in California with many of my students. We knew we needed to balance the collective energy of anger, fear, and discrimination with a collective energy of mindfulness and compassion. It is very important to counterbalance fear with calm and peace. I reminded everyone that responding to hatred with hatred will only cause hatred to multiply a thousandfold, and that only with compassion can we transform hatred and anger. I invited them to go home to themselves and practice mindful breathing and mindful walking, to calm down their strong emotions and to allow lucidity to prevail. Only when we understand, can compassion arise. When the drop of compassion begins to form in our hearts and minds, we can begin to develop concrete responses to a situation.
From Joan Halifax:
one step, one breath
another day, another dharma
give no fear
From Sharon Salzberg:
Buddhist teaching makes a distinction between reasonable (even useful) fear and unreasonable or chronic fear. There are things a person can reasonably be afraid of in this world..any given day, and I would say, now in an intense way for a lot of people in this country. If we can acknowledge that then we can do the best we can to mitigate it, to keep perspective, to form community instead of bearing things in isolation, to work to ease our own suffering and the suffering of others.
My favorite new sage is LA Laker Metta World Peace. Metta is the Pali word for Lovingkindness. He says, ” Everyone talking about they leaving America, so that means you leaving people that need you here.” And so cutely, he lives up to his name by adding, “I love you from the bottom of my heart. The pointy part.”