with each breath i am reborn…

January 1, 2016January 1, 2016 ~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

we often think and say that, with the New Year, we have a fresh start – a clean slate to make choices that are more beneficial to our lives and the lives of others.
but the truth is, it is even better than that!

a fresh start is available with each breath we take – every breath we take is an opportunity to begin anew. every breath is a new lease on life, a confirmation that we still have the opportunity to benefit ourselves and others as we continue this journey.
each new breath is a new opportunity to let go, to choose life, to choose love, to choose nonaggression and nonviolence, to speak words of encouragement, to bear witness to our suffering and the suffering of others, to act with compassion and kindness, to live generously and with grace, to laugh, to smile, to be brave in the middle of our sadness, to dive into this experience fully opening our hearts more and more, choosing to be healers to the suffering we see.
may 2016, and every breath you take, remind you that there is beauty and there is love – and that you are both of these things.
namaste

~j
#NewYears2016 #NYE2016 #HappyNewYear #change #transition #opportunity #life #love #compassion #kindness #generosity #courage #nonaggression #nonviolence #laugh #healing #healers #mindfulness #meditation #zen

let it begin with me…

December 25, 2015December 25, 2015 ~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

early morning #Christmas #meditation?let’s do this…
let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me, indeed.
Merry Christmas, dearest friends to you and your families! May the Love that is celebrated today be manifest in our hearts and lives. May we be the hands, the feet, the voice and the heart of this Love for a world thirsty for love, healing, and peace ~j
“Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you.” — Steve Maraboli
#Christmas #Christmas2015 #meditation #peace #love #healing

traveling Buddha…

December 6, 2015December 6, 2015 ~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

meditation on gratitude and joy…

November 25, 2015 ~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

Happy Thanksgiving, friends 🙏🏻

the following is a meditation on gratitude and joy, by Jack Kornfield…

enjoy ~j
“If we cannot be happy in spite of our difficulties, what good is our spiritual practice?”
~Maha Ghosananda
Buddhist monks begin each day with a chant of gratitude for the blessings of their life. Native American elders begin each ceremony with grateful prayers to mother earth and father sky, to the four directions, to the animal, plant, and mineral brothers and sisters who share our earth and support our life. In Tibet, the monks and nuns even offer prayers of gratitude for the suffering they have been given: “Grant that I might have enough suffering to awaken in the deepest possible compassion and wisdom.”
The aim of spiritual life is to awaken a joyful freedom, a benevolent and compassionate heart in spite of everything.
Gratitude is a gracious acknowledgment of all that sustains us, a bow to our blessings, great and small, an appreciation of the moments of good fortune that sustain our life every day. We have so much to be grateful for.
Gratitude is confidence in life itself. It is not sentimental, not jealous, nor judgmental. Gratitude does not envy or compare. Gratitude receives in wonder the myriad offerings of the rain and the earth, the care that supports every single life.
As gratitude grows it gives rise to joy. We experience the courage to rejoice in our own good fortune and in the good fortune of others.
Joy is natural to an open heart. In it, we are not afraid of pleasure. We do not mistakenly believe it is disloyal to the suffering of the world to honor the happiness we have been given.
Like gratitude, joy gladdens the heart. We can be joyful for people we love, for moments of goodness, for sunlight and trees, and for the breath within our breast. And as our joy grows we finally discover a happiness without cause. Like an innocent child who does not have to do anything to be happy, we can rejoice in life itself, in being alive.
Let yourself sit quietly and at ease. Allow your body to be relaxed and open, your breath natural, your heart easy. Begin the practice of gratitude by feeling how year after year you have cared for your own life. Now let yourself begin to acknowledge all that has supported you in this care:
With gratitude I remember the people, animals, plants, insects, creatures of the sky and sea, air and water, fire and earth, all whose joyful exertion blesses my life every day.
With gratitude I remember the care and labor of a thousand generations of elders and ancestors who came before me.
I offer my gratitude for the safety and well-being I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the blessing of this earth I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the measure of health I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the family and friends I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the community I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the teachings and lessons I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the life I have been given.
Just as we are grateful for our blessings, so we can be grateful for the blessings of others.
Continue to breathe gently. Bring to mind someone you care about, someone it is easy to rejoice for. Picture them and feel the natural joy you have for their well-being, for their happiness and success. With each breath, offer them your grateful, heartfelt wishes:
May you be joyful.
May your happiness increase.
May you not be separated from great happiness.
May your good fortune and the causes for your joy and happiness increase.
Sense the sympathetic joy and caring in each phrase. When you feel some degree of natural gratitude for the happiness of this loved one, extend this practice to another person you care about. Recite the same simple phrases that express your heart’s intention.
Then gradually open the meditation to include neutral people, difficult people, and even enemies- until you extend sympathetic joy to all beings everywhere, young and old, near and far.
This excerpt is taken from the book, “The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace“

fear…

November 23, 2015 ~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

fear constricts, freezes, suffocates and enslaves life. often expressing itself through aggression and violence. it alienates us, enforcing the illusion of separateness. fear runs counter to life.
but love, the very ground of our being, opens us. with practice and cultivation it strengthens us, equipping us to take further steps into vulnerability and mystery. love reminds us of our interdependence and interconnection with each other and all life. with love as our foundational practice, we embody understanding, generosity, patience, compassion and kindness. this embodiment of love and recognition of our interdependence and interconnectedness is what gives our lives gratitude and joy.
it is this life of love that can be our place of refuge in a world filled with change and dramatic events. even as the storms rage and swirl around us, we can be a still beacon of light for all who need it.
~j
#fear #aggression #violence #separateness #illusionofseparateness #life #love #interdependence #interconnectedness #practice #meditation #generosity #understanding #patience #compassion #kindness #vulnerability #openheart #gratitude #joy #JMW #TheMettaGarden

reverence…

November 16, 2015 ~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

as I grow in this practice, I’m beginning to become aware that “reverence” begins even at the cellular level and is born out of gratitude.
am I grateful for the cells in my body? that I may see? that I may walk and write? that I may eat and digest? that I may think and speak?
in my gratitude, do I honor these cells? do I smile to them, breathing in and out, as Thich Nhat Hanh says? do I watch what I feed them, including the thoughts and emotions I cling to?
do I see them as the life that they are and honor that life within them? a life they are living, making it so that I may live?
this passing body is more them, than it is “me.” have we thought about that?
and we can ask ourselves, how am I honoring this gift? how am I embodying this gratitude I feel swelling in my chest? how am I living with reverence in the short time I am here? and how can I extend this to others in this delicate, beautiful, passing life?
~j

11.16.15
#reverence #life #gratitude #practice #peace #ThichNhatHanh #meditation #mindfulness #TheMettaGarden #JMW

this, your very heart…

November 11, 2015 ~ jaysen ~ Leave a comment

this, your very heart.

broken open, heals the world.

dam breaks, water flows.

11.11.15
“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.” ~ Zelda Fitzgerald
“O, that my monk’s robe were wide enough to gather up all the suffering people in this floating world.” ~ Zen poet-monk Ryōkan
“The practice is never for ourselves alone.” ~ Joseph Goldstein
#heart #HeartBrokenOpen #healing #suffering #love #CapacityToLove #interdependence #community #sangha #practice #meditation #compassion #metta #LovingKindness #Zen #haiku #quotes #JMW #TheMettaGarden

Dia de los Muertos

November 1, 2015 ~ jaysen ~ 4 Comments

Dia de los Muertos
a day to reflect on those who have passed, but haven’t left us. a lifting of the veil revealing that we are all One, interconnected through space and time, life and death, in this always moving ground of Being. through memory and ritual, offering prayers of honor, respect and gratitude.
the theme of death is an integral part of Buddhist practice, not as some morbid practice – but practice for what is inevitable and a sacred part of life. something we so desperately try to avoid in our culture, namely – sickness, aging, and dying – change.
practicing “death” is practicing “life.” each out breath is a death and each in breath is life reborn. an opportunity to be grateful for, an opportunity to continue this adventure of learning to love better and open our hearts.
perhaps this is what our loved ones, who have passed, are trying to tell us.
~j
“In trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life. It’s easy to forget that life and death are part of the natural scheme of things, intrinsic to our lives in an eternally shifting universe.”