This morning in meditation, I was doing deep restorative yoga. I breathed in compassion to myself. Kindness toward the light, lovable parts of me as well as the darker, self-loathing parts of me. As I envisioned a warm yellow sunlight enveloping my middle, I heard the words, "Yoga... is a hug." Hug me. I went [...]
Bodhisattva. For the non-Buddhist, it is almost certainly a foreign term. Maybe you recall the name of an old Steely Dan album, at best. Put simply, bodhisattva is “a Sanskrit term for anyone or anything motivated by great compassion.” It is a combination of two separate Sanskrit concepts: Bodhi—meaning awakening or enlightenment Sattva—meaning existence, reality [...]
We rarely acknowledge the pelvic floor...It's like a dark room no one wants to talk about...and yet, it is a foundational element of the body. Pelvic floor meditation is meant to bring you emotionally, physically and spiritually into this oft overlooked area. Imagine Jizo, the Earth Womb Bodhisattva, holding this part of your body with kindness and patience, [...]
Sugar. Childhood obesity. Adult onset diabetes. Makes one anxious. Feeling uncomfortable? Hey, h ave something sweet. Then, beat yourself up. Then try to get back in “control” of it. Then, eat it again. And again. Try to stop. Can’t? If this sounds familiar, you are so Not Alone. Me, I ask Jizo to hold the [...]
Our minds are full of thoughts, many of which do not serve us well, even causing physical and emotional pain, unnecessarily. We long for healing but our habitual thoughts block our progress at every turn. We have expectations of permanent change instead of accepting that we are works-in-progress. How can we let go of those [...]
Almost everyone I know who meditates, quits. They get excited to start, but then they quickly become disappointed that enlightenment doesn’t look the way they expected. No, meditation doesn’t raise us to a state of Always Peaceful or Always Patient With Loved Ones. It doesn’t remove Self-Loathing or Resentment Toward Lots of People. […]
In the ongoing quest to mend our anxious minds, many of us are drawn to meditation. Once we begin, we find that we fidget, we get sleepy, we get bored. We don’t do it right, we fail, we quit, we start again only to quit again. Our expectations of finding peace are not met and [...]
I feel as if I need to explain that without having encountered Jizo on the hillsides of Kyoto in 2006, the stuff I write about would be more grounded in knowledge than experience. I had no idea how much I lived in my intellect, in my mind, and how little I resided within my body. [...]
As I contemplate new and more effective ways to travel the path of the Jizo Bodhisattva, I find myself encountering more and more astonishing suggestions for “How To Live.” I found a Sufi teaching that goes something like this: […]
Enlightenment is to be awake. When we sit in meditation, we begin to hear our thoughts, feel our feelings with greater clarity. As we observe our minds with compassion, we are able to distinguish between what is our personal ego and what is the ineffable part of us that is connected to all sentient beings. [...]
