The aerial point of view: Buddhism, Meditation & Recovery Notes, Friday, Nov. 5th

Thank you all for coming tonight!  Lots of positive energy in the room–and thanks to Alex for ringing the bell 🙂

Aside from meditating, we discussed a wide range of topics, including:

-“Watering the right seeds.”  Negative emotions like anger start small–like a seed–and we can often allow those seeds to be watered, and before we know it, we are crazy-making, driving down the highway, white-knuckled, shouting at no one! (At least I am!)  But when we water the right seeds, like loving kindness and compassion, we end up having a much better drive.

-We discussed the virtues of being kinder to ourselves, allowing ourselves the opportunity of accepting what might be going on in our heads without toxic judgment.

-I read another teaching by Chogyam Trungpa:

The Great Joy

Meditation practice is based on dropping dualistic fixation, dropping the struggle of good against bad.  There are many references…to the great joy, but the reason it is referred to as the great joy is because it transcends both hope and and fear, pain and pleasure.  Joy here is not pleasurable in the ordinary sense, but it is an ultimate and fundamental sense of freedom, a sense of humour, the ability to see the ironical aspect of the game of ego, the play of polarities.  If one is able to see ego from an aerial point of view, then one is able to see its humorous quality.

-We continued to discuss the importance of bringing our spiritual practice out into life, even though the comfort of meditating within a community definitely gives us much need strength, balance and sanity.

-A reminder: Feel free to bring in your own spiritual readings to share–they don’t have to be Buddhist.

Hope to see you all next week…blessings!