Mindfulness

My meditation teacher Salliji told me, “As soon as a person does not take his or her existence for granted, magic appears.” Salliji taught me meditation and pranayama breathing techniques up until her mid-80s. She brought more peace to me by teaching me that my life would follow my breath. Shallow breathing leads to a superficial life. Agitated breathing leads to agitation. And, of course, peaceful breathing leads to peace.

I have a lot of friends enraged and grieving this week: Dobbs, Congressional hearings on January 6, mass shootings. I wanted to offer something I read in journalist Oliver Burkeman’s newsletter:

Is it possible to guide a life with a six-word mantra?

“Leisure is only possible when we are at one with ourselves. We tend to overwork as a means of self-escape, as a way of trying to justify our existence.” ― Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture

Why is it so hard to change? Is it simply a lack of desire or willpower? According to science, the answer is no. The reason we don’t change is because most of us are missing one crucial ingredient: self-compassion.

Philosopher Albert Borgmann talks about the experience of being fully alive in the world as moments when: (1) There is no place I would rather be. (2) There is no one I would rather be with. (3) There is nothing I would rather be doing. (4) And this I will remember well

The Siletz river banks are high from yesterday’s Tsunami, created by an underground volcano off the island of Tonga. NASA said the resulting blast was hundreds of times more powerful than the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

Before Peter Bowes approached me to do his podcast, I’d never heard of the expression “Live Long and Master Aging,” which translates to the LLAMA in the title above. You can listen to it here, but here’s the distilled version summed up into three habits.

The still, quiet place where peace and insight reside is always available to us, like the sun that continually shines whether or not it is covered by clouds.

Deborah Szekely was born to Jewish immigrants 100 years ago today (May 3, 1922). I was lucky enough to meet her at the Esalen Institute, where I was a Board member for a decade. I could immediately tell that she epitomized the French expression “joie de vivre.”