Open awareness is a non-referential meditation, meaning you don’t use any reference point such as the breath or the body to keep your mind focused. Those focal points are useful as first, but as you progress, they can hold you back. In open awareness, your attention rests with everything that’s happening. To this end, you meditate with your eyes gently open. Normally our eyes are trained to focus on a single object. Here, you softly take in everything in your field of vision simultaneously, p...
May 15, 2024
21 min
Join novelist, essayist, and canoe adventurer Mar’ce Merrell as she unpacks her spiritual and creative toolbox, sharing how she uses meditation to move through stuck places in life and on the page. Mar’ce describes the steppingstones of her journey from the moment her therapist first suggested meditation to a literal “breakthrough” experience at an MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) Retreat with Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli at Mount Madonna Center. The breakthrough encouraged her...
Apr 29, 2024
1 hr 11 min
This is a shorter version of Episode 71 "Tranquil Ocean Shamatha," with a bit less instruction. Shamatha or “peaceful abiding” helps stabilize the mind by cultivating a steady awareness of the object of meditation, in this case, the breath. You can do the same practice using alternative anchors such as bodily sensations or sounds. Staying present to an anchor provides scaffolding or training wheels to help keep your mind focused. Over time, practicing Shamatha meditation steadies you in...
Apr 18, 2024
15 min
Shamatha, which means “peaceful abiding” or “tranquility," is the foundational meditation of Buddhist practice. It helps stabilize the mind by cultivating a steady awareness of the object of meditation, in this case, the breath. You can do the same practice using alternative anchors such as bodily sensations or sounds. Staying present to an anchor provides scaffolding or training wheels to help keep your mind focused. Once you become proficient at Shamatha, you no longer need an o...
Mar 22, 2024
27 min
Lovingkindness, also known as "metta," is a Buddhist practice of cultivating good will and positive regard toward yourself and others. The practice invites us to expand the good will of our hearts to reach ever widening circles, extending to loved ones, neutral acquaintances, difficult people, animals, and the planet itself. A longer version of this meditation can be found under the title "Lovingkindness Deep Immersion." Whether done on the meditation pillow or spontaneously in the course of ...
Feb 21, 2024
9 min
Join sculptor and poet Don Freas, author of In-Between: Creativity Set Free and Swallowing the World: New and Selected Poems, in a rich exploration of the relationship between meditation and creativity. Don describes how his practice of Liangong, a form of Qigong, deepens his somatic awareness in the studio and in life. He explains how his process of journaling, partly inspired by Robert A. Johnson’s book Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth, has deepened self-i...
Feb 14, 2024
1 hr 6 min
Metta is a Buddhist practice of cultivating good will and positive regard toward yourself and others. A Pali word, metta means lovingkindness. The practice invites us to expand the good will of our hearts to reach ever widening circles, extending to loved ones, neutral acquaintances, difficult people, animals, and the planet itself. Whether done on the meditation pillow or spontaneously in the course of a day, metta has been shown to decrease stress and anxiety and increase compassion for one...
Feb 6, 2024
28 min
A rerecorded, remastered version of Episode 41, this guided visualization is based on a near-death experience described by Carl Jung in his memoir Memories, Dreams, and Reflections. Jung experienced this vision as he hung on the edge of death after a heart attack. Following a brief relaxation exercise, you will be guided through this vision as if you are experiencing it for yourself. Feel free to replace the particularities of this vision with your own and let it unfold as it wishes. This med...
Jan 30, 2024
33 min
Inspired by the work of Carl Jung, this practice of cultivating a "waking dream" helps you to access the wisdom of your subconscious. In Jungian psychology, this technique is called “Active Imagination." Episode 6 of this podcast offers a similar version of this guided visualization with different music. Jung recorded his waking visions in his extraordinary illustrated journal, The Red Book. His meditative technique was recreated by MJ Dorian on his podcast Creative Codex. For deeper instruct...
Jan 23, 2024
31 min
This is the 3rd of three progressive meditations inspired by Dr. Patrick MacManaway’s book Cultivating Your Light Body. It builds on the strength and stability developed in the first and second practices. Here, we continue cultivating heart-centered awareness in a cycle of witnessing, blessing, and renewal, and we take the further step of using these qualities to restore right relationship to current challenging issues in our lives. We restore a healthy relationship in the pathways of energy ...
Jan 16, 2024
28 min
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