Larry's Blog – August 2009 Archive (5)

Please put your attention on the breath for a few moments.



Find patience and acceptance in your heart for your own difficulties, your own mistakes, …for all the things that you think about yourself which you might not like. Find the acceptance and the patience to endure that in your heart. Let the patience and acceptance grow so that they fill you from head to toe, a feeling of ease. And with that love arises and you can surround yourself and embrace yourself with… Continue

May you be held in compassion





To cultivate compassion, let yourself sit in a centered and quiet way. In this traditional form of practice you will combine a repeated inner intention with visualization and the evocation of the feeling of compassion. As you first sit, breathe softly and feel your body, your heartbeat, the life within you. Feel how you treasure your own life, how you guard yourself in the face of your sorrows. After some time, bring to mind someone close to you… Continue

There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself.” Howard Thurman



Perhaps the most challenging listening that we attempt in this life is learning to listen to ourselves. We know our inner voice well in childhood, but often lose touch with it as the opinions of others dominate our life in adolescence. It is tragic really, how we are trained to not listen to ourselves, to believe that other people know what we want to become or do… Continue

While mindfulness can be practiced quite well without Buddhism, Buddhism cannot be practiced without mindfulness. In its Buddhist context, mindfulness meditation has three overarching purposes: knowing the mind; training the mind; and freeing the mind.





Knowing the Mind

It is easy to spend an hour, a day, or even a lifetime so caught up with thoughts, concerns, and activities as to preclude understanding deeply what makes us operate the way we do. People can easily be… Continue

Please put the attention on the breath for just a few moments.



Think of yourself as your own best friend; the one you can rely on to help you, to make you happy, to know what is best for you, who loves you. Feel yourself embraced by that friendship.



Think of yourself as the best friend of the person sitting nearest you in this room. Fill him / her with your helpfulness, your care, your concern, be at that person's disposal. Fill him / her with the sincerity of your… Continue