Three Short Practices for This Moment

 

12.03.2021 3 SHORT PRACTICES FOR THIS MOMENT It’s been a long week. You’ve likely read plenty — with news of a new Covid-19 variant on the rise, it’s hard to look away from the slew of numbers, advice, and predictions coming out by the minute. Perhaps your holiday travel plans are quickly slipping through your fingers, or you’re feeling an all-too-familiar sense of worry. If your mind feels like a pot of soup left on the burner too long, well, me too. So for this Weekend Reader, I invite you to join me in a short practice. Take a moment to pause, breathe, and drop out of your running mind and into your body, cultivating compassion along the way. The three practices below are short and sweet, pulled from our helpful page of two-minute meditations. They each provide a welcome opportunity to check in with yourself, your feelings, and the present moment — no matter what’s going on in the world by the time these words reach you. May they give you the moment of peace, quiet, and connection you deserve. —Lilly Greenblatt, Digital Editor, LionsRoar.com

How to Drop Into Your Body & Feelings A short drop-in practice from Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Whatever happens, wherever you land after dropping your arms, just let it be. Don’t do or try to block anything. Just rest. There is no need to search for something new or try to achieve some special insight or state. Feel whatever feelings and sensations arise and be lightly aware of them. Feel them naturally and softly, and don’t try to change anything.

Three Questions for Coming Back to Now While hiking, Buddhist practitioner Leslie Davis suddenly found her mind miles ahead of her body. She offers three questions you can ask yourself to reel your running mind back to the present moment. How many footsteps did my feet take while my mind carried me away? And how many times in any given day does this occur, or even in just an afternoon? And what can bring us back to the present moment? How can we return to what’s at hand — the conversation we’re having, the child in front of us, the trail we’re walking? The mind can go and go without us noticing how fast it’s going, or what direction it’s headed in. Then, suddenly, a thought jumps out at us, and we trip, or stumble, or burn something on the stovetop. And just like that we’re reminded to pay attention. This is where a little magic happens.

A Practice for Developing Kindness Toward Yourself Valerie (Vimalasara) Mason-John shares a meditation for cultivating a positive relationship with yourself, and, by extension, the world. There is a meditation called the metta bhavana, which has its origins in the Buddhist tradition. Metta means loving-kindness, and bhavana means to develop. This meditation teaches us to be kind and gentle by cultivating a positive relationship with ourselves and the rest of the world. Loving-kindness can be the beginning of compassion for ourselves and the way to end anger in our hearts and minds. It is what I have used to begin releasing the toxins of anger, hatred, and fear from my heart. It has been the alchemy in my life.

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