Posts Tagged ‘Meditation’
All We Have Is This Moment (Part II)
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010
Just as I finished my last blog about living in the moment, I came across this topic in the book I am reading, A Thousand Names for Joy, by Byron Katie. In her book, Katie writes, “Where are you going, other than where you are right now? How can you go anywhere else? The direct path means realizing that the beginning and end of every journey is where you always are.”
Then this past weekend, I picked up the book, Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert and started to re-read all the dog-eared pages. As I flipped the pages, I came across the following lines in the book: “The other problem with all this swinging through the vines of thought is that you are never where you are. You are always digging in the past or poking at the future, but rarely do you rest in this moment.
In my meditation, this is what came through about living in the moment:
You are here. Not knowing, never knew. Never needed to and never will. If your thoughts float to the past, you can bring them back with love. If your thoughts wander too far into the future, you can bring them back with love. When we choose to live in this moment, we choose a direct path to our heart and the divine. Being present to this moment right now means being home. Welcome home.
To celebrating now with love,
Mary Anne
Summer Sun Meditation
Friday, July 2nd, 2010
Sit quietly..with your spine straight…breathe slowing in and out through your nose. Allow the exhale breath to last a little longer. Keep breathing until your whole body relaxes. Breathe through each part of your body.
Allow an image of the sun to come into your awareness. Allow whatever color of the sun come to you that feels really good. Sense it’s presence just above you. Invite the rays of the sun to come into you. Allow the sunlight to brighten every thought and feeling. As you breathe in, sense the warmth of the sun and as you breathe out, sense the light of the sun. Bathe in the sun.
Connect with your own sun – the light that is you. Imagine sending this light out to someone you love so they can also bathe in the light. Spend some time bathing in the sun. When you are ready, slowly let the imagine of the sun go. The light is always there within, ready to shine. Bathe in the light of you in all ways.
Bring the light into your heart. Know that the light is always available, always there, and always ready to be shared with those around you.
Namaste,
Mary Anne
Sitting in the Abyss of the Vast Unknown
Thursday, July 1st, 2010
Non-doing keeps showing up. I decided to take the summer off from giving workshops, retreats, and healing circles. After announcing this in my newsletter, I thought, “What will I do with all this time off?” Quickly, I began a list of all the things I could “do” this summer. I started to look up classes and programs I could attend as a participant – none of which really excited me. Then my best friend invited me to do nothing – to stay in the abyss of not knowing and see what shows up. This has become my new practice – staying in the abyss and just listening for what is next.
I started with an easy topic – listening for what ought to be my next book to read. I stared at my bookcase for a few moments, reading dozens of book titles. I watched as my hand was drawn towards Byron Katie’s book, A Thousand Names for Joy. In each chapter, Byron Katie reflects about the Tao Te Ching. About ten pages into the book, Katie quotes the Tao, “Practice not-doing, and everything will fall into place.”
Katie reflects:
“The Master leads simply by being. “Being” looks like doing the dishes, answering the phone and e-mail, shopping, going to work, driving the kids to school, feeding the dog, doing one thing at a time, without a past or future. She doesn’t empty people’s minds. She doesn’t have to (even if that were possible). The way she helps people is by living out of don’t-know, can’t-know, no-need-to-know, not-possible-to-know, nothing-to-know.”
And just as I was writing this blog, my friend Joe Monkman posted a blog about taking a day off and giving ourselves permission to change our routine. In his Fishing for Soul blog he wrote, “Let go and allow your self to do one new or different thing today. Give your self the gift of not doing. Permit your self to BE. What might you create from that place? The possibilities are endless.”
Joe’s blog was another reminder to do nothing – just be and see what gifts arrive. Or as my friend said to me, “Just listen. Nothing else to do.”
I am sitting in the abyss of the vast unknown and have no idea what will appear. It is frightening and thrilling at the same time. As T.S. Elliot said, “Teach us to sit still.”
What gifts are awaiting you in the abyss of the vast unknown?
Mary Anne
June OM Meditation
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
Bathe in the sun and bring the light of the longest day of the year into your heart. Know that the light is always available, always there, and always ready to be shared with those around you. Spend time with some contemplative thoughts and questions and feel free to pass them on to others.
As an invitation, feel free to close your eyes, sit with your spine straight and take a few soft breaths. Then inhale a little deeper through your nose, and on the exhale, repeat the mantra OM (AUM). Do this three times. Allow yourself to really feel everything and become the observer of your thoughts. Feel free to focus on one question or statement below and just allow your experience to unfold.
What do you believe about happiness? What brings you joy?
Rest in the place of a loving and generous heart within.
Peace resides within, always, always…awaiting expression.
Compassion is our capacity to love – without the story attached to it. It’s the acts of doing and the heart of being. It’s being our own best friend & having the capacity to befriend others.
The invitation is to practice compassion with yourself. Notice ways you show yourself loving-kindness. Ask how does loving-kindness and compassion show up in my life and HOW do I respond when it does?
Each person will have their own experience so the invitation is to be open for whatever thoughts flow through you. Allow your mind and body to expand into the experience (without judgment). Feel free to start with whatever mantra calls to you.
May you bathe in the light of you!
Make at least 10 people smile today.
Mary Anne
Imagine Yourself
Friday, June 18th, 2010
Imagine Yourself…
taking time to pause, feeling your breath, & being open…
Imagine Yourself…
sitting quietly, listening to your heart, & creating space inside…
Imagine Yourself…
slowing down & taking time for you…
Celebrate the upcoming Summer Solstice in a
FREE Global Meditation Teleclass on Monday, June 21 at 8P (ET).
The evening includes a summer meditation, silence, and reflection.
The free global meditation class will be on the phone. Call from the anywhere!
Dial in number: 605-475-4875
Access Code: 976552# (be sure to hit the # key)
For more info click link: Toning the OM FREE Meditation Teleclass~
Happy Summer!
Mary Anne
May OM Meditations
Saturday, May 29th, 2010
As we prepare ourselves for a long holiday weekend, let us remember all those who have given their life to serve our country. As one of my teachers, Sri Dharma Mittra, says, “With my sincere wishes and devout prayers to all that you will become lost in constant remembrance.”
As we bring that sense of remembrance into our heart and mind, let us take time sit in meditation and experience contemplative questions as a way to open up to remember our original self with love.
As an invitation, feel free to close your eyes, sit with your spine straight and take a few soft breaths. Then inhale a little deeper through your nose, and on the exhale, repeat the mantra OM (AUM). Do this three times. Allow yourself to really feel everything and become the observer of your thoughts. Feel free to focus on one question or statement below and just allow your experience to unfold.
In every breath, there is love.
In the end it is the love that we already are that brings us home.
Light will shine your path. Love will be your guide.
What allows each of us to remember that light within that is always there?
How do you honor the sacred?
What value do you want to offer others – even when it is difficult – even when your voice is the opposite one of what is being said?
Every breath is a miracle. Every day is a gift. Everyone is love.
There are times when hiding our gifts is more painful than sharing them with others. What will it take for you to open up & risk sharing the blossom of you?
How do you want to create more silence in your life?
Each person will have their own experience so the invitation is to be open for whatever thoughts flow through you. Allow your mind and body to expand into the experience (without judgment). Feel free to start with whatever mantra calls to use.
May you experience the beauty of remembrance.
Mary Anne
April OM Meditations
Thursday, April 29th, 2010
I started the month of April by asking folks to “play the fool” and to bring forth their most outrageous, wild, playful self. In keeping with tradition, I am ending the month by sharing monthly meditations and contemplative questions as a way to open up to more joy and let love in.
As an invitation, feel free to close your eyes, sit with your spine straight and take a few soft breaths. Then inhale a little deeper through your nose, and on the exhale, repeat the mantra OM (AUM). Do this three times. Allow yourself to really feel everything and become the observer of your thoughts. Feel free to focus on one question or statement below and just allow your experience to unfold.
How can we allow empty spaces to teach us, to fill us, to empty us?
Love is reciprocity. Love doesn’t worry about being liked & having approval. Love exists within our inabilities, imperfections, & faults—and our value never decreases.
How do you come out in the world? How do you want to come out fully and shine your light for the entire world to see?
Living authentically means embracing who we are and allowing our full light to shine.
How often do we close our own hearts & need a locksmith to open it and let love in? How do you let love in?
Beloved
Be Love
You are loved. Stay there.
Letting love in, I am healed;
Letting love in, I am whole;
Letting love in, I remember;
Letting love in, I am Free.
Each person will have their own experience so the invitation is to be open for whatever thoughts flow through you. Allow your mind and body to expand into the experience (without judgment). Feel free to start with whatever mantra calls to you.
May you experience letting love in and allowing your heart to expand.
Make at least 10 people smile today.
Mary Anne
Venia – Grace & Forgiveness
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010
I came across the Latin word for forgiveness — “venia.” The direct translation means grace. I experience the gift of grace every week in my work with children who have an incarcerated parent. They write letters of forgiveness to their parents and are able to acknowledge their pain. In his work with prisoners Buddhist teacher Noah Levine writes, “Some actions may not be forgivable, but all actors are.” He goes on to say, “For this actor, the person whose own suffering has spilled onto other people, there is always the possibility of compassion.”
How does my pain spill onto others? My experience of looking at my past or current pain has led me to deepen my meditation practice — to go within and ask how my current actions are showing up based on past suffering. By sitting in stillness, I have become present to my own thoughts and can separate people from their past actions and this has made space for greater understanding and love.
Eckhart Tolle says, “You can acknowledge and learn from mistakes you made, and then move on and refocus on the now. It is called forgiving yourself.” By paying attention to the present moment, we allow ourselves the opportunity to release guilt, regret, grievances, and anger. As Tolle says, “Forgiveness happens naturally as soon as you realize that the past cannot prevail against the power of Presence.”
All forgiveness starts inside — by becoming still, by noticing your breath, by expressing gratitude — we expand deeper into our own hearts. By experiencing the present moment, we can release the past and step into the future with greater joy.
How has the pain of others spilled into your heart? What pain in your life is playing out with actions you are taking? If you would like to experience making space for more understanding and peace, please join me starting May 12 for Resting in Radical Forgiveness 4-Week Telecourse. All you need is your phone, pen & paper, and an open heart.
Venia,
Mary Anne
Letting Love In
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
In the Toning the OM™ newsletter this week, I shared about my experience of giving a sound-healing workshop focused on joyful hearts and rhythm. Following the workshop, I have had a profound experience of letting love in. While I have always been able to give love and intellectually know I am loved, I am now feeling love and it is dropping in deeper and deeper with each passing day. Love is dropping into my heart.
I feel like the tulips that are budding. They wait through the cold season and come up through the ground all closed up. They wait for light and for warmth and then they let “love in” and burst open. We are like those tulips. If we can trust the light and warmth and let “love in”, we too, will bloom fully.
After meditating on letting love in, I wrote:
Letting love in, I am healed;
Letting love in, I am whole;
Letting love in, I remember;
Letting love in, I am Free.
How do you let love in?
With profound love,
Mary Anne
The NYC Subway Is My Teacher
Monday, April 19th, 2010
After more than 18 years of taking the NYC subway, I still am learning lessons of patience and opportunity. I take the subway into Manhattan daily to go to work. It’s pretty tedious and most days I drive on autopilot to park my car near the subway. I hop on an “express train”, which takes about an hour to get into lower Manhattan from the Bronx. I have become accustomed to delays due to “train traffic”, “sick passengers”, “signal malfunction”, and “police activity” (and other delays that are not announced, but am sure are for good reasons). Just recently, the MTA announced that due to necessary track work, my express train is going to run local in both directions until August 2011. This translates into an additional 15-20 minutes on the train (despite the MTA saying it would mean an additional 5 minutes). For the next year and half, my train will run on the local track.
I started this local commute a few weeks ago and realized I was standing a long time. By the time I got to my office, I noticed I was more tired and cranky. The first thought was to blame the MTA and their track work. Then I blamed the train for being too crowded. I was getting ready to go onto a new rant, when I stopped myself and asked what this slower ride could teach me. I realized that this slower commute was an opportunity. I had more time to read, to draft ideas, to scan a blog, to nap, and to meditate. With the train moving slower, I was able to notice the sunrises and sunsets that I normally just blinked through.
Then I began to list other ways I could commute into the city. I could take the express bus or try a different train route. The NYC Subway became my teacher. It taught me that I could slow down and that I have options. How many times have I thought I must do something one way and that’s the only way it could be done? And why am I in such a rush to get into the city? Is slowing down such a bad thing?
The subway ride is teaching me to slow down. I can look at other areas of my life and see I have options. And most importantly, I don’t have to always be on the express track.
Are you willing to get off the express track in life and head onto the local?
Mary Anne