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By Durita Holm
4.7
33 ratings
The podcast currently has 32 episodes available.
A conversation with the former chief editor of Esquire magazine, who abandoned all that outer success to become a ful-time yogi. He is now a renovned meditation teacher and author.
This is some of what we speak about:
Phillip Moffitt's websites: www.dharmawisdom.org & https://lifebalance.org/institute/
Link to my course, Rewilding the Soul - Restoring Lifeforce & connecting to aliveness through nature & mindfulness: app.mastermind.com/masterminds/29462
My website : www.duritaholm.com
John Lockley is a South African Shaman or Sangoma. He is also the author of the book: Leopard Warrior. We start our conversation by talking about how the principles of shamanism are the same all over the world, even in cultures that haven't had any contact for millennia.
John's website: www.johnlockley.com
Link to my course, Rewilding the Soul - Restoring Lifeforce & connecting to aliveness through nature & mindfulness: https://durita75.mastermind.com/masterminds/29462
My website :www.duritaholm.com
Anne Cushman tells us how she came to meditation when at university, because this world-religions class was the only class that would allow her to sleep in, as it started at 11 o'clock. Then, of course she found that she loved the class, and all its existential issues. And she ended up getting her major in religion, focusing particularly on Buddhism and Hinduism.
However, reading all these books about buddhism and Hinduism, it became clear to her, that this couldn't be just theoretical, that she would have to start practicing meditation and yoga to truly understand the texts.
We are compelled to continue practicing meditation because there is pain and suffering in our lives, and in meditation and yoga, we find a way through that pain and hardship - a learning to be with life as it is.
The overarching theme of Anne's book, The mama sutra, is the path to awakening through motherhood
I ask Anne if having children isn't an impediment to awakening?
Anne tells us how the teachings were mostly passed down through monastics, who didn't
In any case, practice happens where the intention of our wise heart meets the reality of our lives, and that is so whether you are in a monastery or rocking a baby
Motherhood also makes you meet your edges, motherhood can me very hard...
Motherhood is so good at showing us where we are stuck, where we need to grow
Thich nah Han when asked, said that monastic and lay practice is exactly the same, only that lay practice is harder and more challenging
What Anne really wants to do in the mama sutra is depict the reality of motherhood. At how hard it actually is...
When things are harmonious, its great to practice, but always knowing, that things will change...
The fundamental teaching of mindfulness is, that you always start right where you are, so you can never rely only on your past practice, it is always here and now.
Children are unpredictable, immediate and authentic, so they call forth those qualities in us.
I ask Anne about how her years of prior practice supported her through the loss of a child, and then a year later the birth of her second child, who was very demanding as a baby.
Anne tells us how one of the effects of her meditation practice going through all that was the tremendous softening of her heart and being, instead of a hardening, which is also a possibility when life gets really difficult.
We are attached to life as primal as the umbilical cord, thick and coiled and throbbing with blood
We talk about words like the observer in mindfulness, or witnessing, or meeting experience...
How we can train our capacity to hold our experience with more loving kindness
We speak about "who" or "what" this observer or witness in mindfulness is...
How you can connect deeper to your life through writing, and how sometimes new wisdom you didn't know you had, can emerge through your fingers.
Journaling gives us a place to put things, to put aspects of our lives and our character
when we are writing we are always connecting to the larger humanity, to something larger than just ourselves
We talk about the sacred feminine, or about how some experiences that women have can be qualitatively different. An honouring of the relational, the intuitive, the embodied, the connection to the earth...
Anne tells us how online retreats have been such a blessing for many women with children, and how real life reality can then be held in the support of a retreat.
If we are paying attention, one of the things we feel as we become a mother, is this intimate connection to the web of life, this cycle of life that sustains us all. Motherhood as a portal to loving all of life.
www.annecushman.com
www.duritaholm.com
Trudy Goodman tells us how she came to meditation because although she had done everything right in life, exactly as was expected of a young woman, she still felt that something wasn't quite right, and she didn't understand why.
A conversation about meditation in different Buddhist traditions, especially the Theravada, where western mindfulness has its roots, and the quite different Tibetan vajrayana tradition.
These are some of the topics we speak about:
Devon's website: https://devonandnicohase.com
My website: https://duritaholm.com
www.bayoakomolafe.net
www.duritaholm.com
A conversation with psychologist and meditation teacher nico hase, whose life revolves around long retreats and deep practice. Among other things, we speak about identity, the self, the differences between western psychology and eastern meditation practices, and to what purpose each of them serve.
www.devonandnicohase.com
www.duritaholm.com
Marine biologist Helen Scales passion for the ocean, all its creatures and its whole otherworldliness is truly fascinating - it shows us how to keep intact our curiosity, our awe and our respect for all life and all places, also the ones we cannot see.
www.helenscales.com
www.duritaholm.com
An inspiring conversation with the authors of the book "Full Ecology" about humans, animals, trees and even conciousness!
www.fullecology.com
www.duritaholm.com
How many of us come to the practice of meditation through suffering.
How reading her first book about Buddhism, Celeste just knew that what she read, was true. Reading that it is normal for life to be difficult, but also that there is a way out or through that suffering, awakened a deep aspiration in her to practice mindfulness.
We talk about the practice of long silent retreats, whether they are about removing ourselves from reality, or about actually coming closer to reality.
How on retreat we remove ourselves from our habitual patterns, and can see things more as they really are
How we can learn to rest in our own beingness when we spend time in silent retreat.
In retreat we learn to be with everything, also the unpleasant, with kindness.
The mind and heart transform when we spend time in silence and in retreat. We can then come back to our daily day life and engage in it with more wisdom
How Insight arises in our own direct experience when we meditate.
Classically these insights are described as liberating, and they arise when we practice mindfulness and get very intimate with our direct experience, with reality.
The arising of insight is universal if we learn to practice mindfulness
Classically there are three main insights in mindfulness: the insight of impermanence. The insight of seeing that suffering is part of any human life, and seeing that there is no inherent self.
How there is a great difference between knowing something intellectually and knowing it from your own deep experience, knowing it in your bones.
And how seeing the inherent unease of being human, can open your heart in deep compassion towards all living beings
How it is key to know the causes of suffering, and the causes of true lasting happiness.
Mindfulness encourages us to know all experiences, both the vast spacious mind-states as well as the contracted suffering states, and this is where we can become curious about the causes and conditions that cause one or the other.
How humility is so key in our practice
We talk about renunciation!!! Not perhaps the most sexy and popular practice in our culture
What renunciation really means, is a letting go of what binds us to our suffering
Renunciating our craving, as craving and grasping will ultimately lead to unease
Renunciation is about renunciating some of our unskillful habits and patterns
How the reactive mind is a rollercoaster, and learning to just sit with, and be with all our experiences without needing to fix every unsatisfactory experience, leads to a greater peace of mind in all circumstances.
To really know our unskillful habits, and working with that edge with mindfulness and compassion.
How we need to create space for creativity to arise, and that often means that we need some solitude
The importance of solitude also for our relationships
How we so often long for connection and for deep relationships, but are not capable because we are too distracted and scattered.
The quality of our awareness is what gives us that sense of deep intimacy with the world and belonging to life
The difference between aloneness and solitude
How feeling deeply connected gives us this feeling of relatedness to life and ultimately deep belonging and the opposite of alienation.
How coming close to the earth by practicing mindfulness, feels like a homecoming, that visceral feeling of an exchange with life.
How life is always teaching us if we are available for it.
www.celesteyoung.com
www.duritaholm.com
The podcast currently has 32 episodes available.