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Excerpt from Pema Chodron's "The Fearless Heart"

In this wonderful transcribed exerpt from Pema Chodron's talk on "The Fearless Heart: The Practice of Living with Courage and Compassion", Pema tells us how we may begin to work with fear by not shutting down or running away from it, as is our first inclination, but by going into the fear.

This morning I wanted to begin with a short teaching on working with emotions that comes from Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and if you would like to write this down, the name of the teaching is “The Lion’s Roar” and it appears in the March 1997 edition of the Shambhala Sun, which had a picture of me on the cover. So maybe there is some way you can locate that article and read it.
 
This is a teaching that has influenced me a lot over the years, and I was re-reading the article last night and I thought that I would begin this morning with this instruction that comes from Trungpa Rinpoche. One of the opening sentences is that enlightenment is not just for pacifists,

Excerpt 1 from "Transformation of a Man" - Ram Dass

In this fascinating and delightful transcribed exerpt from "Transformation of a Man", Ram Dass -- author of the seminal work Be Here Now --  describes some of his experiences as he travels around and explores India in the early 1960s, giving us true insight into the life and times of a spiritual seeker. Part of our ongoing partnership with The Love Serve Remember Foundation.

His big feet were just paddling along like a camel, and he was looking every other way, and he was always stepping around all of this stuff, and I could never figure it out. Now, as we got out of the big cities… in the big cities, you know, people look at you like, what kind of a nut are you? Barefoot in a cloth -- we know you’re a westerner, you know. Like, who are you kidding? But as you get out into the villages it’s much purer in India, and they still respect the spiritual endeavor, and the people would call, “Hey Babaji!” Which is, well, Baba means grandfather. It also means holy man. It’s usually given to Vaishnavites, which is the white cloth. And Babaji is sort of the affectionate title. In Yiddish it would be bubbala. [laughter] It’s the same thing. And so they call, “Babaji!” and I would always be embarrassed because I wasn’t a holy man. I was just wearing a white cloth. I was a western intellectual overage hippy looking to see what was going on in India. That’s who I was in my head, in my fixed model of myself.
 
And we got to these caves at Baneshwar;

Excerpt 2 from "Reflections on Suffering" with Ram Dass

This brief excerpt from "Reflections on Suffering" with Ram Dass, recorded live in 1987, gives us insight into how Ram Dass uses guided meditation to access our deepest thoughts and feelings.

Now let your awareness let arise into your awareness, thoughts that concern some way in which you personally have experienced suffering. Just let the thought arise in your mind. Keep your witness strong. How do I suffer? What suffering has there been in my life? Let yourself into it just a little. It will awaken a lot of thoughts that arouse that are feeling like emotions. Perhaps your suffering is around illness. Perhaps it is around loneliness and separateness. Perhaps it is around addictions, obsessions. Perhaps it is around shame, loathing towards your acts or your fantasies or qualities of your body or personality. Perhaps your suffering has been around the suffering of loved ones or the death of loved ones.

Ram Dass bio and links

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Excerpt 3 from Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Mindfulness Meditation Workshop"

Have you ever done a walking meditation?  Or even a standing meditation?  Jon Kabat-Zinn makes it easy and offers step-by-step instruction in this transcribed excerpt from his "Mindfulness Meditation Workshop".

Now walking meditation. Walking meditation is the same thing as walking only you know that you are walking and sometimes it is valuable to slow it down at first so that you can really pay attention to the aspects of it. So one way to do it is to just become aware of the impulse to lift, say, the left leg and to move the foot out in front of you and to feel it as you place it down on the floor, heel, and then the rest of the foot. That is a lifting, a moving, and a placing. Then the weight shifts over the forward foot and then there is a lifting, moving, and the placing of the right foot and the shifting of the weight and you move forward. Then the lifting, moving, placing, of the left foot. And do not take giant steps or stylize this. This could be very small steps since you are not going anywhere. Then the lifting, moving, and placing. So go for three squares, turn around, and stand where you are before you turn around, breath a few times, and then slowly, mindfully, turning. Then just going back.
 

Excerpt 2 from Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Mindfulness Meditation Workshop"

In this transcribed excerpt from the "Mindfulness Meditation Workshop", Jon Kabat-Zinn -- who introduced mindfulness meditation to the mainstream -- tells us how to safely transition out of a meditation session and welcome one's body back into the present.

Before we move, becoming aware of the intention to move, inviting your body to move a little now, maybe wiggling your toes, and moving it around. Just exploring movement. We are the kind of lake or the kind of mountain that can get up and walk around. It kind of makes things very interesting. Doing whatever kind of movement you like, just move the body for a few moments in preparation for standing.
 
The last thing that we will do this morning in this series involves cultivating balance in a standing position, so whenever you feel moved to seeing how you get this carcass vertical. No joke. It is quite an amazing feat requiring the feet. And taking your time making sure that, you know, so you do not kind of let the blood just rush out of your head. What I am talking about is something called the tree. You may know it. Do not do this on some squishy surface because it is bad enough without the squishy surface. Let’s take a right foot and bring it up as far as it will comfortably go on the inside of the left leg.

Excerpt 2 from Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life

Want to get a meditation practice going? See how simple it can be to start with this transcribed excerpt from Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life.

So why don’t we take a few minutes and just sit. For those of you who are entirely new to this, it is no different from the raisin, only now there is no raisin; it is just your body sitting here. So see if you can sit in a position that embodies dignity, whatever that means for you. And then if you feel comfortable with it, it is fine if you to close your eyes, but it is fine also if you do not.  I usually recommend that you try to establish that dignified posture by bringing attention to the spine and the head and see if you cannot get a sense of head, neck, and shoulders being in some way aligned rather than slumped and doing something comfortable with the hands.
 

Our Mindfulness Article On Elephant Journal!

“Meditation is simply about being yourself and knowing about who that is. It is about coming to realize that you are on a path whether you like it or not, namely the path that is your life.” ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Check it out on Elephant Journal.