Mini Mindfulness Break for December 29, 2018

Mindful Breathing

Mindful breathing helps you see your anger, your frustration, your suffering. When you breathe mindfully, you practice looking deeply into yourself. You are made of feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. Your true nature is what–if not these things? Because it is wrong perceptions that make you suffer, and if you don’t know the nature of your own perceptions, you are not likely to get free of your suffering. So your true nature is the nature of your feelings, your perceptions, your mental formations, and your consciousness.

– Thich Nhat Hanh, “Interbeing with Thich Nhat Hanh”

May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering!

All my best,

Jerome Freedman, PhD
–Jerome

 

Mini Mindfulness Break for December 27, 2018

Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.
The foundational practice continues to be Centering Prayer, as taught by Father Thomas Keating.
Cynthia Bourgeault defines Centering Prayer simply–
when you catch yourself thinking,
let the thought or feeling go.
By letting go of the objects of attention, you naturally experience objectless awareness, even if it’s only for a nanosecond.
Incrementally, this non-constricted attitude brings about a capacity to rest in the Cave of the Heart and to begin to see what the heart sees, which gets at the deeper meaning of the phrase:
“Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God”

– Emaho! Lama Surya Das

May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering!

All my best,

Jerome Freedman, PhD
–Jerome

 

Mini Mindfulness Break for December 25, 2018

Equanimity is a spacious,
vast, and even state of mind;
it does not take sides.
It’s not about being untouched by the world,
but letting go of fixed ideas.
How else are we to develop compassion and loving-kindness
for everyone and everything? Equanimity levels the playing field –
we are not excluding anyone from our practice.

– Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering!

All my best,

Jerome Freedman, PhD
–Jerome

 

Mini Mindfulness Break for December 17, 2018

Our spiritual practice is to transcend the illusory “self” and recognize conscious compassionate awareness as our authentic nature.

– Cheri Huber

May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering!

All my best,

Jerome Freedman, PhD
–Jerome

 

Mini Mindfulness Break for November 13, 2018

Settled Mind

With practice, that space–which is the mind’s natural clarity–begins to expand and settle. We can begin to watch our thoughts and emotions without necessarily being affected by them quite as powerfully or vividly as we’re used to.

– Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, “The Aim of Attention “

May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering!

All my best,

Jerome Freedman, PhD
–Jerome

 

Mini Mindfulness Break for November 07, 2018

Not about Comfort

A central component of spiritual life is recognizing that practice is not about ensuring that we feel secure or comfortable. It’s not that we won’t feel these things when we practice; rather, it’s that we are also bound to sometimes feel very uncomfortable and insecure, particularly when exploring and working with our darker emotions and unhealed pain.

– Ezra Bayda, “The Three Things we Fear Most”

May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering!

All my best,

Jerome Freedman, PhD
–Jerome

 

Mini Mindfulness Break for November 05, 2018

Eliminating Suffering

The practice is to make the non-arising of grasping and clinging absolute, final, and eternally void, so that no grasping and clinging can ever return. Just that is enough. There is nothing else to do.

– Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, “A Single Handful”

May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering!

All my best,

Jerome Freedman, PhD
–Jerome

 

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