The good news is this isn’t always the case. One experience may feel boring or exhausting, but not all. You can—and will, if you stay with it—have many others that you enjoy. Some days your mind is very relaxed and creative; the next it may be filled with anxiety; the following simply restless and not wanting to focus. In that way, meditating is like taking your mind on a roller coaster; sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down, and if you hang in there, you expe-rience both.

One of my favorite words for meditation in the Tibetan language is gom. Gom can be translated as “meditation,” but I prefer the direct translation, which is “familiarization.” When we board the meditation roller coaster, we must realize, we are becoming familiar with all of who we are, in-cluding the brilliant parts of ourselves and the neurotic parts as well. The more we become famil-iar with the totality of who we are, the more we befriend and, ultimately, accept ourselves com-pletely, instead of constantly trying to level up and be something else.

Music, too, can allow us to relax enough to remember who we are, much like meditation. Years ago, I surprised my then-girlfriend (now wife) when she came home by swooping her into my arms and dancing with her to John Legend’s “All of You” (it was the hit of the summer). This unforgettably sweet instance made it a natural choice for the first song at our recent wedding. The second the opening lines of the song played at our reception, the hundred or so friends and family disappeared, and I was back in that moment of just the two of us, intimately relaxing into one another. This is different than concentration meditation, where we aim to bring our focus back to an object, like the breath, over and over again. Here, I am talking about simple relaxation into a moment.

Where music and meditation come together, in my opinion, is when we talk about the mindful-ness of sound. In one meditation technique, we are instructed to bring our attention to the breath, but we also are supposed to bring our attention to everything else that we experience through our sense perceptions. That means feeling the body breathing right alongside noticing the color of the floor ahead of you, the smell of the incense burning, the feeling of the weight of your clothes on your skin, the taste of your saliva as you swallow and, perhaps most palpably, what you hear in the environment around you.

To return to the notion of “becoming familiar with,” this practice is not about lulling the mind into a state of ecstasy because you hear a lot of pleasant sounds. Instead, it’s about being there for reality as is. Yes, some nice sounds might pop up as you settle into your practice, like the snoring of your dog beside you. But if you live in a busy city as I do, you might hear your neigh-bors yelling at each other, too. We become familiar with all of it. Instead of rushing to give into the (very human) tendency to label things in the “I like this,” “I don’t like this,” and “I’m going to ignore this thank-you-very-much” categories, we can relax and be with all of the sound that is occurring.

Related: A Meditation to Enjoy the Great Outdoors

If you are interested in experimenting with this form of meditation, I recommend starting by just focusing on the breath for a period of time. If you are new to meditation, start with five minutes. If you are more experienced, go for 10. Open your senses up to the environment. It’s helpful to begin by listening to what you hear and then you can, at your own pace, expand into noticing what you see, smell, taste and even the feeling of touch.

Don’t get too lost in one aspect of your senses; this can be a holistic experience. You are aiming to be with all of what is happening in the present moment. If music is playing, great. If not, okay. When you get distracted and start thinking about your to-do list for the day, simply come back to feeling the body breathing, then expand outward to include your sense perceptions once more.

While music can be moving and powerful, and meditation can (at times) be the same, these are two things that serve different purposes. Yet, when we decide to bring our sense perceptions into our breath meditation, we are expanding our training by learning to be with our world on its own terms, as opposed to how we wish it were or how it used to be. That is a training in sound that is invaluable for everyday life.

The post Is Listening to Music a Form of Meditation? appeared first on Sonima.

So, what is one to do when approaching a large gathering, like a wedding, family holiday, or even high school reunion? Tension surfaces, people get nervous, rarely does anyone say the right thing, but we all want to be happy and live a life of love, right? In Buddhism, there are these practices known as the four brahmaviharas, or four immeasurables, that we can engage in to promote and embrace love: loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Each of these are aspects of love that we already possess and can cultivate in these massive group settings. The good news is that we won’t exhaust them because they are truly immeasurable. Let explain.

1. Loving-Kindness

Known in Sanskrit as maitri, the practice of loving-kindness is sometimes better translated as “friendship.” If we aim to practice loving-kindness at a wedding, we are offering a sense of friendship to ourself and others, through making aspirational verses for the people we know and love, the people we don’t know very well at all, and even those people we have a very difficult time with.

When I teach this practice, I begin by inviting people to start with offering loving-kindness to themselves because, as RuPaul once said, “If you don’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?” If we don’t have a deep well of self-love to draw from, at some point the bucket is going to hit the bottom and we will have no love reserves from which to offer others. Through cultivating love for ourselves, we make this practice immeasurable.

Whether you’re like me, a key member of the wedding party, or invited as a guest to a huge celebration, you’re likely to encounter those people whom you love, those you don’t know very well, and maybe even a racist uncle you don’t like. What a perfect opportunity to wish each individual love and happiness. As I talk about in-depth in my forthcoming book, How to Be Decent: A Mindful Guide to a Messed Up World, whether you’re the bride, groom, or cousin no. 13, you can go about the room, acknowledging others, and silently make one or more of these aspirations for each person:

May you be happy
May you be healthy
May you feel safe
May you feel peaceful
May you feel loved

2. Compassion

A running theme throughout my next book is compassion, or in Sanskrit, karuna. Compassion is the desire to relieve the suffering of another. Having related to your own suffering and pain on the meditation cushion, you are more likely to open up our heart to other people you encounter. In the sometimes awkward, sometimes painful occasions of large groups of family and strangers coming together, you can be on the lookout for ways to show up in a compassionate manner. For example:

• Make conversation with people who seem a bit lonely
• Squeeze in time with the parents of the bride or groom
• Help out an overwhelmed family member
• Assist an elderly person in traversing the crowds
• If you’re in my position, as the groom or bride, you can make sure (to the best of your ability) to connect with everyone on your special day

Even though these types of large gatherings are meant to be moments of joy, they can often be stressful for some people. Aiming to be present enough to spot those occasions and provide some support is a deeply loving thing to do.

Related: A Loving-Kindness Practice for Strangers and Loved Ones

3. Sympathetic Joy

The third practice we can engage in comes from the Sanskrit word mudita, which is generally translated as “sympathetic joy.” If compassion is defined by recognizing the suffering of other people around you, sympathetic joy is defined by recognizing their happiness. The practice element here is rejoicing in the joy of others. When we are at a wedding or other big social events, this is simply basking in the glow of happiness that exists. Allow yourself some space to soak in the people around you. Notice an older couple on the dance floor or young children playing and just let yourself enjoy their joy.

Even if you’re the bride or groom, you can practice sympathetic joy on your wedding day. While it’s tempting to have the same conversation dozens of times, you can inquire about other people’s recent good news, celebrating and magnifying their success instead of solely focusing the spotlight on you. Sometimes, the quickest way for us to get out of our own head is to contemplate another person. When we practice sympathetic joy, we end up feeling joyful ourselves and other people feel supported and loved.

4. Equanimity

The Sanskrit word upeksha is commonly translated as “equanimity,” but I prefer Thich Nhat Hanh’s definition, which is “inclusiveness.” It indicates that we could open our heart to be inclusive enough that everyone we encounter at an event like this could be a recipient of our love. Thich Nhat Hanh said on this topic, “When you love one person, it’s an opportunity for you to love everyone, all beings.”

So much of our attention is focused on a couple at a wedding, but here we could practice little ways of opening our heart and making it inclusive of everyone attending. This includes the parents of the happy couple, the couple’s longtime friends, family members, and even the service staff, band members, and DJ. You are attending a celebration of love, and in that sense it’s the ideal setting to see how unabashedly you can offer your own open heart to whomever you meet. That said, if a sleazy groomsman hits on you, the word “no” is still a good option.

The post 4 Ways to Stay Calm at Your Wedding (and Other Gatherings) appeared first on Sonima.

I turned to my mentors for advice and that is when I was introduced to a set of teachings known as the Four Exhilarations. It was promised that if I did all four of these action items in one day, I would feel uplifted and have a renewed sense of energy. I was hooked already, and dying to know about these secret teachings. Without further ado, I now offer them to you. They are: 1) eat well, 2) sleep well, 3) meditate, and 4) exercise.

Super obvious, right? Of course, I knew that I should do those activities before they were laid out in this set of teachings, and maybe you are in the same boat. These are incredibly simple things that you already might occasionally engage in. Yet, how often do you do all four of them in one day?

Let’s examine our relationship to each and how to better incorporate them into our daily lives.

1. Eat well

We all have our own relationship to food. Some of us have specific things we know we should not eat because it affects our body in a negative way. Other people may impose very strict diets on themselves because swimsuit season is coming. Some of us eat relatively healthy during the week and then consume donuts all weekend (raising my hand here).

Eating well means trusting our body to tell us what it needs, and deeply listening to it. It means not overeating, which is something a lot of us do when we are feeling upset. It means not eating trash, like a full box of cookies (I’ve been guilty of this one, too). It means eating good, nourishing food. Listen to your body, folks, and you will find your way forward on this one.

2. Sleep well

Often, when I’m teaching meditation someone will ask the question, “What should I do if I’m falling asleep during meditation?” I usually joke that I have an ancient Buddhist remedy for anyone who finds themselves consistently passing out on the meditation seat. Want to know what it is? Okay, pay close attention: You need to get more sleep.

There are other helpful things to do in this regard (i.e., drink water and stretch before sitting), but more often than not, we run around thinking we can “do it all” and neglect the need to rest the body in a nourishing way. The the moment we sit down and let the body relax, it’s like, “Thank goodness. I can pass out. Thank you.” The body is telling us it needs more rest.

Sleeping well means getting more sleep than you think you need. If you normally sleep for seven hours, you may need eight. If you can’t get a good night’s sleep, it might be worth trying to nap during the day, even if that’s right when you get home from work. I recommend keeping a good Buddhist (or other spiritual) book on your nightstand so that if you do wake up in the night, you can read a page or two, relax your mind, and enter sleep once more.

Related: A Meditation to Help You Prepare for Restful Sleep

3. Meditate

If you haven’t noticed, after 30 years of practicing it and half a lifetime of teaching it, I’m a big fan of meditation. This is because I know meditation can help us. It can help us be with all of our brilliance, heartbreak, creativity and neurosis. It can help heal our body and mind. It can help us experience the totality of who we are as a human being. And it can help us love ourselves more than we ever suspected possible.

My favorite word for meditation in the Tibetan language is gom. Gom can translate as “meditation,” but it can also be translated as “become familiar with” or “familiarization.” It is the idea that meditation allows us the space and time to become familiar with all of what is going on with us in a given day, providing much needed information in how we could better care for ourselves. By adding a consistent meditation practice to our self-care regimen, we are giving ourselves the tool to discern how best to move forward in all the other areas of our life.

4. Exercise

We have these incredible physical bodies, and simply using them in an energetic way feels uplifting to us. Exercise might look different for you than it does for me. I run, go for long walks, or box. For you it might be yoga, cycling, or Crossfit. I don’t think I’ll ever do Crossfit. Too intense for me. But good for you! Whatever exercise means to you, please incorporate it into your day. I don’t think I have ever exerted myself beyond my comfort level in exercise and felt less uplifted as a result. I always end up feeling much more spirited and level-headed afterward. Even if it’s 15 minutes of cardio or sit ups, see if you can incorporate some exercise into your daily routine.

Balancing All Four

Now, here’s the rub: it’s easy to do one or two of these in a day. You might sleep in, exercise, and then realize you’re running late for work and have to skip meals and meditation. You might eat well all day, meditate, and, thus, decide you don’t need to exercise. This is a way to bring some energy into your day, sure. But what if you did all four of these things?

When you do all four in one day, you will feel more like yourself and you will be able to engage your life in a more meaningful way. Give it a try, and you will see what I mean.

The post 4 Ancient Ways to Take Care of Yourself Today appeared first on Sonima.

Here’s the amazing thing: Mindfulness of the breath is the simplest and most effective way to relate to our own mind, the ways we cause ourselves and others suffering, and to discover our inherent peace. Each time we sit down to follow the breath, we follow in the footsteps of the Buddha. Not unlike him, we focus on the body breathing, then when we notice we have drifted off into thought we come back to the present moment, over and over again.

However, one of the most common misunderstandings when it comes to mindfulness practice is that we should be able to sit down and feel peace right away. If that is the case for you, please let me know—you deserve to be on the front page of The Meditation Times (which doesn’t exist…yet). For many of us, peace feels like a far cry from the reality of the situation. The act of sitting quietly in a chair or on the floor with our legs crossed and focusing on the breath is like issuing an invitation to the mind to run rampant.

It’s a bit like taking a young child to school and having to walk by a candy store. You know that school is the ultimate destination, but once the kid sees the candy store, there’s no stopping him; he wants to go and he wants to go now. Over and over again you have to turn to the kid and gently say, “Nope, this isn’t where we’re going,” and steer him back to the path toward school.

Similarly, when you sit down to meditate you know that the ultimate destination is resting with the breath and, thus, your inherent sense of peace. The mind is like a young child and runs off, daydreaming about your ex, answering work emails, or having an argument with someone you likely won’t talk to for weeks. Each time you have the awareness that you have drifted off, the discipline is to gently guide your mind back to simply resting with the breath. The more we say, “Nope, this argument isn’t where we’re going,” and come back, the more we start to notice the mind can actually relax into the practice; it just takes a while for us to get there.

If we can actually get out of our own way and relax into feeling the breath that’s when the magic happens. In that instant, we discover what the Buddha found all those years ago, the same thing that led him to propagate this practice, over all the other practices that he studied: We are innately wakeful. Once we train the mind to relax into the present moment, we realize we can abide there for a moment or two. Those moments turn into 10, which turns into a full minute. The more we do this practice, the more we develop confidence that we can just rest in our inherent sense of peace. We build a continuity of wakefulness, not just in the meditation practice, but also in our daily lives.

RELATED: The Magic of Mindfulness

Once we have learned to relax with something as simple as the body breathing, the more we can feel at ease in every other aspect of our life. We can hang out with a friend and deeply listen to what they have to say. We can sip our morning coffee and truly taste it. We can hold space for a loved one while they go through a difficult time. We end up showing up more fully and authentically for every activity throughout the day and it starts to feel magical. The mind has to be trained to be present rather than “always chasing another now,” as a chant performed at Shambhala Centers worldwide says. Rather than let your thoughts get lost in the future or the past, course-correct yourself and don’t let your proverbial kid go to the candy shop.

This is why, when people say things, like “Hiking is my meditation,” I flinch inwardly. While there are many activities that can allow us space away from the norm to process how we are thinking and feeling, there is a difference between that and training the mind to be present. Unless you are being mindful of each step and catching yourself when you drift off in habitual thinking, coming back to the next step, that’s not a mindfulness practice per say. The reason I am emphasizing the formal mindfulness of the breath practice is because it is designed to make us be fully present with whatever is happening—the good, bad, and ugly. Your mind wanders and you come back, until you learn to rest, thus, training your inner kid to walk by the proverbial candy shop and get to school.

The more we train in formal mindfulness practice, the more we experience the magic of each moment off the meditation seat. We relax into being with the people in our lives—those we know and like, those we don’t know very well and even those people we dislike. Being 100 percent there with them is how we learn to enjoy our lives most fully.

The post Inner Peace Comes to All Who Meditate (Eventually) appeared first on Sonima.

I am joking, of course; the sheer number of thoughts we have may feel crazy-making, but it’s actually quite normal to have so many each minute. In fact, meditation teachers, like Deepak Chopra, MD, claim that we have somewhere between 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts each day, so the myth that we could turn the mind off in meditation is somewhat ridiculous. Meditation is actually not a way of getting rid of thoughts, but rather developing a different relationship to them so that we can live our lives more in the present.

Imagine coming across a wild horse. You wouldn’t try to jump on it right away because it would get upset and buck you off. Instead, you might approach it, become inquisitive about it, and spend time with it a little bit every day, offering the horse kindness and respect. Then, after a period of time, you may find that you have a friendship with this animal and that it might actually allow you to climb aboard and ride around a bit. As a result of putting in all this time befriending the horse, there is a fluidity to the relationship now, and deep enjoyment of the experience.

The same can be said for mindfulness meditation practice. At first, that waterfall of thoughts is intimidating; how can we ever expect our experience to be different from that? That would be like seeing the wild horse and shrugging your shoulders, saying, “Guess this horse is a hopeless cause.” But if we show up for ourselves, offering the gift of 10 or 20 minutes each day to simply be with the breath, we are forming a different relationship to the mind.

Related: A 5-Minute Meditation to Start Building Your Practice

Every time we drift off in meditation and come back, we have a choice to scorn ourselves (“You should be better at this!”) or offer ourselves kindness (“Not a big deal. Come on back to the breath now.”) This is not unlike yelling at the wild horse to do what we say versus offering it a sugar cube to entice him to us. The latter is clearly more effective.

The more time we spend on a consistent basis meditating in this kind way, the more we notice the results. Just like with the wild horse, when we put in the time and effort, the mind gradually relaxes. It realizes it does not need to chase down the rabbit holes of every thought that arises. It can settle into resting with the breath. When that happens, we experience the same level of fluidity and ease as if we had tamed the wild horse.

This moment when we begin to settle into our meditation practice is the same one where we see that it can permeate every other aspect of our life. Because we have trained the mind not to run down every rabbit hole of thought, we are more able to be present for the simple moments of our day. These very ordinary aspects of our routine all of a sudden become extraordinary; the “extra” part is simply there because we are showing up for our life differently, in a more authentic way. We taste our coffee and are able to just be there with our coffee. We ask our spouse, “How was work?” and remain present enough to actually hear all about it. It’s a radical shift in the most nuanced moments of our day, but these moments add up to a lifetime of deep meaning and fulfillment.

No one wakes up in the morning and thinks, “I just want to space out today. I don’t want to have a genuine connection with anyone.” Yet, many of us fall into bad habits, letting our minds constantly drift off into the past or the future. We could be enjoying the most flavorful meal of our lives, holding the hand of our dear loved one, and still not enjoy it because we are mentally still clocked in at work. The magic of mindfulness practice is that it rewires the brain so when that seemingly urgent work matter pops into your head, you can acknowledge it, but return to the present moment and enjoy your meal.

My teacher, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, often talks about this phenomenon as our tendency to always be chasing “another now.” We aren’t able to merely be present with what is going on, whether it’s a subjectively good experience or a bad one, so we mentally check out and daydream about another moment in time, another “now” that we could be a part of.

It used to be that if you were on a long commute, you might daydream about another now, but that’s as far as you could go. With the advent of smartphones, we can quit daydreaming and leap right into it by going on social media or mentally commuting to work via our e-mail. Instead of walking down the street and enjoying the sights that are right in front of us, we could enter into a text conversation with a friend. Instead of having dinner with our spouse, we can keep track of the latest sports scores. So long as your battery stays charged, there is no need for you to ever be present, should you want to avoid the here and now. Yet, after a day of a fully charged phone, you yourself might feel drained. You spent the day spacing out, sans genuine connection.

I realize people want mindfulness to be a quick fix. I realize you want me to say, “Don’t be stressed out!” and your stress would be magically cured. I can’t, I’m sorry. But I can say that if you show up for yourself and commit to a regular mindfulness of the breath practice over a period of a few weeks, you will understand exactly what I’m alluding to here. You will see the magic of mindfulness for yourself, as you begin to show up for your everyday moments and the people in your life in a more authentic way. Just like the example of taming the wild horse, you may find that over time, you end up living a life of fluidity and ease, merely by offering yourself this mindful friendship.

The post The Magic of Mindfulness appeared first on Sonima.

At least, that’s what I was told early on as a student of Buddhism. In that case, the teacher in question meant that if I sat in meditation and compared myself to what I thought other people were experiencing than I would be sorely misguided and feel like I was failing at it. In fact, those who I thought were resting peacefully in their own minds were actually a bunch of fidgety space cadets with a torrent of thoughts running through their heads—just like me. Somehow knowing that we all struggle in some way with the practice (and in life) was pretty helpful in keeping me feeling not so bad about my experience.

This advice about comparing mind can be applied to any number of things. Too often, when we compare ourselves to others, we focus less on what we do have and notice only the things we do not. Your career could be going well, for example, but all you can think about is how everyone you know seems to be in a happy relationship. Or you are happily married, but a visit with friends leads to discouragement because they have a nicer home than you. Or you have a comfy living situation, but you see Facebook photos of your friend on a beach and all of sudden feel like you work harder and take less time for yourself than just about anyone you know. The moment we start single-mindedly focusing on what we don’t have is the moment we spiral down a seemingly endless rabbit hole of despair.

The funny thing is that our perception of others’ successes is, generally, not based in their reality. You could turn to that close friend in a seemingly happy relationship and she might confess that she and her partner constantly fight, have an extremely unsatisfying sex life, or some other ailment you never would have known about based on how they appear in public. Ditto for beautiful homes, the perfect job, and on it goes. Add in the element of social media, where people can project a perfect life through photos and short captions containing half-truths. You might realize that much of your sense of poverty mentality comes from not actually knowing the truth about these people you are comparing yourself with.

Instead of comparing, what if we cultivated joy in the face of their perceived success? There is a Sanskrit word, mudita, which is translated as “sympathetic joy” or “altruistic joy.” This term was coined 2600 years ago by the Buddha himself, as he talked about the various forms of love we can offer to others.

Related: A 3-Minute Meditation to Turn Jealousy into Joy

If compassion is us opening our heart in the face of the suffering we see in others, mudita is us opening our heart in the face of their happiness. It is the idea that when we get stuck in our own negative thought patterns, we could move from focusing on our failures to a form of love that acknowledges and rejoices in the joy of the people around us. More simply put, as my teacher Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche often says, “If you want to be miserable, think of yourself. If you want to be happy, think of others.”

A Meditation for Increasing Sympathetic Joy

If you find yourself a victim of comparing mind, stop what you are doing. Come into your body. Take three deep breaths—in through the nose then out through the mouth. Feel the weight of your body through your feet. Transition into feeling into the natural cycle of your breathing.

Now, raise your gaze. If you are in a space with other people, look about and acknowledge them, regardless of whether you know them or not. If you are alone, bring to mind various people in your life, such as those you love, those don’t know very well and, if you would like, even those you have a hard time with. Now, see if you can rejoice in someone else’s happiness.

In this moment, it may not be advisable to turn your attention to the person you are typically jealous of. Perhaps, instead it’s an older couple sitting hand-in-hand near you on the subway or young children playing down the street. If you really struggle with comparing mind and those two things remind you that you may never meet someone or have kids, see if you can notice or bring to mind a puppy and notice how happy it is. Simply take a few minutes to notice the joy in those around you.

When you are ready, re-engage with other people. You can start conversations with those you know, and even strangers, and inquire about their recent good news, celebrating and magnifying their success. Here, we are looking for ways to rejoice in the happiness of others, including the smallest of details in their life. When we do, we end up feeling joyful ourselves and they feel supported and loved.

The more we celebrate the success of others, the more we might be inspired to look at our own successes in a new light. Instead of longing to meet that mythical Prince/Princess Charming, revel in getting to do the work that you do. Instead of feeling jealous that you don’t have a Pinterest-worthy home, celebrate your partner, knowing that home is where the heart is. Instead of being frustrated about how much you work, learn to enjoy your downtime with friends and family. Overall, the more we magnify and rejoice in the joy of others while celebrating the little things in our own life, the more likely we see happiness in the world and smile, knowing everyone around us is, again, just like me.

The post How to Feel Inspired, Not Discouraged, by Others’ Joy appeared first on Sonima.

“I immediately numbed out,” she said. “I was going to the post office and my first thought was, ‘Okay, I guess this means I need to go to a different post office.’” As she began to walk away, she noticed that she didn’t want to “numb out” and came to our space to meditate instead.

I was deeply inspired by this woman. So many individuals whom I encountered that day saw the news, and quickly moved onto the next thing. I can’t blame them. After a year marked by political tension, threat of nuclear war, and rampant racism, many people have chosen to numb out rather than tune into how they feel. It’s a coping mechanism at best, a survival technique at worst. To meditate and learn to feel what we feel (and realize that’s okay) is, frankly, counter-cultural and revolutionary.

As we enter this time for reflection, for many of us, a new year feels like a fresh start. We feel more open to the possibility that we can do something revolutionary for ourselves, and, thus, for the world. We turn our mind toward possibilities for transformation driven by what we call a “resolution.” But here’s a radical idea: Instead of basing a resolution around something that you want to change about yourself, such as losing weight or spending less money, what if you viewed your resolutions through the lens of a single intention, specifically, having a more open heart in the year ahead?

Hear me out. In a world where people are reporting that they feel increasingly isolated, what better resolution could we have than to try to connect more openly with others? If this interests you, the good news is, there’s a simple path for how to do exactly that. All you have to do is tune into the present moment and become more aware. I’ve been thinking about something my teacher, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, once said about how every moment has an energy. Either we can ride the energy of this moment or, if we fail to do so, it will ride us.

For example, if, like me, you wake up with a slight sense of anxiety around what horrors the news of the day will reveal, you might, immediately, reach for your phone and give into letting that anxiety ride you. Next time you feel these emotions taking over, you can pause, come back to the body breathing, and become more present. You can look at your anxiety and see if by acknowledging it, it becomes less overwhelming. Then, you can connect to this moment and ride the energy of it from a place of wholeness and goodness.

The more we are able to be genuinely present with our experience, the more open we feel. Meditation is a tool that wears away at our tough exterior—it’s like we are walking around with a thick suit of armor—and makes us more tender. By showing up for each moment and experiencing it as it is, we are taking an industrial strength Brillo pad to it and rubbing away until we reveal our own vulnerable heart. Yes, this means we are a little raw and exposed, but there’s something absolutely beautiful about connecting with our world in that way. We become more aware of who we genuinely are.

Related: A Meditation on Intentions for a New Year

To be clear, I’m not saying you can’t also have goals, like losing weight or having a better relationship with money. Those resolutions are fine. But they are more about things you want to do. This year, however, I challenge you to focus less on “things,” and more about who you want to be and what aspects of yourself you might want to cultivate.

Try this mindfulness exercise: Take a moment to come into your body. Feel the weight of it on the ground. Gently lift up through your spine. Tune into just feeling your breath as it’s naturally flowing. Now, in your own head, ask yourself, “Who do I want to be this year?” In other words, if at the end of the year, something happened to you and you passed away, what would you want to be known for? What aspects of who you are do you want to cultivate more of?

Do you want to be an open-hearted person?

An incredibly kind person?

A supremely generous person?

Notice what answers arise. Let them wash over you like a wave. Come back to the question until one answer feels particularly potent or significant to you. This is not an analytical exercise so much as listening to your own intuition. When you have an answer, write it down. You can post it somewhere you will see it regularly and be reminded of it.

While not a formal meditation exercise, going forward you can consider how you might apply this intention to the rest of your life. Maybe it can map onto those resolutions you want to do. But you might also notice that you want to re-prioritize certain activities and relationships in your life–to live from a place of being in full alignment with your intention. The more we do this sort of work, the more we rub away at the armor that keeps us blocked off from the world around us. We become less numb. We expose our vulnerable open heart and allow it to transform our life and everyone we encounter, which will touch and, ultimately, transform the world.

The post Start the New Year With An Open Heart appeared first on Sonima.

The act of meditation is, essentially, a process of getting to know and holding space for all of who we are. Despite what you may see played out in the movies, meditation is not you sitting blissed out as the wind perfectly billows your hair. In reality, it is sitting there while you keep re-playing that awkward conversation you had two days ago. At some point in your practice, you may notice that you’re nowhere near present with the breath, and then get annoyed at yourself and start fresh, only to be “present” for 10 to 30 seconds before your mind drifts off again.

And yet, the more we do this important work, the more we realize that we can hang out with ourselves and not get too frustrated after all. We can become familiar with and, ultimately, embrace all of who we are: the brilliant and creative sides of ourselves as well as the negative, self-doubting parts. While meditation doesn’t always feel “good,” it does allow us a chance to hold our seat and befriend ourselves, which is always good.

When we hang out with others, we carry over our ability to be present. That could mean that when we go out on a date, we’re actually there with our date, listening to them and enjoying the time we have with them, as opposed to mentally still clocked in at work. When we get to the gym, we actually show up for that interaction in a way that feels meaningful to us. And when we are confronted with someone who is going through a really hard time, we offer our non-judgmental presence and open heart to the best of our ability, holding space for them to be what they need to be.

When I was working on my last book, Love Hurts, my meditation practice was put to the test. As part of my research, I would meet with people each morning for 20-minute sessions, and hold space for them while they talked about their experience with heartbreak. I would, literally, ask them the question, “What is your experience of heartbreak?” and shut up until they were done responding. Sometimes, they used the full 20 minutes. And while I heard many stories about break-ups and divorces, I also heard accounts about addiction, death, adoption, illness, aging and more.

After holding space for these individuals and listening (I mean, really listening) to them, I always asked the same follow-up question: “How are you feeling right now?”

The funny thing is, more often than not, even though I had not commented on their experiences at all, they would say, “You know, I actually feel a bit lighter” or “I feel less overwhelmed by my emotions, having said all of that.” Simply by holding space for these complete strangers, something was able to shift and change within them. They were able to feel seen, heard, and have their burden lightened.

This experience gave birth to a theory: Sitting with yourself in meditation is excellent training for sitting with other people, in particular, those who are having a hard time. Just like you are holding space for yourself to freak out, experience peace, and everything in between while on the cushion, you are more able to sit mountain-like and be there for people who are doing the same off the cushion.

I admit, I’m the type of person who likes to fix everything. If a loved one is grieving, I would love nothing more than to say the perfect thing and have them perk up and say, “I never thought about that before,” and then be cheerful from that day on. But that’s not how grieving works.

Think back to the last time you felt deeply shaken by grief. Do you remember the long soliloquies your friends and family delivered? That long text message or email? Or do you remember someone sitting there with you and holding your hand, offering silence while you cried into a beer? I don’t know about you, but the latter are the most potent moments of support that I have experience when I’m grieving – that person who offers their undivided presence and support.

RELATED: A Meditation for Grief

These days, I still get emails from people who read Love Hurts, expressing that they don’t think they will love again, or that they are too damaged to heal from whatever they have gone through. Sometimes, they may even include their phone numbers and ask that I call. Although I don’t know them or the specifics of their situation, I always call. I tell them that they will love again, and that even the most heartbreaking, devastating emotions we feel are subject to impermanence; they will change, shift and they will, eventually, heal. I really do believe that. It’s all I say, and then I hold space. While it’s true that I’m a stranger, sometimes on the other side of the world, that’s all these grieving people want from me. Space. Support. Love. The more we practice offering these things to ourselves in meditation, the more we will be able to offer them to those in need.

The post How to Hold Space For People to Grieve and Heal appeared first on Sonima.

This masterpiece is sure to be a game-changer in today’s aggressive and disconnected world. In it, the Sakyong invites you to forget about internet trolls and news alerts, and instead connect to the present moment, engage with others authentically, and create interactions that you feel good about. How does one do this? Here are four insights from this inspiring book to help you get started.

1. “Mindfulness is the act of noticing. It is not engaging in like or dislike; it is paying attention to being alive.”

As a long-time meditation teacher, it’s no surprise the Sakyong encourages us to practice meditation as a means to create more authentic conversations. That said, he takes the practice off the cushion and brings the principle of mindfulness to life by showing us that through paying attention, we can create genuine connections. Through showing up fully and genuinely for a conversation—with whoever is right in front of us—we end up feeling our humanity.

2. “When we walk up to the checkout counter at the convenience store, we may not even acknowledge the person working the register. We just hand them our credit card without making eye contact or saying hello. In our modern world, this has become the norm. If we do say ‘hello,’ the person might be surprised that we are acknowledging their existence. This lack of courtesy affects our society as a whole. Thus, simply saying ‘hello’ is a meaningful and mindful endeavor.”

The Sakyong takes us through ways to further connect with those people in our lives who we like, how to find common ground with those we don’t, and perhaps most importantly, how to rouse ourselves out of isolation and forge on-the-spot connections with people we don’t know at all.

Building off of the aforementioned quote, if we are present, we begin to notice the people around us more. We see that they struggle in the same ways we do. This is where mindfulness gives birth to compassion. While saying “hello” seems like such a minor thing to really acknowledge that person working the register, the neighbor who lives down the hall from you, or the new colleague at your office is a pure act of kindness.

We are inviting someone to form a moment of connection with us. It may not always go the way we hope. We may not become instant life-long friends. But we are acknowledging our shared humanity and that goes a long way for most people. The Sakyong  goes on to say, “And this is the key to conversation: To appreciate the one in front of you, which creates a moment of happiness for both.”

3. “Having listened fully, let your partner know that you heard them. Find a way to share the essence of what they said. ‘Here’s my understanding of what you just said. Did I get it right?’”

I’ll admit,  sometimes I do this thing and maybe you do it, too. You come home after a long day of work, plop down your bag, and ask your romantic partner/roommate/family member “How was your day?” Upon uttering those words, you then get lost in your own head. Half of having a good conversation, the Sakyong points out, is truly listening. He encourages us to apply mindfulness so that we tune into what the other person is saying, using their speech as the object of meditation. Through deeply listening to them, we begin to see them as a fresh and unique beings, not just “that person I come home to.” Then, to complete the cycle, before we jump in with what we have to say, we echo back what they tried to share, so that they know  they have been heard. Through simply listening, we are getting to know someone better and appreciate them for who they are.

Related: The Real Reason Sustaining Your Meditation Practice Is So Hard

4. “Conversation is the seed of enlightened society, which begins with two people.”

Perhaps the most profound statement in the entire book, the Sakyong encourages us not to despair because  “society” itself is actually something that we are actively co-creating right here, right now. When we come home at the end of a long day, we come home to our family society. When we go to work the next day, we are engaging in our work society. When we go to work out, spend time in a meditation community, or volunteer? Yes, each of those communities are their own mini-societies. So whenever you sit down to  dinner with your spouse, you two are actively participating in a society.

The Sakyong makes the argument that anytime two people get together they are forming a small society. The means through which that is done? Conversation. Whether it becomes a not-so-enlightened society that perpetuates fear, aggression, and sadness or a more enlightened society that brings about the qualities of peace, kindness, and compassion is entirely up to the two of us. In that dinner, you are 50% of society. You can direct what sort of energy you bring to the table.

If you, like most people, are yearning for increased connection and community, you may want to move offline, sit down with someone you like, dislike, or maybe even don’t know that well, and tune in to true listening and good conversation. The Sakyong’s book offers  the tools needed to feel more uplifted, and shift society in a more positive, inclusive and, well, human direction with the power of simple conversation.

The post One Conversation Can Help Enlighten Your Community appeared first on Sonima.

This is a time of great suffering, and no matter which issue weighs on you the most, you can practice opening your heart in the midst of it in the hopes of realizing that this heart is vast and can accommodate anything.

There is an ancient practice in the Buddhist tradition known as loving-kindness. It stems from the Sanskrit word maitri, which can also be translated as “friendliness” or “friendship.” It is a way of befriending all of who we are, those we feel an affinity for, people we don’t know very well, and even folks we find to be incredibly difficult. Ultimately, we extend this sense of love and kindness to all beings.

Yet, when we are struck by a tragedy, like the senseless shooting in Las Vegas this week, we have to acknowledge where meditation is and is not helpful. All too often, in the wake of a tragedy like this, people send their “thoughts and prayers.” The practice of loving-kindness is aspirational in that we are wishing well for other beings. But it is, essentially, the training ground for action.

Related: How Mindfulness Can Ease the Fear of Death and Dying

Think of this practice not as the solution to the world’s suffering, but as the long training sequence in a Rocky movie, where we do the work that will enable us to, eventually, get into the ring and be most effective. We train in loving-kindness so that our hearts are strong enough to lean into and directly address the suffering around us that we see in ourselves, our loved ones, the difficult people in our lives and the vast number of people we do not necessarily know. We train in loving-kindness so that we don’t shut anyone out of our hearts. Rising from the meditation seat, we take action in ways we find personally meaningful.

Here, I am applying the traditional steps of loving-kindness to the Las Vegas shooting. I truly believe these steps can be adapted for any tragedy our country suffers in the months and years to come.

1. Take a Seat

First, take a relaxed, but uplifted posture. Tune into the natural cycle of your breath. Allow your attention to simply rest with however you are breathing right now. When the mind wanders, bring it back to the in-breath or out-breath that exists. Practice this for three to five minutes to ground you in your body and the present moment.

2. Offer Loving-Kindness to Yourself

Bring to mind an image of yourself. It can be you as you saw yourself in the mirror this morning, you in your favorite outfit, or even you as you appeared when you were a young child. Hold this image in your mind and see if you can soften your heart for a moment. Then, either in your own head or softly out loud make these aspirational phrases:

May I be happy
May I be healthy
May I feel safe
May I feel peaceful

As Buddhism spread from one country to another, these phrases have shifted over time. In my tradition, for example, we might even use the phrase “May you enjoy happiness and be free from suffering.” The intent is similar, but the verbiage is very different. If you do not connect with either of these two options, I recommend working with the four phrases above and substituting one or two for others, such as “May I feel loved” or “May I feel calm.” It’s best not to stray too far from these phrases. We’re not trying to aspire to “May I get a new car.” Each phrase is about qualities we already have within us.

Recite these phrases for three minutes or longer. As you do it, you may notice a mixed bag of emotions arising. You may feel powerless in the face of great suffering. Or you may want to cry because the news cycle has broken your heart. That is fine. The only thing you should avoid is judging yourself. Feel how you feel, but don’t beat yourself up over it. After these few minutes, dissolve the visualization of your own image.

3. Offer Loving-Kindness to a Loved One

In some traditions, the next step is to imagine someone who has been very kind to you, shown you great love, or has served as a benefactor in some way. With regards to current events, take a moment to bring to mind someone who you feel an affinity for, who has been affected by this tragedy. Maybe you know this person or maybe you have only seen them on TV.

Often, when I read an article about these tragedies, my heart opens when I learn about personal experiences. In the recent Las Vegas shooting, I read about a young woman who was attending the music festival with her mother. In the hopes of protecting her daughter, her mother threw her on the ground and covered her body with her own. Then, realizing that they might get trampled, she lifted her up and ran with her so they could escape. I do not know these people, but I understand and connect with that impulse to protect a loved one. For me, I attempt to bring the image of that woman to mind. For you, it might be someone else you feel a connection with. While holding their image in your mind, silently or softly say the following aspirational phrases:

May you be happy
May you be healthy
May you feel safe
May you feel peaceful

Similar to before, see if you can remain open-hearted in wishing this person well. We may not know them to the extent that we perfectly visualize them and we may not know what would make them happy, but we can imagine that they have the basic desires we would, such as to feel calm and supported in the aftermath of such a tragedy. After a few minutes of recitation, dissolve the visualization of this person.

4. Offer Loving-Kindness to a Stranger

The next step in traditional loving-kindness practice is to offer these heartfelt aspirations to someone we don’t know very well. When doing this practice after a national tragedy, I often think of those people we don’t read about or see on the news. For example, we might read about a school teacher who was killed in Las Vegas. Instead of practicing for this person (even though I don’t know her), for this stage I think about her family, her best friend or a romantic partner who might be suffering a fair amount right now. These are people whom we may never know, but, if even for a moment, we can consider and open our heart to. Bringing this being to your mind, you can repeat the same aspirational phrases or use the ones that feel most genuine to you.

May you be happy
May you be healthy
May you feel safe
May you feel peaceful

See if you can hold this person in your heart for a minute or two, reciting these phrases. Then we let go of your understanding of this person and move on to…

5. Offer Loving-Kindness to a Difficult Person

This is where I’m going to get controversial. It is easy to dehumanize the perpetrators of great suffering. When there is a foreign terrorist attack or a U.S. citizen killing others, we likely want to close our hearts to them. Yet, in loving-kindness practice, we consider the difficult people in our lives, too.

When it comes to the Las Vegas attack, this man, who killed more than 50 people, was suffering. He must have been suffering so greatly to think that killing others was a good idea. I do not know him and Buddha knows I do not have love in my heart for him at this time. But I can make the aspiration that wherever he is, he not suffer as much as he had been before. Bringing this person to mind, or another difficult person related to this tragedy, see if you can soften your heart even for a second and make the aspiration:

May you be happy
May you be healthy
May you feel safe
May you feel peaceful

At the very least, take a moment to recognize that this person was deeply confused and wish them peace. We could even say, “May you no longer feel confusion,” for example. This is hard for me, and I imagine it will be hard for you, so offering even a sense of loving-kindness in a way that feels meaningful to you is more important than using all the “right” words here. After a minute or two, let that person’s image dissolve.

6. Offer Loving-Kindness for All Beings

The next step is where our heart really gets a work out. We can begin by bringing to mind everyone we have contemplated thus far: ourselves, someone we feel an affinity for, someone we don’t know at all, and even this very difficult person, and make the aspiration:

May we be happy
May we be healthy
May we feel safe
May we feel peaceful

Then, we get bigger with our aspiration. We can contemplate everyone who lives in our town or city, everyone who lives in our state, in our country, and, ultimately, all beings around the world, continuing to recite these aspirational phrases as our vision expands.

After a few minutes, let the phrases fall away and see how you feel: Any openness, tenderness, or love that may exist, just let it exist. Radiate it out to all beings. This is more offering a feeling of love than any words or phrases. Let your love manifest. Then rest your mind once more on the breath, letting it ground you back in your body and in the present moment.

The more we train in this practice, the more we grow our capacity for love and kindness. We realize we don’t have to segment our lives so much into “I like you,” “I definitely don’t like you” and “I don’t care about you because I don’t know you.” After doing this practice consistently for some time, we might notice that we are connecting more with all types of people in our sphere, giving them a break and trying to be compassionate and helpful to them.

Even doing this practice once may inspire you to take skillful action and support efforts so that this suffering does not occur in the same way again. In this case, that might mean talking to your neighbors more about gun control, voting for candidates who support your values, or protesting in ways that you feel are beneficial. At some point, your aspirational practices can and will give way to actions that are based in your deep well of love and kindness that you have developed.

The post A Loving-Kindness Practice for the Victims of Tragedy appeared first on Sonima.

LAMA ROD OWENS

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Why he’s wonderful: To the best of my knowledge, he is one of the few African-American, queer, Tibetan Buddhist lamas out there. I first met Lama Rod at a panel hosted by New York University and was so touched by his rare blend of strength and vulnerability in sharing his open heart. Like so many of the new generation of teachers whom I’ve met so far, he doesn’t sit and lecture when he teaches. He poses questions and offers his own experiences as a way to cultivate difficult conversations so that people might realize their own truth and wisdom.
Lineage: Lama Rod is a Vajrayana teacher and graduate of Lama Norlha Rinpoche’s three-year silent retreat program.
A book of his I’d recommend: Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation
You would love him if: You’ve been itching to enter into a dialogue with a Buddhist teacher around certain topics that are sometimes considered taboo, including sex, monogamy, race, gender identity, and social action.
His website: http://www.lamarod.com/

JONNI POLLARD

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Why he’s wonderful: One visit to Pollard’s page and you’ll be instantly greeted with this message: “Love is our nature.” If you’ve ever met Pollard, you know he isn’t just being cute. He really means it. Pollard is the co-founder of 1 Giant Mind, one of the few meditation apps that makes the Vedic stream of teachings truly accessible to a wide audience.
Lineage: He is a Vedic teacher who studied under Thom Knoles.
You would love him if: You appreciate a straight-shooter. Pollard may overwhelm you with his authenticity at first. Everyone I know who has met Pollard is bowled over by his commitment to doing whatever he can to empower others to express their true nature.
His website: http://www.jonnipollard.com/

KATE JOHNSON

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Why she’s wonderful: In a 2015 article for Tricycle Magazine, Johnson wrote, “It is through the day-to-day, moment-to-moment interactions in my spiritual friendships that I have learned to give and receive unconditional love in a way I could only dream of experiencing in a romantic or sexual relationship.” To know Johnson as a teacher is to know a true spiritual friend. She is one of those teachers who emphasizes that your individual liberation is not individual after all; we all rise or fall together.
Lineage: She is a teacher in both the Spirit Rock and the Interdependence Project communities.
A book of hers I’d recommend: Friendship as Freedom: Mindful Practices for Resisting Oppression and Building Community (April 2018)
You would love her if: You need an honest-to-goodness spiritual friend. Johnson will go to bat for you, lift you up when you’re down, and call you on your bullshit. She is the sort of teacher who will tell you about the truth of suffering and say it with a smile.
Her website: https://www.katejohnson.com/

Related: Sign Up for Sonima’s 9-Week Mindfulness Meditation Series!

YAEL SHY

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Why she’s wonderful: Twenty pages into reading an advanced copy of Shy’s new book (see below), I did something that I’ve never done before: I requested to write the foreword. It was an honor to be the opening act to a book this good. Shy is no stranger to high praise: In 2010, the Jewish Week newspaper named her one of the “36 Under 36” change-makers, transforming the Jewish world, largely at NYU where she is the senior director of the NYU Global Spiritual Life Center, and ‘Of Many’ Institute for Multifaith Leadership. She is also the founder and director of MindfulNYU, an award-winning, campus-wide initiative that hosts yoga, meditation, and large-scale events for students, faculty, and staff.
Lineage: She was raised Jewish, but has practiced and studied Zen from a young age.
A book of hers I’d recommend: What Now? Meditation for Your Twenties and Beyond (November 2017)
You would love her if: You want to explore Judaism, Zen, or both; she can speak to all of it in a way that makes these ancient traditions relevant for our modern world. Better yet, to see Yael is to know kindness. She just embodies it in her teaching style.
Her website: https://www.yaelshy.com/

ADREANNA LIMBACH

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Why she’s wonderful: You may be hard-pressed to find a better Buddhist newsletter than Limbach’s. One recent comment on her website called her “a young Pema Chodron,” which is, basically, the highest compliment that I can think of. A head teacher at MNDFL’s Upper East Side location and a student of Venerable Robina Courtin, Limbach specializes in coaching women to help them develop clarity and confidence so that they can expand their freedom in business and life.
Lineage: She practices in Tibetan Buddhist communities and received her teacher training through the Interdependence Project.
A book of hers I’d recommend: Tea and Cake with Demons: A Buddhist Guide to Feeling Worthy (2018)
You would love her if: You need a hug. Limbach’s approachable teaching style feels just like a warm embrace, which is why she’s a fan-favorite at MNDFL. Still, it’s important to know that she is not going to sugarcoat Buddhist teachings. Her honesty is refreshing and respected, and I’m sure will be on full display in her forthcoming book about self-acceptance and self-worth.
Her website: http://www.adreannalimbach.com/

CHARLIE MORLEY

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Why he’s wonderful: Morley and I are spiritual cousins in the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. When I first met him in London years ago, it really did feel like reuniting with a long-lost family member. His teachings often explore the mindfulness of dream and sleep in a deeply esoteric, yet accessible way. He is one of the few people (and definitely the best hip-hop dancer) in my generation who I can truly trust to guide me in lucid dreaming and shadow work.
Lineage: He received authorization to teach in 2008 by his Tibetan Buddhist teacher and has spent the last 9 years leading workshops in more than 20 countries.
A book of his I’d recommend: Dreaming Through Darkness: Shine Light Into The Shadow To Live The Life Of Your Dreams (May 2017)
You would love him if: You want to learn how to befriend who you truly are, which is the focus of his third and latest book.
His website: http://www.charliemorley.com/

Related: A 6-Minute Meditation to Build Recollection Awareness

ALLY BOGARD

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Why she’s wonderful: Bogard is a fairy queen goddess. I’m not the type of person who commonly uses terms like these to describe anyone, but this is how best to sum up her presence. When Bogard teaches, she commands the room and people often feel like she is talking only to them, which is what makes her so magical. As co-founder of the Gaiatri Yoga Teacher Training program and co-creator of SoundMind Meditation, Bogard has spent the last decade traveling the globe leading yoga and meditation workshops and retreats.
Lineage: She first studied and trained to teach meditation through the Kriya and Tantric Yoga lineages.
You would love her if: You are ready to face your own reflection. Consider Bogard your mirror. She not only sees you, but shows you who you are while offering sage advice. Trust me, you want to meet this wonder woman in person.
Her website: http://allybogard.com/

RALPH DE LA ROSA

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Why he’s wonderful: Both a psychotherapist and meditation teacher, De La Rosa specializes in bringing matters of the brain, attachment theory, and trauma-work to the meditation cushion in a way that feels seamless and joyful.
Lineage: A student of both the Dharma Ocean and Shambhala lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, De La Rosa is also a yoga instructor. He is trained in Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy (TF-CBT), plus Breathwork and Reiki.
A book of his I’d recommend: The Monkey is a Messenger: What Your Busy Mind is Trying to Tell You (2018)
You would love him if: You want to dive deep into psychoanalysis—his specialty. One of his many talents is helping people navigate the depths of their emotional lives to work directly to resolve major life issues.
His website: https://ralphdelarosa.com/

The post The Next Generation of Meditation Teachers appeared first on Sonima.

Before continuing with what might seem like a judgmental tone, I should divulge my own teacher training background. When I was 18 years-old, I put up posters all around my college campus, inviting people to come meditate with me. Naïve pup that I was, I assumed everyone who showed up would know how to meditate and my role would be to ring a bell at the beginning and again at the end.

That first meeting proved me wrong. A dozen or so meditation newbies sat there in silence with me, only confessing at the end that they had no clue how to meditate. I called in my own mentors within the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, and they graciously agreed to come and give meditation instruction for months until they encouraged me to do teacher training myself. It made sense, especially given that I had already had a number of years of meditation experience under my belt alongside months of retreat practice.

Related: How Finding Meditation as a Child Shaped My Life

Meditation instructor training was an idea that seemed overwhelming and way beyond my experience level. I did it, passed the training, and was invited to offer introductory instruction to newcomers myself. I proceeded to do this, somewhat poorly, for years until I discovered my voice and received further teacher training. Some 16 years later, I still consider myself very much a teacher learning on the job.

So if I seem a bit skeptical of someone taking one weekend retreat and calling themselves a “Meditation Teacher,” you now have a glimpse as to why. My issue isn’t with this one individual, but how the rise in popularity of meditation has led to a stream of self-professed teachers who haven’t been trained to hold space for individuals as they navigate the tricky waters of their own minds. Which has led me to ask a big question: How do you know if a teacher is authentic or well-trained?

In the hopes that you will have the opportunity to study with a meditation instructor in-person, here are a series of questions you can ask your potential teacher to determine if they’re what you’re looking for, so that you’re not led astray.

1. What is your lineage?

Every teacher I know and respect comes from a lineage. They were trained by someone who trained with someone who trained with someone and so on, going back hundreds if not thousands of years. Lineage can look like many things, of course. There are family lineages as well as direct lineages between teachers and disciples, and more institutionalized lineages, where people go through training at a local center up to the point that they are invited to begin teaching.

To ask about someone’s lineage is, in no way, insulting. In fact, a good meditation teacher is really just a receptacle and spokesperson for ancient wisdom and, thus, they should easily be able to point to where that knowledge comes from. If they don’t have a lineage, a worthwhile follow-up question—and, I’ll admit, this may be a tad snarky—could be, “Did you create this form of meditation?” If so, it’s important to understand that even if the practice works for them, it might not work for you. I recommend finding a teacher with a lineage who will offer you a time-tested technique.

2. Where were you trained?

Sometimes, when someone applies to teach at MNDFL, the network of meditation studios that I co-founded, they lead with a list of teachers they have studied with. “I love those teachers,” I might reply, “but where did you receive teacher training?” Training in meditation under a teacher is very different than being trained to teach that form of meditation by that person. A potential analogy may be going to a therapist for a year and then, having received the benefits of that work, calling yourself a therapist, sans training. Not a wise idea.

These days, there are many ways to receive training. There are teacher training programs within various meditation lineages, more secular or pan-traditional trainings for mindfulness practices, and even vocation or location specific trainings, like teacher training for yoga teachers or how to offer meditation within a corporate environment. There are also occasions when someone is directly encouraged by their teachers to teach, based on their wisdom and understanding, and that is wonderful. But if the person you ask this question to can’t articulate who encouraged them to teach, be it an institution or an individual, that might be a red flag.

3. Who do you study with?

Having taught meditation for 16 years does not make me immune to always deepening my practice and study. I do so under the guidance of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche and receive teachings from other Shambhala and Zen teachers. I have a regular meditation practice, and I voraciously devour Buddhist books. I go on a long retreat on average once a year. Every few years, I attend further teacher trainings, just to keep sharp and receive refinements on what I do.

If you turn to a teacher and ask them who they actively study with and they are vague about it, this may be another indicator to keep looking. Someone who believes they have had a great awakening and, thus, are above receiving teachings from living humans is likely deceiving themselves.

4. What motivated you to take on students?

I can’t help but suspect that with the sudden boom in popularity in meditation that some people see an emerging financial market and want to position themselves as a “thought leader” within it. Incidentally, I have been called a “thought leader” before, which I think is hilarious. I might merit this title if we counted the number of thoughts-per-meditation session on a leader board. (Side note: Meditation is about befriending, not turning off, your mind.)

If someone’s motivation to lead meditation is to get rich or famous that is not good, but thankfully, easy to spot a mile away. They ignore the concerns of individuals seeking for help, and only take gigs that are lucrative or will make them look cooler. Many of my favorite teachers balance the grandiose events, where they are invited to teach, with smaller teaching engagements that pay little to no money, and make a living that way.

The best motivation for teaching, in my opinion, is because the teacher understands the transformational aspect of meditation and wants to make it as widely accessible as possible to those in need of it. Asking this question of a teacher will likely reveal more to you than the other questions combined.

Ultimately, a good teacher will simply embody the teachings. They will be present, kind, and open-hearted with you. They will have done the “work,” so-to-speak, so you are less tempted to ask about the benefits of meditation because you see it in their very being and are inspired. If you can find a teacher like that, and they are able to answer these questions, cherish this spiritual friend, as they are quite rare.

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“What does mindfulness mean to you?” was the first question. As the microphone went around, each individual very humbly explained their personal practice and how it’s not primarily mindfulness. Then they offered approximately the same traditional definition of that word. When it was my turn, I did feel compelled to point out that mindfulness and meditation, while intimately related, are not the same and both do, in fact, have proper definitions.

What is Mindfulness?

The great Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche had an amazing ability to work with the English language, and would often come up with new words to articulate the meaning of another, more established term. For example, he coined the word “nowness”—as in the essence of being now in the present. That is one clear way to think of the term “mindfulness.” The “ness” aspect is “the essence of,” so we are saying that mindfulness is the essence of bringing your mind fully to one thing that is happening in the present moment.

The other day, someone on the social media team for MNDFL, the network of meditation studios that I co-founded, pinged me, asking if I could relate to a question posted on our Instagram feed. Apparently, she had posted a beautiful image of someone knitting and noted that while knitting is awesome, it is not meditation. A commenter had asked a good question: “Who’s to say knitting is not a form of mindful meditation just as walking can be a form of meditation?” I really do love this question because it allowed me to geek out and clarify what mindful meditation is from a traditional point of view.

At the risk of being highly controversial amongst the mindful knitting community (which, I’m guessing, does exist), one could mindfully knit or eat, but it is not a formal meditation technique, compared to those that have been transmitted over the centuries. Walking meditation is one of the four postures the Buddha discussed as a way to build mindfulness in his discourse on the four foundations of mindfulness some 2600 years ago. These postures fall under Mindfulness of the Body, which is under Right Mindfulness, which is part of the Eightfold Path. The other three, incidentally, are sitting, lying down and standing.

Now, here’s the thing about mindfulness: The more you train in meditation, the more you are able to show up fully for the rest of your life, including things like knitting. But as mindfulness and meditation both become very popular, it’s important to distinguish what is and isn’t meditation. So while you can mindfully knit (i.e., bring your mind fully to that one thing that is happening in the present moment), it is not a formal meditation practice. It is applying mindfulness, which can be cultivated in formal meditation practices to other aspects of your life, which is a lovely thing to do.

What is Meditation?

Meditation is a revolutionary practice for transforming your life by becoming familiar with, and ultimately, befriending all aspects of who you are. Running MNDFL, I encounter people every single day who have been led to believe that meditation is just one thing, and that one thing is whatever technique they were exposed to first. There are thousands of meditation techniques out there, but I will speak to some of those that are time-tested, having been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

One form of meditation is bringing your mind fully to the breath, whether that is relaxing with your existent breath as is taught in Buddhist traditions, or more controlled breathing, like what is sometimes found in Kundalini lineages. In the Buddhist tradition, this is known as mindfulness meditation because we are relaxing with and tuning into what is currently going on: The body breathing. The more you train in mindfulness meditation, the more you are able to be present in the rest of your life.

This is different than, say, Vedic or Transcendental Meditation, where you work with a mantra. These mantras are personal to you, having been offered by a trained teacher. The transcending aspect is actually repeating the mantra until it falls away—meaning you transcend it and relax into how things are. As a Buddhist, I admit I am not the best person to address this practice and highly encourage you to seek out certified Vedic or TM teachers who can do this profound practice justice, but as you can likely already tell this is different than mindfulness of the breath.

Related: What Is Transcendental Meditation?

There are also contemplative practices, where you bring to mind a phrase or a question and create some mental space for wisdom to arise around it. Some might say you are listening to your gut or intuition in these practices, but really it’s a sense of getting out of your own way so that you can realize an experiential understanding of whatever you are contemplating, whether it’s the truth of your mortality or setting an intention for your day.

The last overarching style I’ll share is visualization. Coming from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, there are all sorts of visualizations one might bring to mind and allow as the object of meditation. These images are often representing your innate wakefulness. In a more public practice, such as that of loving-kindness, you may even bring to mind the image of someone you admire, the image of someone you don’t know very well, or the image of someone you have a hard time with in order to fully open your heart to them and wish them happiness and freedom from suffering.

The above list of types of meditation is by no means exhaustive, but provide some guidelines for two points I’d like to offer:

1. If you are receiving a meditation technique that is not time-tested and from a long-standing tradition, you may find that it is very different than these, and I don’t necessarily recommend doing it.
2. Mindfulness meditation—often considered the practice of being mindful of the breath—is but one of many, many forms of meditation that are out there. I recommend that you try a number of forms of meditation and see if mindfulness is for you.

Sitting on the panel the other week, I could embrace and appreciate that all of these individuals were meditation practitioners and lovers of meditation, but they were not primarily mindfulness practitioners. That said, all of us have the opportunity to train in mindfulness meditation, stemming from the Buddhist tradition, and bring mindfulness into our knitting, eating, listening, and more. It’s a powerful tool for everyday life that we all have access to as we all have one of the very basic meditation tools needed for it: The breath.

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This man, Andrew, is not alone in his plight. So many of us are plagued by cyclical patterns of anxiety, stress, and fear that can, ultimately, become debilitating. Just 15 years ago, you could go to work, put in your hours, then clock out, disconnecting from many of life’s major stress-factors (i.e., your boss, your workload, reminders about the outside world in general, etc.).

Nowadays, the moment you get home after a full day at the office, your smartphone might buzz before you’ve even put down your bag. If it’s not a phone call from your boss, it’s an e-mail or text message from a co-worker, or some other notification saying, “Don’t relax! I need your attention! Right now!” These days, it’s hard to find any space for genuine relaxation at all.

This is where meditation is extremely helpful. It has been proven over thousands of years to interrupt cyclical patterns of stress. The good news is that it’s extremely simple, and doesn’t require years of training to start. You can do it for 5 or 10 minutes and it will still help.

Related: A 5-Minute Meditation to Start Building Your Practice

People often ask me if I recommend good meditation apps. Yes, some are good, especially those led by trained instructors. But think about what it means to bring your phone into your meditation practice: You might try to sit down to connect with inner peace, placing your phone with the guided meditation a few feet in front of you. Then you hear a buzz. Are you done already? Nope. It’s a notification from CNN telling you news that simply terrifies you. That is not particularly helpful in cutting through your layers of stress.

That’s why I often recommend shamatha, or peaceful-abiding meditation. It’s a simple technique that the Buddha propagated 2600 years ago within which we focus on the breath as a way to become more present and awake. Today, it’s often referred to as mindfulness meditation, and there’s a slew of scientific research around it showing that it also allows for a return to relaxation, better sleep and even boosts the immune system. If you are going to bring your phone into the area where you meditate, I recommend that you put it on airplane mode, set a timer, and merely focus on your breathing as a way to become more in tune with your body, with reality, and to disconnect from always being on the go.

Here’s the ugly truth: The moment you sit down, taking a relaxed, yet uplifted posture, you’ll find that anxious thoughts creep into your head. Some people, when they first start meditating regularly, think that meditation is actually somehow stirring the pot more than usual. Really what’s happening is that all that stress was playing out in your head already; you just weren’t paying attention to it before.

We call M N D F L the “space to breathe.” That’s because A) it’s a committed space meant for meditation and B) meditation itself is an act that gives you space to experience what is going on with you on a given day, which, yes, includes the breath and an incredible amount of joyful and creative thoughts as well as stressful, neurotic thoughts. But when we give ourselves space to simply be with the flavor of our mind on a given day, we’re doing a few things at once…

1. We’re not acting out on that impulse to go, go, go.

When you meditate, you may suddenly realize the most brilliant solution to a work conundrum or you may simply remember that you left the laundry in the dryer. In both cases, the instruction is not to leap up and do something about it, but rather, hold your seat. We are way too accustomed to acting on whatever pops into our minds, often to our own detriment. By remaining present and embodied, we are training to not act out on every impulse that arises, which makes us less reactive overall, and more thoughtful and skillful in terms of the type of activities we do, ultimately, engage in.

2. We’re focusing on a calming object.

Assuming you’re doing a time-tested technique—whether it’s focusing on the breath, sound, or a mantra—we’re meditating on something that is scientifically proven to promote relaxation. The out-breath, for example, is incredibly calming. Think about it: When you get started, your bodily instinct is to take a sharp controlled breath in, gasping. The antithesis of that is a natural and relaxed deep breath out. By riding the breath like a wave, we are substituting discursive and stressful triggers, like your smartphone or laptop, for a less distraction-oriented object of our attention, this thing that’s always available to us—the breath.

3. We’re letting our stress arise, and then quickly dissolve.

When stressful thoughts, fantasies, and emotions come up, we don’t run from them, tamp them down, or ignore them. We acknowledge them, often by noting what’s going on. In some traditions, you might even silently say to yourself “thinking,” not to deride yourself for drifting off, but so that you acknowledge what happened and can return to the object of your meditation. By giving your stress and anxiety some space to be seen, it somehow becomes a lot less overwhelming. By acknowledging it, and then returning to the object of meditation, we realize we don’t need to get bowled over by these patterns of neurosis.

People sometimes ask me, “Other than meditation, what can I do to undermine these patterns of stressful thinking?” Often, this feels to me like going to your doctor and saying, “Other than exercise and healthy eating, what can I do to lose weight?” In a similar fashion, there may be “hacks” or “cheats” out there, but they won’t get to the root of how to deal with your stress in the same way as regular mindfulness of the breath practice will.

After spending a month with us meditating, Andrew, our ulcerous friend, discovered that he actually had everything he needed within him to combat the deep level of stress that had taken root in his mind. He didn’t need pills (although no shame to those who do take them!), but through committing to a consistent shamatha practice, he was able to acknowledge, make space for, and, ultimately, let a lot of the stress in his life go, both when he was meditating and not (AKA, living his life). If you’re feeling like you’re trapped under a mountain of stress, I only have one remaining question: What do you really have to lose?

The post Breaking the Cycle of Anxiety appeared first on Sonima.

My fiancé is a super compassionate, deep listener, and as a result I’ve seen a a number of people in her life leap at the opportunity to divulge all the aches and pains of their existence to her, often leaving her drained. These are very well-intentioned individuals, who are nothing but lovely for the most part, but they lack the self-awareness to instigate a give-and-take exchange. Every interaction is about them and their suffering, and thus, the relationship becomes one-sided. Having seen this dynamic take place in her and other relationships, I have been contemplating what one could do and came up with three possible roads to follow.

1) Keep an Open Mind

Yes, the last two dozen times you hung out with this person, they were pretty self-obsessed, but that actually does not mean that this time is going to be the same. When once asked about the very complex Buddhist notion of karma, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche responded quite simply, “Everything is predetermined…until now.”

In other words, all habitual patterns are just that, habitual. However, in this very moment, you have the opportunity to shift the dynamic into uncharted territory. You might expect this loved one to only talk about themselves, but even for the most self-involved that does get boring at some point. Like an energetic puppy put in a large field to run around, at some point, they will tire and, then you can interject and bring about a shift in view. Even if you remain somewhat passive, perhaps this particular time will be the one where this person notices your silence and says, “What’s up in your world, anyway?”

Related: What Does This Ancient Personality Test Say About You?

2) Remain Empathetic

Often when people can’t stop talking about themselves, it’s a sign that they have a swirling storm of negative thoughts whipping around in their own head. I know what that can be like when I can’t break out of obsessive thinking for an extended period of time. I am guessing you might be familiar with that overwhelming feeling, too. Because we all know what it’s like when we suffer, we can develop empathy for this individual and their suffering.

Sometimes a simple question can circumvent the whole situation: “How would you like me to show up for you right now?” This gives your loved one a moment to consider what they are doing. Are they venting for the sake of venting (i.e. you’re just the receptacle of their verbal vomit and they may as well be talking to a wall)? Are they looking to you for advice? Are they hoping you will introduce them to resources to help them solve a problem? This one question often cuts to the heart of the matter and gives them enough pause to consider how they want to spend their time with you.

At the same time, this doesn’t mean you play sponge and absorb all of their pain unendingly. You can acknowledge that this loved one is having a rough go of it, affirm that verbally to them, but then after a while shift the topic or get off the line. Which brings us to…

3) Practice Fierce Compassion

The Buddha never delivered a “lay down and be a doormat” sutra. At times, you need to stand up for yourself, or at the least make it clear that this person’s behavior is having a negative effect on your relationship. This is not being unkind; this may be the most compassionate thing to do, despite it looking a bit fierce.

Back in the ’90s, there was a show called Full House and one of the main characters on the show had a classic catchphrase: “Cut. It. Out.” At some point, we might need to adopt this motto for ourselves. If your friend or family member is going on and on, you may need to draw a line in the sand and say, “I know there’s a lot going on with you. And I want to be there for you. But I also feel like this relationship is getting a bit one-sided.” Note: this direct (perhaps blunt) way of cutting their momentum is often best done in-person, so your loved one sees for themselves that you are being open-hearted and caring toward them.

More often than not, you will get one of two reactions: shock and indignation (sorry) or genuine surprise. If the former, it’s important to clarify that you really do want to support them, but that the dynamic is feeling not so great to you and ask if they can hear you out on that front. This might mean you have a bit of temporary ugliness emerge, but that pain can vanish quickly if you affirm your support, while pointing out the reality of the situation. If they feel genuine surprise upon hearing that, they might be able quickly adapt and will be more sensitive to your needs from then on.

If you are unable to get through to them, you probably need to set up some boundaries. That might mean you only talk to them once a month, or once a year. If you talk to them more frequently, maybe keep yourself to a set amount of time. Or perhaps it might mean moving the relationship more to email or in-person get-togethers instead of long, drawn-out phone calls. Shifting the tempo and type of interaction may shake things loose and move your dynamic in a positive direction.

As the New York Times social columnist writes, “If clarifying the nature of your loving relationship causes people ‘embarrassment or shock,’ that’s their problem, not yours…Busting assumptions, one by one, you will be making the world a slightly better place.” If you traverse one or more of these three paths, you are opening the door to a new type of relationship with this person, while giving them an opportunity to shift away from their self-absorbed state and into a more giving and caring way of being. That’s a wonderful gift to offer to this person who may not even realize that they’re acting self-obsessed.

The post 3 Ways to Deal with a Self-Absorbed Loved One appeared first on Sonima.