Good evening and welcome to Monday Group Meditation.
Monday Group Meditation is open to everyone, believers and non-believers of all stripes who are interested in gathering in silence. If you are new to meditation and would like to try it for yourself, Mindful Nature gave a nice description of one way to meditate in an earlier diary, copied and pasted below:
"It is a matter of focusing attention mostly. In many traditions, the idea is to sit and focus on the rising and falling of the breath. Not controlling it, but sitting in a relaxed fashion and merely observing experiences of breathing, sounds, etc. Be aware of your thoughts, but don't engage in them. When your mind wanders (it will, often), then return to focus on breath and repeat."
There is one change this week, we are extending the time period one half hour to accommodate people in the Pacific Time Zone, so the time will run from 7:30 to 10:00 PM EST. It is not necessary to sit for the entire time, perhaps there will be some who will want to sit early, take a break and return to the cushion. Maybe some others might want to sit for a period, and hold the silence in support of those still sitting, or simply sit for the amount of time one wishes. The idea is for everyone to use the time in the manner best suited for each.
Finally, I would like to thank everyone for your support and participation in these remote group meditations. I threw an unconventional idea out for consideration, it's taken a wonderful bunch of open minded people to make it happen. Thank you all.
Since we are fast approaching the New Year, I thought it might be appropriate to think about the burdens we might want to leave behind rather than taking them into the new year. Much has been written about the benefit of letting go of old hurts and resentments. In my own case I've found it much easier to receive or manifest something new when my hands are not figuratively closed by grasping and clinging to those things that no longer serve me.
It's true many consider healing imagery to be nothing more than snake oil, never the less my New Year gift to you is the offering of a place to leave old resentments, guilt, self-righteousness, what ever burdens you might be carrying, go ahead and throw them in the water in front of the ferry boat.
To let go is to release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our spirit. – Jack Kornfield
Once the boat passes by all your burdens will be broken up in the wake of the boat, dissolved and transmuted into something that will never bother anyone again. My wish is we will all move forward into the new year, burdens lessened, in freedom and light.
Headed for open water.