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LETTING EVERYTHING BECOME YOUR TEACHER: 100 Lessons in Mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn

We are indeed pleased to be able to offer these wonderful excerpts from 100 Lessons in Mindfulness from Jon Kabat-Zinn's new book Letting Everything Become Your Teacher.  The 100 lessons are derived from Kabat-Zinn's international best-seller Full Catastrophe Living. Keep checking our site for new lessons. The first is on "Self-Motivation"

LESSON 1: Self-Motivation  

 

In order for meditation practice to take root in your life and flourish, you will have to know why you are practicing. How else will you be able to sustain non-doing in a world where only doing seems to count? What will get you up early in the morning to sit and follow your breathing when everybody else is snug in bed? What will motivate you to practice when the wheels of the doing world are turning, your obligations and responsibilities are beckoning, and a part of you decides or remembers to take some time for “just being”? What will motivate you to bring moment-to-moment awareness into your daily life? What will prevent your practice from losing energy and becoming stale or from petering out altogether after an initial burst of enthusiasm? 

Reprinted from LETTING EVERYTHING BECOME YOUR TEACHER: 100 Lessons in Mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn © 2009 by Jon Kabat-Zinn.  Reprinted by arrangement with the Random House Publishing Group.

Jon Kabat-Zinn on BetterListen!

Excerpt from Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser, Part 3 of 5

This week we are delighted to offer another excerpt from the Introduction of BROKEN OPEN: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow.

To be human is to be lost in the woods. None of us arrives here with clear directions on how to get from point A to point B without stumbling into the forest of confusion or catastrophe or wrongdoing. Although they are dark and dangerous, it is in the woods that we discover our strengths. We all know people who say their cancer or divorce or bankruptcy was the greatest gift of a lifetime—that until the body, or the heart, or the bank was broken, they didn’t know who they were, what they felt, or what they wanted. Before their descent into the darkness, they took more than they gave, or they were numb, or full of fear or blame or self-pity. In their most broken moments they were brought to their knees; they were humbled; they were opened. And later, as they pulled the pieces back together, they discovered a clearer sense of purpose and a new passion for life. But we also know people who did not turn their misfortune into insight, or their grief into joy. Instead, they became more bitter, more reactive, more cynical. They shut down. They went back to sleep. The Persian poet Rumi says,

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don’t go back to sleep.

 

You must ask for what you really want.

 

Don’t go back to sleep.

 

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

 

where the two worlds touch.

 

The door is round and open.

 

Don’t go back to sleep.

Excerpted from Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser Copyright © 2004 by Elizabeth Lesser. Excerpted by permission of Villard, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

NEXT WEEK:  More from BROKEN OPEN: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow by Elizabeth Lesser

Elizabeth Lesser Bio and Links 

Excerpt From Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser - Part 2 of 5

Elizabeth Lesser continues to share with us her experience in the following excerpt from her book BROKEN OPEN: How Difficult Times Help Us Grow

The old man stood and shuffled over to meet me. He placed his right hand on his heart and

bowed his head in the traditional Islamic greeting. “Look,” he said, pointing at a small painting hanging on the wall. He touched my arm with the kindness of a grandfather. “See the rose?” he asked, turning me toward the picture. There, framed in dark wood, was the ethereal image of a rosebud, with shimmering, pale petals holding one another in a tight embrace. Under the flower was an inscription that read:

And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Unexpected tears stung my eyes as I read the words. The two men hovered around me, more like bodyguards than salesmen. I turned away from them, hiding my face in the shadows. I was afraid that if the old man showed me one more ounce of mercy I would break down in a stranger’s store, thousands of miles from home.

“What is wrong?” the long-haired man asked.

“Nothing is wrong,” I said. “I’m fine.”

“No, something is wrong,” the man said. “You are in

pain.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, suspicious yet curious. Was he a con man, trying to sell me the painting, or was my heartache that palpable, my story so easily read? I felt exposed, as if the long-haired man was a spy of the soul who knew all about my marriage, my two little boys, and the crazy mess my husband and I had made of our life together.

Excerpt from Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser - Part 1 of 5

While we at BetterListen! tend to focus on the spoken word, we appreciate the value of the written word as well.  With that, we are delighted to launch a stream of recommendations, excerpts and inspirations from guest contributors, including many of our favorite authors. 

We kick off this series with an excerpt from BROKEN OPEN: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow by Elizabeth Lesser.  Lesser is the co-founder of the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, a New York Times best-selling author, and frequent guest on the Oprah Winfrey television and radio shows.  Particularly during these challenging times, we find her words an inspiration to help get us through them.

BROKEN OPEN: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow
by Elizabeth Lesser

Prelude

And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud
was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
—Anaïs Nin

Some years ago, I took a trip to the city of Jerusalem, where centuries are layered in stones, and streets are carved into the layers, twisting and turning in haphazard patterns that divide and connect neighborhoods, markets, mosques, temples, and churches. One morning in that broken city, I sat alone on a well-worn wall at the base of the Mount of Olives. The day was moving forward with the kind of determination that comes from people with places to go and things to do. Religious pilgrims pushed past each other into the gates of the holy city. Men and women made their way to work and market; children ran past them to school. But I had nowhere to go.

The group I was traveling with in Jerusalem had risen early for the day’s planned itinerary. I’d stayed behind. I could no longer keep up the charade that I was part of their adventure: I wasn’t here to visit sacred sites, or to walk the Stations of the Cross, wail at the Western Wall, or chant the Ninety-nine Names of Allah. No, I was here to further delay making a decision about my life at home. I had come to Jerusalem only because my friend, who was leading the trip, was worried enough about me to pay my fare—which worried me enough to fly halfway around the world to a city as mixed up as myself. Now I was here, but really I was still back there, at home in New York, scared and confused about my crumbling marriage.