yes, meditation practice can bring benefits such as reduced stress, reduced tension and blood pressure, improved focus, improved memory and sleep. these are great! but ultimately, this practice is a practice of love. a practice of loving this life. we are here in this life and to be with it, in each moment, offering our attention to it, offering our open heart to it, in all of its ways with all we are experiencing, is not just a brave way to be or a gracious way to be, it is a loving way to be.
~j
⭕️❤️🙏🏻
i’m guiding mindfulness awareness and loving kindness meditations today, Sunday, at 10am PT. if you’d like to join me for free or by donation ($10 suggested) click link: https://linktr.ee/jaysenwaller
we are here. now. just this moment, these feelings, these thoughts, this health, these relationships, this state of world. where else can we go? where else can we practice our love, our compassion, our patience, our tenderness, our curiosity, our bravery? where else can spaciousness and awareness arise? where else can life be?
the past is a ghost, the future is a dream. the present is life. if we want to live, we engage our lives here, where we are, in this moment, with how we feel, what we are thinking, who we are with, and on and on. this is the practice, returning to this moment, offering our attention to it, offering our open heart to it, offering our life to it.
~j
⭕️❤️🙏🏻
want to practice together? join me for Self-Care Saturdays & Sundays this weekend at 10am PT. free or by donation. $10 suggested.
long before practicing Buddhism and meditation, i had been drawn to Ireland, Scotland, and just about anything Celtic. i have two Celtic tattoos – a Celtic dove of peace and a Celtic Trinity knot with an interwoven circle. something about the connection and closeness to nature and our relationship to it and all things attracted me and felt familiar…perhaps an early inkling and awareness of our interdependence, which i now contemplate often in my Buddhist practice.
grateful for such universal teachings and wisdom carried from across diverse cultures around the world through generations.
in the spirit of interconnectedness and relationship, an offering of a familiar Irish blessing for you:
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
May the rains fall softly upon your fields…
~j
⭕️❤️🙏🏻
PS – today my Patreon contributors received a high quality digital print of this image for free. become a contributor today for as little as $3/month to receive rewards and bonus perks like digital prints of my photography and artwork. link: http://www.patreon.com/jaysenwaller
it is the work of a lifetime (… or perhaps life times) to engage the difficulties and challenges of life in an equanimous way, that is to say, with a sense of balance, steadiness, and calm. we spend much of our time avoiding the fires in life, and if we find ourselves in them, we burn right with them.
but we have the capacity to step into the fire and not be burned or spread the flames. we have the capacity to relate to our world in a different way. it is possible, with practice and work, to engage this world with a sense of equanimity. not indifference or an action, but care and action that is rooted in balance, steadiness, resilience, clarity and calm. not being pulled into extreme emotions and reactivity, but moving from a place of sanity and open-heartedness, choosing how to act beneficially, transformatively, and with healing.
this is the bodhisattva path. the work and practice begins within ourselves and our own hearts and minds. how we relate to the world has an influence on others. this is the practice of meditation.
~j
⭕️❤️🙏🏻
join me this weekend for Self-Care Saturdays & Sundays at 10am PT. free or by donation. $10 suggested. link: https://linktr.ee/jaysenwaller
when we practice gentleness with ourselves, when we practice pausing, noticing our thinking habits, and opening our hearts, we are engaging in a revolutionary act.
this is a way of relating to ourselves more compassionately, which helps us to relate to others more compassionately. engaging ourselves, others, and this world in a compassionate way is revolutionary. we are no longer satisfied with our regular patterns of distraction and discord, of relating to the world by sticking our head in the sand, or through self-preservation, which is to say through greed and aggression.
we can practice relating to ourselves and the world in this way and this is what the world needs while facing the insanity, harm, and destruction we are seeing – people who are engaging the world in a sane, compassionate way.
join me this coming weekend for Self-Care Saturdays & Sundays at 10am PT, to practice some breathing, mindfulness awareness, and lovingkindness meditation. free or by donation. $10 suggested. link: https://linktr.ee/jaysenwaller
please hear me – we are sacred incarnation, love embodied, luminous as the vast blue sky and the stars that shine at night. shine we will, even as some in power work to pull the shade of night over our existence. we will say “gay”, we will fully embody our queerness in all of its beautiful diversity. to do so honors life, honors love.
our existence is teaching the world to love past its comfort, ignorance, fear. it’s not an easy burden to bear, opening hearts, but we are on the side of love and light. live your life with the fullness you deserve, as we do the work of calling out and dismantling the harm intended for and enacted against us.
to my non-LGBTQ+ friends and family –
answer the call of love and be an ally, not a contributor to harm. honor your embodiment of life and love, by honoring the same in others. do not grieve your own soul by supporting harmful and destructive laws/policies or the public officials who write and enact them. this is the moment to live love with action. rise to this occasion. contribute to healing rather than harm. open and listen to your heart. allow prejudices and indoctrination to fall away with grace and dignity.
over 30 states are currently pushing anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. these actions will directly impact the lives of gay and trans people. most prominent in the news is Florida with its “Don’t Say Gay” legislation and Texas with its anti-trans executive orders.
according to the Trevor Project, 40% of LGBTQ+ youth have contemplated suicide. i was one of them. even though i have a loving immediate family, i was living in secret, shame, and self-hate. this is what i thought i deserved, because this is what society was saying i deserved, even if only doing so passively. this is the harm of such prejudice towards LGBTQ+. there are real consequences, there is real suffering.
progress hard won, is now threatened. love continues the work.
the practice of befriending this world, of relating to others and to this world in a tender, open-hearted way, must include ourselves. we begin where we are in this moment.
we practice openness, by being open. we practice patience, by being patient. we practice tenderness, by being tender, we practice peace, by being peace. we practice love, by being love. our practice is embodiment.
for meditators, we prioritize this by having a consistent practice of sitting meditation – even 10 or 20 minutes. whatever the case may be, we set aside a bit of time to just sit, to just breathe, and allow spaciousness to arise without our usual grasping or pushing away, without our usual patterns of reaction, or storytelling. it is a practice we can return to over and over.
when we practice this way, we are practicing not just meditation, but how to live in this world in a beneficial way, how to live as sane, open-hearted human beings moment by moment.
join me this weekend for Self-Care Saturday or Sunday at 10am PT. sessions are free or by pay-what-you-can donation. $10 suggested. link: https://linktr.ee/jaysenwaller 🧘🏼♂️
~j
⭕️❤️🙏🏻
if you’d like to or are able to support my teaching offerings, you can do so by one time donation via PayPal or Venmo, or through regular giving on Patreon. all generosity is greatly appreciated. links: https://linktr.ee/jaysenwaller ✨
it’s #InternationalWomensDay & i’m offering bows of gratitude for & celebration of all the incredible women in my life! 💫
today especially i celebrate these phenomenal Buddhist teachers who have had indelible impact on my path & practice as a Buddhist & meditation practitioner, either directly through their teaching, or through their books, talks & social media – with gratitude i celebrate you Susan Piver, Roshi Joan Halifax, Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara, Pema Chödrön, Sharon Salzberg, & Robina Courtin.
this image is inspired from a quick ink drawing i did for Inktober a few years ago. i recreated digitally, to add color and place on products.
i’ve been wrestling with how Love can be a/the short-term solution to our problem of war and violence (and how do we deal with authoritarianism, dictators, and madmen??), while also deeply believing that Love is the long-term answer. there are perhaps no easy or quick answers when dealing with the poisons of ignorance, attachment, and aggression, and the fear, greed, and destruction they birth. so much suffering.
however, this image reminds me that it is the goal and that big hearts have the ability in the long run of making big weapons obsolete. maybe one day. this image also reminds me that the change needed, begins within me. that is where i first have the ability to practice sanity and open-heartedness, to embody love, not being indifferent to suffering or being sedentary. these all begin within my own heart and how i relate to the world.
may each of us be a seed of transformation, a light illuminating darkness, a fierce compassionate force, and a healing balm for the harm and suffering in our world.
~j
⭕️❤️🙏🏻
this image is available on various prints and products at my Redbubble store – link: jmwart.redbubble.com
a high quality digital print download was gifted to all my Patreon subscribers for free! become a Patreon supporter today and receive this image and others. support levels begin at $3/month. see link: http://www.patreon.com/jaysenwaller
The Metta Garden 