2024 November Meditation

I’ve written many times about the power of orienting awareness to heart perception and intelligence. This is because the resonating quality of the heart automatically orients us to a sense of connection with the world around us.  The qualities we embody as we move through our daily lives have an impact not only on our internal quality of experience but also have a noticeable impact on the places where we find ourselves and on those we encounter along the way.

I find that, when I’m in an irritable mood, I seem to “bump up against” life in so many unexpected and irritating ways.  When it dawns on me that I’m resonating with the frequency of irritation, and that this is the quality that currently characterizes my experience, I’m now able to take a moment, ground myself, and shift into my heart space, doing a couple of heart breaths similar to what HeartMath suggests.  This shift changes my focus of attention and I am then able to resonate with a more positive and connected quality of being and experience. I’ve found over time that this kind of shift also changes my external experience and I tend to stop bumping up against what comes my way. Read More “735th Week: Choosing Your Frequency”

As I write this, I’m sitting in the Admiral’s Club of American Airlines, waiting for a flight to California.  I’m flying business class today, on miles, and I’m struck by the difference between the experience I’m having right now—complimentary coffee and food and a comfortable place to sit—compared to what it’s like when I fly economy.  What this brings into my awareness is how easy it could be to overlook the quality of life being lived by people who don’t have the economic privilege I do. I find myself wondering how I would cultivate a deepened empathic awareness of people in need if my everyday life were regularly as generous and comfortable as the situation I’m in at the moment.

I remember reading some recent research that suggested that the more money people have the lower their scores on tests of empathy. Sitting here this morning, I can understand how that could happen.  So, the question I have deals with any and all areas of privilege, be that economic privilege, racial privilege, gender privilege, ethnic privilege, religious privilege, or any other kind of privilege that comes automatically to certain classes of people.  How do we expand our awareness to include those who don’t have access to whatever kinds of privilege we may take for granted and not even recognize as privilege? Read More “713th Week:  Cultivating Empathy”

Several times in the last week, I’ve run across postings in classes I’m taking, as well as postings on Facebook, that speak to something that offers what, for me, is a source of support during these challenging and distressing times.  Unfortunately, at the moment, my brain won’t give me the names of the people or places where I’ve run across these postings, so I’ll share some general ideas about what has touched me along the way.

I’ve written before about the importance of not going into collapse in the presence of what seem to be overwhelming circumstances. One of the ways to avoid collapse is to feel able to act in ways that meet, ameliorate, or change what causes suffering to our brothers and sisters of every species all around the planet, and to the planet itself.  Read More “720th Week:  Small Acts Matter”