Charlotte Center For Mindfulness // Podcasts Lindsay Bridges

When we don’t pause long enough to really know what’s here, the mind will fill in the holes with its own information from its stores-- and it often does this with the worst case scenario, or in a way that covers up what we might not want to see...  So this is one more reason that practicing moment to moment mindfulness with what’s here is so important in our lives.

This practice explores how noting helps us get more clear as to what's really here.



What one takes in by contemplation, one pours out in love. –Meister Eckhart



 





The Way It Is, Lynn Ungar



One morning you might wake up

to realize that the knot in your stomach

had loosened itself and slipped away,

and that the pit of unfulfilled longing in your heart

had gradually, and without your really noticing,

been filled in—patched like a pothole, not quite

the same as it was, but good enough.



And in that moment it might occur to you

that your life, though not the way

you planned it, and maybe not even entirely

the way you wanted it, is nonetheless—

persistently, abundantly, miraculously—

exactly the way it is.

Once there was a wise old sage, and people would travel a long ways to receive his teachings. He always taught one thing, a mantra to say to everything in life: Thank you, I am grateful for everything.



One time a man received this teaching and said it with everything for a year. At the end of the year, he was still irritable, impatient, frustrated and tired. So he traveled back to the wise old sage, shared his story and asked what to do now. The sage said, “Thank you, I am grateful for everything.” The man almost broke down in frustration and then suddenly laughed, saying, “thank you I am grateful for everything,” and left free.



What changed? How do you make sense of the shift that happened for this man? Understanding the essence of this shift is how we open in the direction of the true authentic healing of mindfulness.

How we meet the moment of waking back up, makes all the difference in our practice. This city meditation is an opportunity to deeply explore that moment of re-awakening.

Today we continue to look at how re-anchoring in moment to moment awareness is a powerful practice in finding a better way to navigate any day.  This talk draws from Tara Brach’s practice of Four Remembrances:  Pausing, Yes to Life, Turning toward love, and Resting in Awareness.

This meditation draws from Tara Brach, teaching on four remembrances for practice:



Pausing, saying yes to life, turning towards love, resting in awareness.



What It Is



It is nonsense

says reason

It is what it is

says love



It is calamity

says calculation

It is nothing but pain

says fear

It is hopeless

says insight

It is what it is

says love



It is ludicrous

says pride

It is foolish

says caution

It is impossible

says experience

It is what it is

says love



Erich Fried