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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210610
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210624
DTSTAMP:20260427T193939
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UID:2214-1623283200-1624492799@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  6/10/21
DESCRIPTION:  \n  \nJune 10\, 2021 \n  \nThis is the Nobel Prize Lecture that Wisława Szymborska gave on December 7th\, 1996: \n  \nThe poet and the world \n  \nThey say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well\, that one’s behind me\, anyway. But I have a feeling that the sentences to come – the third\, the sixth\, the tenth\, and so on\, up to the final line – will be just as hard\, since I’m supposed to talk about poetry. I’ve said very little on the subject\, next to nothing\, in fact. And whenever I have said anything\, I’ve always had the sneaking suspicion that I’m not very good at it. This is why my lecture will be rather short. All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses. \n  \nContemporary poets are skeptical and suspicious even\, or perhaps especially\, about themselves. They publicly confess to being poets only reluctantly\, as if they were a little ashamed of it. But in our clamorous times it’s much easier to acknowledge your faults\, at least if they’re attractively packaged\, than to recognize your own merits\, since these are hidden deeper and you never quite believe in them yourself … When filling in questionnaires or chatting with strangers\, that is\, when they can’t avoid revealing their profession\, poets prefer to use the general term “writer” or replace “poet” with the name of whatever job they do in addition to writing. Bureaucrats and bus passengers respond with a touch of incredulity and alarm when they find out that they’re dealing with a poet. I suppose philosophers may meet with a similar reaction. Still\, they’re in a better position\, since as often as not they can embellish their calling with some kind of scholarly title. Professor of philosophy – now that sounds much more respectable. \n  \nBut there are no professors of poetry. This would mean\, after all\, that poetry is an occupation requiring specialized study\, regular examinations\, theoretical articles with bibliographies and footnotes attached\, and finally\, ceremoniously conferred diplomas. And this would mean\, in turn\, that it’s not enough to cover pages with even the most exquisite poems in order to become a poet. The crucial element is some slip of paper bearing an official stamp. Let us recall that the pride of Russian poetry\, the future Nobel Laureate Joseph Brodsky was once sentenced to internal exile precisely on such grounds. They called him “a parasite\,” because he lacked official certification granting him the right to be a poet … \n  \nSeveral years ago\, I had the honor and pleasure of meeting Brodsky in person. And I noticed that\, of all the poets I’ve known\, he was the only one who enjoyed calling himself a poet. He pronounced the word without inhibitions. \n  \nJust the opposite – he spoke it with defiant freedom. It seems to me that this must have been because he recalled the brutal humiliations he had experienced in his youth. \n  \nIn more fortunate countries\, where human dignity isn’t assaulted so readily\, poets yearn\, of course\, to be published\, read\, and understood\, but they do little\, if anything\, to set themselves above the common herd and the daily grind. And yet it wasn’t so long ago\, in this century’s first decades\, that poets strove to shock us with their extravagant dress and eccentric behavior. But all this was merely for the sake of public display. The moment always came when poets had to close the doors behind them\, strip off their mantles\, fripperies\, and other poetic paraphernalia\, and confront – silently\, patiently awaiting their own selves – the still white sheet of paper. For this is finally what really counts. \n  \nIt’s not accidental that film biographies of great scientists and artists are produced in droves. The more ambitious directors seek to reproduce convincingly the creative process that led to important scientific discoveries or the emergence of a masterpiece. And one can depict certain kinds of scientific labor with some success. Laboratories\, sundry instruments\, elaborate machinery brought to life: such scenes may hold the audience’s interest for a while. And those moments of uncertainty – will the experiment\, conducted for the thousandth time with some tiny modification\, finally yield the desired result? – can be quite dramatic. Films about painters can be spectacular\, as they go about recreating every stage of a famous painting’s evolution\, from the first penciled line to the final brush-stroke. Music swells in films about composers: the first bars of the melody that rings in the musician’s ears finally emerge as a mature work in symphonic form. Of course this is all quite naive and doesn’t explain the strange mental state popularly known as inspiration\, but at least there’s something to look at and listen to. \n  \nBut poets are the worst. Their work is hopelessly unphotogenic. Someone sits at a table or lies on a sofa while staring motionless at a wall or ceiling. Once in a while this person writes down seven lines only to cross out one of them fifteen minutes later\, and then another hour passes\, during which nothing happens … Who could stand to watch this kind of thing? \n  \nI’ve mentioned inspiration. Contemporary poets answer evasively when asked what it is\, and if it actually exists. It’s not that they’ve never known the blessing of this inner impulse. It’s just not easy to explain something to someone else that you don’t understand yourself. \n  \nWhen I’m asked about this on occasion\, I hedge the question too. But my answer is this: inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists generally. There is\, has been\, and will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It’s made up of all those who’ve consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors\, teachers\, gardeners – and I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem they solve. Whatever inspiration is\, it’s born from a continuous “I don’t know.” \n  \nThere aren’t many such people. Most of the earth’s inhabitants work to get by. They work because they have to. They didn’t pick this or that kind of job out of passion; the circumstances of their lives did the choosing for them. Loveless work\, boring work\, work valued only because others haven’t got even that much\, however loveless and boring – this is one of the harshest human miseries. And there’s no sign that coming centuries will produce any changes for the better as far as this goes. \n  \nAnd so\, though I may deny poets their monopoly on inspiration\, I still place them in a select group of Fortune’s darlings. \n  \nAt this point\, though\, certain doubts may arise in my audience. All sorts of torturers\, dictators\, fanatics\, and demagogues struggling for power by way of a few loudly shouted slogans also enjoy their jobs\, and they too perform their duties with inventive fervor. Well\, yes\, but they “know.” They know\, and whatever they know is enough for them once and for all. They don’t want to find out about anything else\, since that might diminish their arguments’ force. And any knowledge that doesn’t lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life. In the most extreme cases\, cases well known from ancient and modern history\, it even poses a lethal threat to society. \n  \nThis is why I value that little phrase “I don’t know” so highly. It’s small\, but it flies on mighty wings. It expands our lives to include the spaces within us as well as those outer expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs suspended. If Isaac Newton had never said to himself “I don’t know\,” the apples in his little orchard might have dropped to the ground like hailstones and at best he would have stooped to pick them up and gobble them with gusto. Had my compatriot Marie Sklodowska-Curie never said to herself “I don’t know”\, she probably would have wound up teaching chemistry at some private high school for young ladies from good families\, and would have ended her days performing this otherwise perfectly respectable job. But she kept on saying “I don’t know\,” and these words led her\, not just once but twice\, to Stockholm\, where restless\, questing spirits are occasionally rewarded with the Nobel Prize. \n  \nPoets\, if they’re genuine\, must also keep repeating “I don’t know.” Each poem marks an effort to answer this statement\, but as soon as the final period hits the page\, the poet begins to hesitate\, starts to realize that this particular answer was pure makeshift that’s absolutely inadequate to boot. So the poets keep on trying\, and sooner or later the consecutive results of their self-dissatisfaction are clipped together with a giant paperclip by literary historians and called their “oeuvre” … \n  \nI sometimes dream of situations that can’t possibly come true. I audaciously imagine\, for example\, that I get a chance to chat with the Ecclesiastes\, the author of that moving lament on the vanity of all human endeavors. I would bow very deeply before him\, because he is\, after all\, one of the greatest poets\, for me at least. That done\, I would grab his hand. “‘There’s nothing new under the sun’: that’s what you wrote\, Ecclesiastes. But you yourself were born new under the sun. And the poem you created is also new under the sun\, since no one wrote it down before you. And all your readers are also new under the sun\, since those who lived before you couldn’t read your poem. And that cypress that you’re sitting under hasn’t been growing since the dawn of time. It came into being by way of another cypress similar to yours\, but not exactly the same. And Ecclesiastes\, I’d also like to ask you what new thing under the sun you’re planning to work on now? A further supplement to the thoughts you’ve already expressed? Or maybe you’re tempted to contradict some of them now? In your earlier work you mentioned joy – so what if it’s fleeting? So maybe your new-under-the-sun poem will be about joy? Have you taken notes yet\, do you have drafts? I doubt you’ll say\, ‘I’ve written everything down\, I’ve got nothing left to add.’ There’s no poet in the world who can say this\, least of all a great poet like yourself.” \n  \nThe world – whatever we might think when terrified by its vastness and our own impotence\, or embittered by its indifference to individual suffering\, of people\, animals\, and perhaps even plants\, for why are we so sure that plants feel no pain; whatever we might think of its expanses pierced by the rays of stars surrounded by planets we’ve just begun to discover\, planets already dead? still dead? we just don’t know; whatever we might think of this measureless theater to which we’ve got reserved tickets\, but tickets whose lifespan is laughably short\, bounded as it is by two arbitrary dates; whatever else we might think of this world – it is astonishing. \n  \nBut “astonishing” is an epithet concealing a logical trap. We’re astonished\, after all\, by things that deviate from some well-known and universally acknowledged norm\, from an obviousness we’ve grown accustomed to. Now the point is\, there is no such obvious world. Our astonishment exists per se and isn’t based on comparison with something else. \n  \nGranted\, in daily speech\, where we don’t stop to consider every word\, we all use phrases like “the ordinary world\,” “ordinary life\,” “the ordinary course of events” … But in the language of poetry\, where every word is weighed\, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all\, not a single existence\, not anyone’s existence in this world. \n  \nIt looks like poets will always have their work cut out for them. \n  \n— Wisława Szymborska \nTranslated from Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. \n* \n  \nHere is one of her poems: \n  \nA Few Words On The Soul \n  \nWe have a soul at times. \nNo one’s got it non-stop\, \nfor keeps. \n  \nDay after day\, \nyear after year \nmay pass without it. \n  \nSometimes \nit will settle for awhile \nonly in childhood’s fears and raptures. \nSometimes only in astonishment \nthat we are old. \n  \nIt rarely lends a hand \nin uphill tasks\, \nlike moving furniture\, \nor lifting luggage\, \nor going miles in shoes that pinch. \n  \nIt usually steps out \nwhenever meat needs chopping \nor forms have to be filled. \n  \nFor every thousand conversations \nit participates in one\, \nif even that\, \nsince it prefers silence. \n  \nJust when our body goes from ache to pain\, \nit slips off-duty. \n  \nIt’s picky: \nit doesn’t like seeing us in crowds\, \nour hustling for a dubious advantage \nand creaky machinations make it sick. \n  \nJoy and sorrow \naren’t two different feelings for it. \nIt attends us \nonly when the two are joined. \n  \nWe can count on it \nwhen we’re sure of nothing \nand curious about everything. \n  \nAmong the material objects \nit favors clocks with pendulums \nand mirrors\, which keep on working \neven when no one is looking. \n  \nIt won’t say where it comes from \nor when it’s taking off again\, \nthough it’s clearly expecting such questions. \n  \nWe need it \nbut apparently \nit needs us \nfor some reason too. \n  \n— Wisława Szymborska \nTranslated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh.
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-6-10-21/
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210615
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210715
DTSTAMP:20260427T193939
CREATED:20210615T224651Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210615T225414Z
UID:2223-1623715200-1626307199@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue  6/15/21
DESCRIPTION:Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue \n   \nJune 15\, 2021 \n  \nYou are equally as beautiful as the universe. \n—tag on a Yogi Tea bag \n* \nIt is easy to see the conventional character of roles. For a man who is a father may also be a doctor and an artist\, as well as an employee and a brother. And it is obvious that even the sum total of these role labels will be far from supplying an adequate description of the man himself\, even though it may place him in certain general classifications. But the conventions which govern human identity are more subtle and much less obvious than these. We learn\, very thoroughly though far less explicitly\, to identify ourselves with an equally conventional view of “myself.” For the conventional “self” or “person” is composed mainly of a history consisting of selected memories\, and beginning from the moment of parturition. According to convention\, I am not simply what I am doing now. I am also what I have done\, and my conventionally edited version of my past is made to seem almost more the real “me” than what I am at this moment. For what I am seems so fleeting and intangible\, but what I was  is fixed and final. It is the firm basis for predictions of what I will be in the future\, and so it comes about that I am more closely identified with what no longer exists than with what actually is! \n  \n—Alan Watts\, from The Way of Zen\, p. 6 \n* \nEsoterica  \n  \nShall I write for the ages? Shall I compose  \nfor a scholar’s delectation? Shall footnotes \nbe the explication implement for my puzzles\,  \nmy utterance reeking of the lamp? Shall glossy  \nlyricism enamel my philosophies? Shall I play  \ncat and mouse\, merciless with a reader’s mind?  \nShall I strive to conceal my meaning so teachers \nmay tease their students for the great shazam?  \n  \nDo not hang my painting  in the parlor\,  \nsaid Van Gogh—I see it in the cabin of a boat \nstorm-tossed at sea\, as a help to frightened sailors. \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n* \n  \nTakes a heap of meaning to make a body happy \n  \nThere have been complaints these days about meaninglessness. \n  \nThe spiritual end of our civilization seems to have broken down. We were originally set up to be monotheistic\, and not polytheistic. The gods were banished and all space taken by Jehovah on his golden throne. That worked through the Middle Ages\, but the Industrial Revolution put a spoke in the wheel. Almost unnoticed\, the gods started coming back. \n  \nThere are those who would turn Jehovah out and bring the gods back. Monotheism\, polytheism\, whatever. The important thing is to live a meaningful spiritual life. But a lot of Christians\, Muslims and Jews are invested in monotheism\, which is the idea that if there is one god there can’t be many. Logic won’t allow it. Others say that religion needs to be founded on paradox\, in which case\, there can be one god or many\, depending on your visionary angle. \n  \n—Charles Erickson \n* \n  \nlet’s pretend \n  \ninstead of pretending that we are afraid \nthat we must improve \nthat we have enemies \nthat the future will arrive someday \n  \nlet’s pretend everything is sacred \npretend this is Paradise \npretend every moment is precious \npretend we love everyone \n  \npretend our joy knows no bounds \npretend we are the whole wide world \n  \n—Johnny Stallings \n* \n  \nYou can take any object whatsoever–a stick or a stone\, a dog or a child–draw a ring around it so that it is seen as separate from everything else\, and thus contemplate it in its mystery aspect–the aspect of the mystery of its being\, which is the mystery of all being–and it will have there and then become a proper object of worshipful regard. So\, any object can become an adequate base for meditation\, since the whole mystery of man and nature and of everything else is in any object that you want to regard. \n  \n—Joseph Campbell\, from Mythic Worlds\, Modern Words: On the Art of James Joyce\, p. 130 \n* \n  \nI hear and behold God in every object\, yet understand God not in the least\, \nNor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself. \n  \nWhy should I wish to see God better than this day? \nI see something of God each hour of the twenty-four\, and each moment then\, \nIn the faces of men and women I see God\, and in my own face in the glass\, \nI find letters from God dropt in the street\, and every one is signed by God’s name\, \nAnd I leave them where they are\, for I know that wheresoe’er I go\, \nOthers will punctually come for ever and ever. \n  \n—Walt Whitman\, from “Song of Myself” \n* \n  \nAnd this our life\, exempt from public haunt\,  \nFinds tongues in trees\, books in the running brooks\,  \nsermons in stones\, and good in every thing.  \nI would not change it. \n  \n—William Shakespeare\, from As You Like It\, Act II\, scene 1 \n* \n  \nHere are some excerpts from Michel’s meditation journal. The numbers refer to passages from the book Your True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh. (JS) \n  \nMay 3\, 2021  #113  The Beautiful Earth \n  \nThis one ended up not being about the entitled topic: certainly it does start there…and ends where we can help others find/touch peace more often in their lives\, realizing that the Earth and all it contains is already beautiful. I appreciate that Thây tells/reminds us that we are “able to”—“We can allow ourselves…” How often do we do this—allow ourselves to do anything for ourselves?; let alone\, walking mindfully or touching the Earth. Certainly\, it can be a greater challenge for those of us located in the box. But\, we can let our spirit soar outside this box\, our minds don’t have to be imprisoned along with our bodies. (As an aside: How many do you know and/or notice whose mind is as trapped as their body\, unable to see any beauty or kindness inside here?) Even walking on concrete we can touch the Earth. Even looking at concrete walls\, or at a sky above\, we can recognize the beauty of the Earth around us—as we once knew it\, or as we can see it now in faces of people\, or pictures\, or birds flying overhead. We can allow ourselves to live\, breathe\, see\, feel\, and even “be” outside the box. We only need to “see” it… \n* \n  \nMay 24\, 2021  #128  Peace is Contagious \n  \nI guess I have not experienced this truth yet. I see war as a result of greed\, hatred\, delusion: this is contagious\, in a way. Peace has certainly been a byproduct of meditation practice\, as has happiness with ease. I wonder if this is the intent of using “contagious.” \n  \nWouldn’t that be wonderful? If we could get many to meditate and peace were to spontaneously erupt. Then\, as a result of all the peaceful people and the contagious nature of peace\, that Peace broke out all over the world. What would that world look like? Would it be astonishing or amazing? Or\, would we all\, as active meditators\, know it was what we expected to occur? \n  \nPeace is the antithesis of greed\, hate\, and delusion (The Three Poisons). Meditation is part of the path for overcoming the self-told lies leading to these three poisons. So\, if this is known—(this is known\, isn’t it?)—then why don’t more people pursue peace this way: divesting of false narratives\, of grasping for what others have\, and the desire to erase the otherness? \n  \nIt all comes down to choices. We each make choices. Some will blind us to reality\, and others bring sharp relief. Each person gets to choose. When one discovers the path of peace\, he or she wants others to share in it—contagious. \n* \n  \nMay 31\, 2021  #133  Where the Buddhas Live \n  \n….We are all sleeping Buddhas. And\, we all share this planet together. We can all love ourselves\, in the now\, as it is\, as we really are\, seen in the “others” with whom we share the air we breathe\, the sunlight that warms our body\, on this planet provided for us to live. Where do the buddhas live? In you and in me and in each person we encounter. Can you see it? Can you feel this? \n  \nLove \nMichel Deforge \n* \n  \nOne of my favorite “children’s books” is Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps by Kees Boeke\, published by John Day\, 1957. It has long been out of print but some amazing soul has scanned the whole book to a PDF:  \n  \nhttp://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/cosmic-view.pdf \n  \nAnd in 1968 Canadian Broadcasting made a film based on it:  \n  \nhttps://letterboxd.com/film/cosmic-zoom/ \n  \nWe take size and our reactions to it almost by rote\, not seeing how very relative our slice or box of the universe is. And these two\, the book and film\, remind us of  that. In addition there is a great French movie\, Microcosmos\, about the life of insects in a field in France.  \n  \nhttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117040/ \n  \nTalk about different worlds and sizes! Which is just what I have done in this recent poem of mine\, that I am attaching. \n  \nlove\,  \nDeb \n  \nOpening the Hubble Galaxy Calendar \n  \nIn a summer field the camera inches closer\, the air’s hum becomes louder\, thicker and we watch small creatures move through wilds of grass and dirt\, beings so tiny our lordly bodies rarely see them\, human vision inattentive to antennas\, faceted eyes\, and carapace. How unimaginable these day-long worlds are to us and we to them\, our one hundred years beyond reach in the universe of insect life. \n  \nAnts\, worms\, and crickets\, dynasties of arachnid and lepidoptera rush to mind each morning as I open another color-enhanced photograph from the Hubble telescope\, each one bringing the unexpected into view: the Horse Head Nebula rearing as if a stallion\, a butterfly configuration composed of galaxy upon galaxy\, streams of gas and water\, glowing fire. What can we know of 100 million light-years\, these interstellar worlds? \n  \nO\, how like insects we are\, hands and legs\, thorax and mandibles all waving in the limitless dark. \n  \n—Deborah Buchanan \n* \n  \n#161 Think Globally \n  \n“…When we see things globally we have more wisdom and we feel much better We are not caught by small situations…” \n  \nI don’t remember when I first started doing this\, but I know it was many\, many decades ago\, during my first rocky marriage. When caught up with tormenting thoughts I would extricate myself by saying\, “Look at the big picture. Look at you\, now\, in this time. This is nothing; you are nothing. In the “Grand Scheme of Things” this doesn’t matter. You don’t matter (you do\, but you don’t). It is nothing. Things will change.” I would detach myself\, look at the situation from the outside\, like a scientist\, untethering myself from the suffocating emotional bind. I would think of centuries\, of eons\, eras\, of countries\, continents\, planets\, the universe — and all the inhabitants therein\, and how their lives could be monstrous compared to mine. \n  \nThen I would count up the joys in my life\, remembering what I had within and without me that others globally could not experience. I would get specific\, enumerate details—loving\, supportive parents and siblings; vegetables in my garden ready to pick; good physical (if not mental) health; art; adoring\, adorable dog; freedom from addictions (for now); the trees and mountains calling me… \n  \nIf nothing else\, the time it took me to go through this process would invariably diffuse the heretofore unbearable situation. \n  \nI am everything. I am nothing. \n  \n—Jude Russell \n* \n  \nI love this poem: \n  \nI am one \nWho eats his breakfast \nGazing at morning glories \n  \n—Basho \n  \nhttps://matsuobashohaiku.home.blog/2019/04/12/gazing-at-morning-glories-eating-breakfast-basho/ \n  \nI am still contemplating the story Michel sent about fishing with a straight hook. Picturing this fisherman/fisherwoman sitting with companions who are intent on catching fish for dinner\, or sport.  \n  \nThe difference seems to me about letting go of expectations\, come what may\, but staying engaged with companions in the present moment. A surprise might come that feels magical\, but it isn’t about waiting for something better in the future. But the straight hook does make that fisherbeing unique amongst others. I am sending some quotes on this thought: \n  \nIf you always sit in expectation\, you’re not in the present moment. The present moment contains the whole of life.  \n—Thich Nhat Hanh   \n  \nLetting go is a painful part of life. But according to Buddhism\, we must let go of attachment and desires if we are to experience happiness. \nHowever\, letting go doesn’t mean you don’t care about anyone and anything. It actually means you can experience life and love fully and openly without clinging to it for your survival. \nAccording to Buddhism\, this is the only way to experience true freedom and happiness.  \nLetting go gives us freedom\, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If\, in our heart\, we still cling to anything—anger\, anxiety\, or possessions—we cannot be free. \n—Thich Nhat Hanh   \n  \nThe greatest loss of time is delay and expectation\, which depend upon the future. We let go of the present\, which we have in our power\, and look forward to that which depends upon chance\, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty. \n—Seneca   \n  \nIf we deny our happiness\, resist our satisfaction\, we lessen the importance of their deprivation. We must risk delight….We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world….( injustice cannot be the only measure of our attention)….We must admit there will be music despite everything.      \n—Jack Gilbert \n  \nLet Go Of Expectations  \n  \n“If it weren’t for my mind\, my meditation would be excellent.” \n—Pema Chödrön     \n  \nShe continues:      \n  \nEvery meditation is different. Some of them will be peaceful throughout and you may feel a deep sense of joy. Other times your mind might be wild with thoughts of the day\, responsibilities you have yet to fulfill\, or emotions that percolate to the surface of your mind.  \n  \nHere are some steps you can take during your practice so that you avoid unnecessary turmoil and disappointment:  \n  \n\nAccept whatever shows up for you. If your mind is wild with thoughts\, simply let them arise without judgement. When you catch yourself being aware of these thoughts\, you can remind yourself to focus once again on your breath.\n\n\nSometimes you may experience emotions arising. Again\, allow them to move through you without judgement. Emotions need to move through us\, otherwise they can become stuck within our body and cause discomfort or even disease later in life. The release of that emotion could be the very thing that brings some relief and a quieter mind. \n\n\nRelease expectations of a specific outcome before you go in to a meditation. Some people will enter meditations with the hope that they will be able to manifest money\, relationships or health. High expectations of a specific outcome can lead to disappointments when they do not arise immediately. The less you expect of your meditation the easier you will find happiness. \n\n* \n  \nOK\, you are now ready to begin\, take a calm\, deep breath. \n—Katie Radditz
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/meditation-mindfulness-dialogue-6-15-21/
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