Susan Piver's Blog, page 18

How to Stay Grounded in a Time of Transition (Step Six)

Audio-only version is here.
Meditation practice begins at 16:08.

Dear Open Heart Project,

I’m so happy to send you the sixth video in our eight video series on supporting ourselves during times of transition with the noble eightfold path. We have already discussed Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood.

Right View and Right Intention comprise true wisdom. Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood describe how to live an ethical life. Now we turn to Right Effort which, together with Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration explain how to work with our minds. After all, no matter how elegant our conceptual understanding, without a way of working with our thoughts and emotions, we remain unable to bring that understanding into experience.

Right Effort is not about working harder. I’m sure you’re already working as hard as you can. Rather, it has more to do with diligence and never giving up on yourself. Please have a listen to this short talk (followed by a guided 10-minute meditation) and let me know what you think! I always love to hear from you.

Sending much love, Susan

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How to Stay Grounded in a Time of Transition (Step Five)

Audio-only version is here.
Meditation practice begins at 17:33

Dear Open Heart Project,

I’m so happy to send you the fifth video in our eight video series on the noble eightfold path of Buddhism. We have already discussed Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech and Right Action. Today we look at Right Livelihood.

What does it mean to do your work in the world in accord with your personal dharma? Please have a look at this week’s video to learn more. And no worries if you are jumping in just now. Though you’re welcome to watch the earlier videos in the series, it is not necessary.

Traditionally, Right Livelihood is often about what you don’t do for a living: don’t kill beings, craft weaponry, enslave others. All of which makes complete sense—but what comes after this? How can we ensure that our work in the world is more than non-harming (which is essential, of course) but also creates more sanity, connection, and parity? How can our work be part of our spiritual journey rather than a distraction from it?

Somehow, the answers begin with our willingness to care about our experience, our relationships with those we work with, and the details of the work itself. Please have a listen to learn more and, as always, I love to hear what you think. What are your thoughts on Right Livelihood?  How are you finding this series in general? Please leave reactions, questions, reflections in comments.

Look for the sixth video in this series (Right Effort) next week.

Sending much love,

Susan

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How to Stay Grounded in a Time of Transition (Step Four)

Audio-only version is here.
Meditation practice begins at 20:55

Dear Open Heart Project,

I’m so happy to send you the fourth video in our eight video series on How to Stay Grounded in a Time of Transition. We have already discussed Right View, Right Intention, and Right Speech. Today we discuss Right Action. Interestingly, right action has more to do with what we do not do than anything else. Please have a listen and let me know what you think! I always love to hear from you.

The discussion ends with a guided 10-minute meditation.

Hope you are well! See you next week!

Love, Susan

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How to Stay Grounded in a Time of Transition (Step Three)

Audio-only version is here.
Meditation practice begins at 22:38.

Dear Open Heart Project,

Hello and I hope you’re well and finding love, insight, and courage in your life and in your mind. These three qualities, aka compassion, wisdom, and power, are said to be the three qualities of the awakened mind.

How do we realize such wakefulness?

There is actually a recipe. Trust me, it is not my recipe! It is actually 2500+ years old and just as fresh as the day it was cooked up. Millions and millions of people have tested it. Some even became Buddhas themselves.

The Noble Eightfold Path lays out the eight steps we can all take to become liberated from suffering and truly wake up. Today, we look at the third step, Right Speech. The first two were covered recently, Right View and Right Intention. Over the next 5 videos, we will explore Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Concentration, and Right Wisdom. It is truly a delight to share my thoughts with you on these most powerful teachings.

THAT SAID. While the eightfold path is powerful beyond description, it is not enough to simply read about it. It is not even enough to try to put the steps into play. What makes it all come together is the practice of meditation. Far more than a stress-reduction technique or self-improvement tactic, meditation actually dissolves the boundary between your conventional mind and your wisdom mind. It seems to do so in a very odd way. The less you try and the more you relax while applying the meditation technique, the more clearly you see your natural brilliance. You notice that you are actually waking up. Don’t take my word for this! Or anything! Try it yourself and see. Each video in this series concludes with a guided 10-minute breath-awareness meditation. Feel free to return to this instruction as often as you like.

Please don’t hesitate to let me hear your thoughts, questions, ideas. I always love to hear from you.

Love, Susan

PS. If you’d like to study and practice together more frequently, please consider joining the Open Heart Project Sangha. There are daily meditations, weekly live gatherings, monthly guest teachers, special events, and so much more, all included in memberships.

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10-31-22

Audio-only version is here.
Meditation practice begins at xxx.

Dear Open Heart Project,

 

 

Love, Susan

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How to Stay Grounded in a Time of Transition (Step Two)

Audio-only version is here.
Meditation practice begins at 21:10.

Dear Meditator,

Welcome to the 2nd video in our eight video series on How to Stay Grounded in a Time of Transition. As you may know, each video contains a talk followed by a guided 10-minute meditation practice. Meditation creates the foundation for true insight into each of the eight steps. 

As a reminder, the eight steps on the eightfold path fall into three categories:

Wisdom – Right View, Right Intention
Ethical Conduct – Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood
Meditation – Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration

The first step, Right View, was covered last week. (If you would like to review this talk, you can find it here.)

Today’s talk is on step two, Right Intention. Together, Right View and Right Intention comprise true wisdom.

Among spiritual teachers, self-help authors, and coaches, there has long been an emphasis on the importance of intention. There is a whole universe of thought, dating back, perhaps, to Napolean Hill’s evergreen, Think and Grow Rich (published 1937) to A Course in Miracles (1975), The Secret (2006) and Superattractor (2019) that says one thing: your thoughts and intentions create your universe. It follows, then, that if you “set” your intention in the direction of your dreams (for love, success, world peace, a new car) that thing will then materialize. You know what? I don’t think that’s terrible advice! I say that because as a human being I want those things too: love, success, and world peace are basically the top three. (A new car, not so much, not that there’s anything wrong with that.) When I focus on the possible rather than my dour inner dialogue, my day goes better and, hey, life is complicated and messy. If something works to ease your heart, enrich your world, and bring greater happiness to yourself and others, you should do it.

A word of caution, however, from my own experience with this form of intention setting. It can be quite painful.

The more I try to blot out thoughts that run contrary to my stated intention, the tighter and tinier I feel. I begin to police my mind for party-pooping interlopers such as that will never happen and who are you kidding. I get angry at myself for having such thoughts and run from them, back, hopefully, fearfully, into the arms of happier ones. Instead of resting in perpetual delight with images of my desired life, I find that I’ve made friends with a few select thoughts and enemies out of all the rest. I worry that my so-called negative thoughts are screwing the whole thing up. Self-aggression escalates. It becomes quite claustrophobic.

Interestingly, the Buddhist view says something similar about working with thoughts and intentions but then takes it all in a very different direction. It also points to the great importance of working with your thoughts to avoid being trapped by them, to realize they are malleable, and to choose over and over to rest your mind in joy, love, and truth rather than anger, grasping, or numbness…but then the two schools of thought diverge in (at least) two primary ways.

First, the intention itself. The first school says, visualize/intend what you most desire and it will arise. The second school says, visualize/intend what you most desire so that you can bring more compassion and sanity to the world. That is vastly over-simplified, but points to the basic idea that wanting things for yourself is one thing and wanting perhaps even those same things so that you can liberate yourself and others from suffering is, well, different. Both are fine! But the former has only temporary utility—and tends to blot others out of the dream, rather than include them.

Second, the paths to determining intention are different. The first path is, quite sensibly, to think about what you really, really super totally want, picture it, feel it, taste it, smell it, and then nail it down in your mind. Return to it over and over, whether through repetitive thought, visualization, or imagining.

The dharmic path to determining intention is almost the opposite. Rather than imagining an ideal future and then aiming at it with everything you’ve got, the suggestion is to relax. Let go. Observe. Feel. Gaze within. And then see what arises. Perhaps your intention in this moment is to help a friend who is upset while in another moment it is to take care of yourself, tell someone you love them (or don’t), put your ideas forward, hold them in reserve, take a walk, go to sleep, call out injustice, join the military, or bust out sobbing. Intentions, in this view, arise in the moment and, when rooted in Right View (seeing things clearly) are accurate, on-point, and wise.

If you feel so moved, experiment with this view of Right Intention for the next few weeks (or the rest of your life). Notice your inner experience within the context of your outer experience, let your mind rest on what is true both within and without and then deduce what you intend now and now and now.

Stay tuned for step #3, Right Speech (my fave!!) in a week.

Thoughts, reflections, doubts, delights? Please leave your comment. I always love to hear from you.

Love, Susan

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How to Stay Grounded in a Time of Transition (Step One)

Audio-only version is here.
Meditation practice begins at 19:03

Dear Open Heart Project,

Hello! I am so glad we can practice together.

This video marks the first in an 8-video series called How to Stay Grounded in a Time of Transition. As we head into a new year, it is natural to think about what we want to emphasize in our lives and what we want to let go of. In the Buddhist view, creating a life of ease and sanity is accomplished with eight steps, also called the Noble Eightfold Path.

This video contains a 20-minute talk to introduce the eightfold path and discuss the first step, “Right View.” It concludes with a 10-minute guided breath awareness meditation. The next video in the series, “Right Intention” will arrive on October 31 and there will be a new video every week until we have visited each of the eight steps. Please enjoy!

This is a bit about why I wanted to create this series (besides the fact that we need real insight, a deeper conversation, and connection to each other right now!):

We are so fortunate to live in a time when mindfulness and mindfulness meditation have lost any sense of wackadoo (for lack of a better word). When I started practicing in 1993, I had to explain so many things to family and friends: I am not in a cult. I am not a flake. This is not religious. I will not shave my head nor will I don flowing garments. (Not that there is anything wrong with those things.) It just had a cloud of new age-y otherness that raised a lot of questions.

No longer. Over the last few decades, meditation practice has been studied by doctors, scientists, and researchers of all kinds. Collectively, they arrived at a single conclusion: Meditation is awesome. “There’s real science behind this” is a line one hears quite frequently about meditation practice–and something about the scientific imprimatur has loosened our hesitations around this ancient practice.

Which is fantastic. However, there is no need to stop there or sacrifice meditation’s 2500-year history on the altar of self-improvement. BTW, yes to self-improvement! Yes to fixing problems! Yes to less stress! All of these things are truly fantastic and meditation has been demonstrated to support each of these aims.

But it is so much more than that. Meditation is also a spiritual practice.

Where self-improvement emphasizes repairing what is wrong with you, meditation begins with the premise that there is nothing wrong with you and any ideas to the contrary are indications of confusion. You are already 100% worthy and whole because that’s the way you were born.

Rather than solving your problems, our practice shows you how to make space for them whereupon they (eventually) dissolve on their own accord.

And it teaches you that stress can be alleviated, not only by withdrawing from it, but, when that is impossible (seems to be the case right now!), by turning toward it, making space for it, and relaxing with it.

How does all this happen? Well, that is the question we visit in today’s video: How is it even possible that by sitting there basically doing nothing, I discover important truths, soften my heart, and become more fearless and genuine? Those are the deeper fruits of the practice, my friends! There are literally thousands of years of anecdotal and experiential wisdom that offer insight on these questions. We don’t have to excise it all. There is nothing remotely religious going on here. It’s actually quite pragmatic and accessible as I hope today’s video will show.

Today, we start at the beginning with a (very) brief overview of the four noble truths, which create the framework for all of Buddhism. The fourth truth is called The Eightfold Path (lots of numbers, I know) and the very first step on the path is called “Right View,” which I hope to explain. Let me know if I succeeded! Comments are always welcomed.

With this series, I invite you to take a deeper dive into the principles behind this practice to see, not what they mean, but what they mean to you.

I am delighted and honored to be your guide right now.

Love, Susan

P.S. This article gives a great over view of the eightfold path. And this is excellent.

On another note!

Announcing a brand new course on THE ENNEAGRAM: YOUR PATH TO COMPASSION, WISDOM, AND CONFIDENCE. Many of you joined the free webinar on The Buddhist Enneagram and I truly appreciate and benefit from our conversation. It was clear to me that the webinar couldn’t go into the kind of detail I feel the topic has to offer all of us as we navigate these challenging times in our world with other people.  I created this new 3-week course [LINK] to offer you a compass when seeking both self-compassion and a mindful way to interact with the people around you.  We’re going to cover:– The nuances of finding your type (and yes, I believe you’ll walk away with the tools you need to discover your actual Enneagram type with better accuracy than tests online claiming to guess it in five questions)– The details of each Enneagram type – How to apply what you learn to your real life The course includes 3 live two-hour lessons with me on November 1, 8, and 15, 7p ET – 9p ET. If you cannot make it, all sessions will be recorded including the Q&A.  Register Here $270.00 I hope you will join me for this in-depth conversation about one of my favorite topics of all time, the enneagram. I am very excited to share it with you and also discuss some of the main points of my new book, The Buddhist Enneagram which will form the basis for our class discussions, so please make sure you have a copy. You may purchase it here. I hope to see you in this course — we’re going to learn and laugh our way into deeper compassion and confidence with the Enneagram as our guide to discovery. 

The post How to Stay Grounded in a Time of Transition (Step One) appeared first on The Open Heart Project.

How to Make Magic: Part Three

Audio-only version is here.
Meditation practice begins at 11:55.

Dear Open Heart Project.

Magic takes shape in three ways: Outer Magic, Inner Magic, and Secret Magic. Today, I offer you a short talk on cultivating magic on the so-called secret level. It’s not a secret from you, particularly. I suppose it is referred to as “secret” because it is invisible.

Thoughts? I always love to hear from you.

With love, Susan

PS My new book, The Buddhist Enneagram: Nine Paths to Warriorship, is newly published. You can find more details here. If you read it, please consider leaving an honest review on your preferred online retailer’s site.

These reviews really make a difference! Thanking you in advance.

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How to Make Magic: Part Two

Audio-only version is here.
Meditation practice begins at 13:31.

Hello, wonderful Open Heart Project.

I am happy to offer you this short talk on Inner Magic.

Magic takes shape in three ways: Outer Magic, Inner Magic, and Secret Magic. Today, I offer you a short talk on cultivating magic on the inner level.

Thoughts? I always love to hear from you.

With love,

Susan

PS My new book, The Buddhist Enneagram: Nine Paths to Warriorship, is newly published. You can find more details here. If you read it, please consider leaving an honest review on your preferred online retailer’s site.

These reviews really make a difference! Thanking you in advance.

The post How to Make Magic: Part Two appeared first on The Open Heart Project.