Monday guided meditation

[Betty Holmes]

Dear Sangha Friends,

I am writing to invite you to join me on Monday nights after zazen for
a meditation on love and compassion. The practice comes from my
Tibetan Dzogchen tradition, and I find it is a helpful method for
deepening my Bodhisattva intention.

It’s a little different from zazen in that it’s a relative practice
where we actually engage our minds in order to ultimately relax into
openness and warmth. For me, this practice has been a skillful way to
work with difficult thoughts and emotions that sometimes arise in my
life and to reconnect with spaciousness when I feel separated from it.

During the practice, we begin by calling to mind a genuine moment from
our lives when we have felt the experience of love or compassion
coming from another person. We open to that energy, simply receiving
that wish in the beginning and allowing ourselves to feel nourished by
it. Then we begin to expand that feeling of love and compassion,
adding our own intention that all beings be free of suffering, and we
send that wish out to others, most especially to the real people in
our lives, both those who are dear to us and those who are difficult.

It’s a very simple practice, and we do it together as a guided
meditation. We practice two short periods of the meditation, and in
between we share with one another in brief discussion. In my
experience, because this practice is grounded in my real life, it
helps me meet and work with the day-to-day challenges that arise as I
try to live my Bodhisattva vows.

If this sounds interesting, then I hope you will join me from 6:45 to
7:45 on Monday evenings. I’ll be offering this practice for the next 3
weeks, and if people connect to it and want to continue, I would love
to practice together as a regular group.

Thanks so much,
Betty Holmes