Charlotte Center For Mindfulness // Podcasts Lindsay Bridges

We were grateful this week to have David Viafora and Jessie Raye from Greatwoods Zen Retreat Center guest lead again this week. Unfortunately we were not able to record their first visit, but this week's sharing works fine as a stand alone. They shared from Thich Nhat Hanh's teaching called the Seven Mantras of Love. These are:





Darling, I am here for you.

Darling, I know you are there and it makes me happy.

Darling, I know you suffer.

Darling, I suffer, please help.

This is a Happy Moment.

Darling, you are partly right.



Darling, how may I best love you?







Here is also a link to Thich Nhat Hanh sharing about six of these:



https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/the-six-mantras



Jessie's poem can be found here:  When You Are Old Enough





(Meditation: 00:00-25.15, Talk 25.20-End)

How a brutal motorcycle trail race teaches us all about being alive and using our practice to wake up.

This meditation again draws from the Somatics work of Amanda Blake and Embright Organization, and is offers a strong way to use the body as a rooting anchor of support.



 

Today’s sharing on safety is an inquiry practice into the qualities that make a friendship a safe place and how these qualities are manifesting, or not, in our mindfulness practice.



Note: One quality named was “perspective”. It needs to be acknowledged that a friend offering a larger perspective on an issue can be either helpful or unhelpful— depending on how it is offered...

Opening up to the shared physical nature of our being is an avenue for contemplative experience of safety, connection, and respect.

This time we look at a reliable sense of safety more through the lens of neuroscience/modern psychology as well as introduce the Buddhist practice of lovingkindness-- which was originally taught as an antidote to fear.



 



Discourse on Good Will



From teachings of the Buddha, complied by Jack Kornfield



May all beings be filled with joy and peace. 



May all beings everywhere,



The strong and the weak,



The great and the small,



The short and the long,



The subtle and the gross:



May all beings everywhere,



Seen and unseen,



Dwelling far off or nearby,



Being or waiting to become:



May all be filled with lasting joy.



Let no one deceive another,



Let no one anywhere despise another,



Let no one out of anger or resentment



Wish suffering on anyone at all.



Just as a mother with her own life



Protects her child, her only child, from harm,



So within yourself let grow



So a boundless love for all creatures.



Let your love flow outward through the universe,



To its height, it’s depth, it’s broad extent,



A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.



Then, as you stand or walk,



Sit or lie down,



As long as you are awake,



Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;



Your life will bring heaven to earth.