Marc Lesser's Blog, page 17

Showing Up

I’m moved last week by how people are called and how they show up. I don’t usually tear up hearing the Star Spangled Banner, but I did that day when it was sung by Lady Gaga during Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Here are the opening lines from the Inaugural Poem by Amanda Gorman (22, the youngest inaugural poet in American history)

When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never- ending shade?

The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.

We braved the belly of the beast.

We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always justice.

And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.

Somehow we do it.

Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.

 

One of my favorite quotes by Paul Hawken:

“When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same:

If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data.

But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse.

What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.”

 

A few lines by Stacy Abrams:

Invention, discovery, and empires are built of chances taken with high degrees of failure.

We will all at some point encounter hurdles to gaining access and entry, moving up and conquering self-doubt, but on the other side is the capacity to own opportunity and tell our own story.

 

And a few quotes from Martin Luther King Jr.

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

 

Practices:

How are we each showing up?

What supports you?

What challenges you?

The post Showing Up appeared first on Marc Lesser.

One Question, One Recipe, and a Practice for the New Year

The question

Do you live with a closed fist or an open hand?

A worthy experiment is to make a fist with one hand, closing your fingers really tight and notice how you feel. Then, slowly open your hand with fingers extended and be aware of how this influences you.

This question and experiment arose a few days ago as I was in the process of making biscuits for a New Year’s dinner. I felt myself tightening while holding onto an image of making perfect biscuits. I wanted them to be light and flaky, slightly browned on top and perfectly baked. As I noticed this image and my tightening, I remembered this question about living with a closed fist or an open hand and recognized my body tightening with this idea of perfection. I managed to bring my attention to feeling how lucky I was to have the time and the ingredients to make biscuits in my home kitchen. The flour and butter were fun to crumble in my fingers and hands in a metal mixing bowl. As I cut and shaped the biscuits I noticed how different, unique, and uneven each one was. Each biscuit was highly imperfect, and yet, I found much pleasure in removing these biscuits from the oven, and serving them to my family, and enjoying them as part of the celebratory meal.

A closed fist or an open hand is a useful and important way of noticing our approach to whatever we are doing and more broadly, how we live. Metaphors are powerful and the language we use to think about ourselves, describe our actions, and view our lives can have real impact.

The idea for making these biscuits and this question were inspired by my friend Edward Espe Brown, and his recent book, The Most Important Point.

 

The recipe

Here is Ed’s biscuit recipe.

1 cup unbleached white flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 T baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk, yogurt, or rice milk

 

Mix dry ingredients with butter. Work with your hands till crumbly.

Mix dry ingredients with wet ingredients, just enough to be mixed.

Roll the dough into a rectangle 1/2 ” thick.

Cut into triangles.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes at 450° until slightly browned top and bottom.

(Here is a photo of one of my highly imperfect biscuits.)

 

The Practice

Notice: Are you living, working, communicating, with a closed fist or an open hand?  What supports you to be more open?

Notice how the quest for perfection is a noble idea, except when it leads you to tighten and close. Explore enjoying imperfection; being less caught, less tightening around ideas of perfection.

The post One Question, One Recipe, and a Practice for the New Year appeared first on Marc Lesser.

Two Questions, a Quote and a Song for the New Year

One of my favorite questions from the Zen tradition is: What is the impossible request your life asks of you?

Great question, don’t you think? (If you are thrown or put off by the word “impossible,” just omit it.)

So, what is the request your life asks of you?

Either way it’s a challenging question with some real heft and depth. It’s a question that turns our usual thinking upside down from inquiring what we want from this life to instead asking what does life, this life, our/my life request from us/me? It’s a more difficult and more empowering approach and perspective.

Mindfulness and Zen traditions love such questions, where the question is meant to be chewed on, considered, breathed, and embodied. It is meant to evoke surprising, heart-felt responses. One of the many things that has drawn me to Zen practice for much of my life is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously even to the point of negating itself. While Zen has a rich and vibrant history and tradition, at its heart it is concerned with what it means to be fully human, aiming high at being a more wise and compassionate human.

As we approach the year’s end a great exercise is to ask yourself the question: “What is the impossible request this life asks of me?” and then to write your answer for 12 minutes without too much thinking or editing. See how you do with this!

The second question is a complimentary question to the first question.

What if it were easy? What if you approached projects, your work, your relationships, and your life from the perspective of not assuming it was going to be a struggle? Instead, what if there were greater ease?

I know, I know – struggle is good. I’m reminded of a conversation from many years ago with my therapist. I was proclaiming how difficult it is to change. She looked at me and said, “Oh I almost forgot; you are a Zen guy. You think everything needs to be difficult!” It was at this moment that I began to ask myself: What if things weren’t so difficult? What about more ease? (She was really good at her job.)

I don’t think we need to worry about there being enough difficulty and challenge in life. We can count on it to provide just the right amount, if not more. So, how might we engage these difficulties and challenges with more ease?

Many people in American culture have a good deal of resistance and suspicion about ease. I struggle with it myself but I’m also experimenting with it. This second question, about ease, isn’t about suppressing or sugar-coating pains and challenges. Ease can infer and be an invitation to meet whatever arises without unnecessary resistance. This kind of ease is more about wholeheartedness and lack of resistance and not at all turning away from difficulty.

I invite you to experiment and explore combining these two questions:

· What is the impossible request your life asks of you?

· What if there were more ease?

Try writing for another 12 minutes about the second question or take that time to answer both, then repeat the exercise in a week’s time.

A quote:

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world

than the breathing respect that you carry

wherever you go right now? Are you waiting

for time to show you some better thoughts?

…What can anyone give you greater than now…

by William Stafford, from the poem You Reading This Be Ready

And, a song: A children’s song, that works well for anyone: Thanks A Lot by Raffi

Wishing you a safe, nurturing, and fulfilling New Year!

The post Two Questions, a Quote and a Song for the New Year appeared first on Marc Lesser.

Spaciousness: Working Hard, Accomplishing Nothing

Spaciousness: Working Hard, Accomplishing Nothing

This was the imprint on one of my favorite T-shirts that was popular for some time during summers at Tassajara, Zen Mountain Center. I don’t remember the image or design, just those bold letters on the back of the shirt. It was particularly poignant and ironic since I was living and working there, and working hard! My job was as the head cook in the kitchen. We produced three gourmet vegetarian meals each day for up to eighty overnight guests and three simpler meals each day for up to seventy students.

We were working with focus and intensity, and there was tremendous satisfaction and joy in the work and in working together. We regularly received accolades for the presentation, quality, and flavors of each meal served. Yet, one of the things that was so special about working in a Zen kitchen was our focus on making our best effort, paying attention to the details, and supporting each other. Of course meals were planned and there was a clear vision of outcomes. At the same time we were more focused on the details of what we were doing, the quality of our work, and supporting each other then we were on accomplishment.

Quite paradoxical in some way – while working hard, not overly focused or attached to outcomes, there were excellent results – both in the meals produced and in our increasing ability to work together, exploring effort and effortlessness, working with intensity and a sense of spaciousness. In addition to producing great meals our primary focus was on mindfulness practice – developing character and achieving results at the same time.

An easier way to practice spaciousness is to take time for ourselves to really accomplish nothing. It seems to be a lost art, allowing ourselves to completely relax – no “to do” lists, nothing to get done. Try reading a book, without needing to accomplish anything, or writing, going for a walk, cooking, cleaning, hanging out with friends; letting go of any sense of achievement. It can be more difficult than it seems since it’s easy to frame everything we do in terms of accomplishment.

For example, every morning I do a series of stretches and exercises before my meditation practice. This generally includes 35 push-ups. This morning as I was thinking about this theme of hard work and accomplishment, I realized how subtle this sense of aiming for outcomes can be. In my plan and focus on accomplishing this task, I noticed that I’m generally not paying much attention to what I am actually doing.

I decided to try something. I wondered how it would be to bring my attention to the movement and my experience of each push-up – focusing on my breathing and full experience; the sensations in my back, arms, and legs. I couldn’t help notice that tuning in and being curious about the experience brought this time alive and gave me a sense of greater presence and learning. Usually my focus was on counting and aiming to achieve a set number. While doing the same activity, I still got my 35 push-ups done but had a much more full and rich experience.

The same approach as I’ve described with my morning exercises could be applied to responding to emails, leading or attending meetings, or any other work or personal activities.

Spaciousness is something you can explore while working hard, or not working at all:

While working or in the midst of getting things done, experiment with being more present, more open to your breath, body, and full experience. Play with effort and effortlessness. Explore being curious and open to how you are showing up for yourself and those you are working with.

While not working, experiment with fully letting go of accomplishing anything. Notice how subtle (or not so subtle) the habit or pattern of measuring, tracking, comparing can seep into times of rest and play, and explore greater spaciousness.

The post Spaciousness: Working Hard, Accomplishing Nothing appeared first on Marc Lesser.

Interview: Warmhearted Mindfulness

Marc Lesser joins Raghu Markus on Be Here Now Network to talk about bringing Zen Buddhism and mindful leadership to Google, working with evolutionary fear, cultivating humor and courage, and reclaiming mindfulness as a warmhearted practice.

You can listen to the conversation below.

The post Interview: Warmhearted Mindfulness appeared first on Marc Lesser.

How to have a conversation that deepens connection

I’m in a lot of Zoom meetings these days. I find that the ones that are the most effective, productive, and nourishing are those that begin with getting everyone’s voice in the room. One way to do this is to propose a question that each person responds to via audio or chat. Here are a few examples:

– What do you love about your work?

– What are your biggest challenges?

– What do you do for wellbeing?

I often like to begin gatherings and meals in a similar way. I particularly like this tradition at special times and holiday meals, like Thanksgiving. Here are some possible opening questions that I find work at such occasions (and many can be used in other settings as well):

– What is one thing you are grateful for?

– Complete with one sentence: What surprises me about my life right now is…

– What brings you here; what really brings you here? (you can define “here” any way you choose).

– What do you love about your life and what are your biggest challenges?

– What is your favorite activity on Sunday afternoons?

– How did you celebrate Thanksgiving growing up?

David Brooks, a New York Times columnist, recently wrote an excellent article on this subject. In Nine Nonobvious Ways To Have Deeper Conversations he suggests asking elevating questions like:

• What crossroads are you at?

• What commitments have you made that you no longer believe in?

• Who do you feel most grateful to have in your life?

• What problem did you use to have but now have licked?

• In what ways are you sliding backward?

• What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

He also suggests that we approach conversations with a sense of awe (for more on cultivating awe, check out my recent post about awe walks).

Sometimes it takes just a small amount of creativity and attention to spark surprising and important conversations – especially with those we’ve worked with for many years, or with family members or people that we “know” well (I highlight the word “know” because it’s all too easy to stop being curious, to stop really listening to the people that surround us frequently). Most of us love to be heard, love to be able to tell stories. We love to surprise and be surprised.

Try opening a conversation by asking the person to tell you their story: “What was it like for you growing up? Tell me about your parents. Did you have a best friend as a child?”

In the workplace, some great conversation starters are:

• How do you think about creativity, learning, and problem solving?

• How did you get into this kind of work?

• What did you study in high school or college?

• Who were some of your mentors?

Business meetings, Thanksgiving gatherings, and meal times in general provide a great opportunity for getting everyone’s voice in the room, for asking open-ended questions, and most of all, for listening and connecting wholeheartedly, with care and curiosity. Listening with your full attention, both to the words and the feelings, creates an environment of learning and going deeper, while building the connective tissue of trust and understanding.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The post How to have a conversation that deepens connection appeared first on Marc Lesser.

Interview: Zen Meditation, Practices of a Mindful Leader, Building Inner Strength, and much more!

Marc Lesser speaks with Nishant Garg on The Nishant Garg Show about zen meditation and mindful leadership. Topics discussed include:

Self actualization
Integration of meditation
Compassionate accountability
Building inner strength
Zen Meditation
The art of disengaging
Mindful leadership
Open awareness
Practice of disengagement
Simply pausing
Dedicated and integrated mindfulness practice
Everyday mind

You can listen to the conversation below.

The post Interview: Zen Meditation, Practices of a Mindful Leader, Building Inner Strength, and much more! appeared first on Marc Lesser.

Resisting Change, Leading Change

Adapted from Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader: Lessons From Google and a Zen Monastery Kitchen

My experience teaching mindfulness at Google and to companies and individuals around the world is that there is a tremendous need and hunger for understanding and developing greater humanness, openness, and inspiration, not only at work, but in all parts of people’s lives. Mindfulness practice is potent. It enables the ability to see more clearly; to see the miracle of consciousness, the miracle of being alive. Mindfulness practice can shift the ground of your consciousness, your presence, your being – not by adding something, or through some belief system, or creating some outside inspiring ideas, but by presenting a more accurate sense of human nature, seeing how we constrict our version of our selves and the world.

Mindfulness practice is aimed at understanding and shifting the nature of fear, of dissatisfaction, and the experience of separateness. Mindfulness practice is essentially about seeing with more clarity – which involves getting a glimpse of experiencing how what we thought was ordinary is extraordinary, miraculous and mundane at the same time. This is an outcome of mindfulness practice.

Being a mindful leader requires effort and practice, requires letting go of old models, old constructed realities that no longer serve us, our organizations, or our families. Living with clarity and depth, living a mindful, integrated, warm-hearted life requires practice.

The seven practices of a mindful leader are:

Love the Work
Do the Work
Don’t be an Expert
Connect to Your Pain
Connect to the Pain of Others
Depend on Others
Keep Making it Simpler

Aspiring to be a mindful leader, and engaging in these seven practices helps calm our proclivity toward scanning for threats, satisfies the part of us always seeking something new and better, and cultivates empathy, beyond anything we can comprehend. Engaging in mindfulness practice tugs at our basic sanity in the midst of a world that often feels chaotic. Mindfulness practice knocks on the door of our in-born openness and trust in a world that can often feel cold and cynical.

I also keep returning to the themes of pain and possibility, but these are not the usual pain and possibility. Pain is the pain of change, of not getting what you want and getting what you don’t want. Possibility isn’t only about chance of getting what you desire. By contrast, mindfulness practice shifts our relationship with desire itself. Our freedom lies in a radical acceptance of what is. Seeing inner freedom as possible is a core underlying aspect of mindfulness and mindful leadership.

“Everyone wants to leave the endless changes” is a line from a 6th century verse by Dongshan, the founder of the Soto Zen School in China. Time and change are beyond our usual, rational understanding. You are not alone in your resistance to change. Staying with the questions, staying with what is, takes courage. Notice what happens when you fully enter this moment, this experience, with less resistance. And, when resistance arises, great! Notice your resistance. It is a terrific teacher.

Later in the same verse Dongshan says, “When we stop bending and fitting our lives, we come and sit by the fire.” What would it be like to pause, to stop bending and fitting your life? And sit, relaxed and alert, by the warmth of your innermost knowing, feeling the heat from the fire within you and around you that always burns.

The post Resisting Change, Leading Change appeared first on Marc Lesser.

Video: A Meditation to Tame Anxiety & Fear During 2020 Election Uncertainty

2020 has been a year fraught with tension and strife. Added to the stress of a pandemic, rising unemployment, ongoing racial injustice, and the increasingly visible impact of climate change on the planet, the 2020 US election has become a significant source of anxiety for a high percentage of Americans. In this 9-minute guided meditation, Zen teacher and mindful leadership expert Marc Lesser helps us to take a few moments to be still, quiet, and engaged while dealing with difficult emotions, allowing them to be present without hijacking us.

For more guided meditations to help you thrive, not just survive, visit https://bit.ly/MindfulLeaderMeditations

The post Video: A Meditation to Tame Anxiety & Fear During 2020 Election Uncertainty appeared first on Marc Lesser.

A Taste of Awe

As I write, it’s less than a week before the 2020 US election, and there’s a lot to be upset, nervous, angry, and disenchanted about. It’s unknown if our democracy will hold. It’s unknown if we will continue to pretend that the pandemic, systemic racism, and climate change don’t exist or don’t matter, as though these can be ignored in service to “the economy” and to maintaining political power. It’s depressing and frightening.

Pandemic coupled with election stress is taking a significant toll on people in the US. As a means to make a difference and to cope, many people are taking affirmative action, such as volunteering, donating, writing letters, making calls, and educating themselves. But in the midst of all this, it’s equally important that we also take care of ourselves.

How?

Try channeling a sense of awe – a feeling of reverence, respect, wonder and amazement. A recent study – Awe Walks Boost Emotional Well Being – from UC San Francisco and The Global Brain Health Institute suggests that simply taking a 15-minute weekly “awe walk” where you focus on your surroundings instead of yourself can lead to greater well being.

I’ve experimented with awe walks for years. Focusing on your surroundings is an excellent starting point, and exploring a very conscious and directed attitude of “beginner’s mind” can deepen the experience. For example, explore seeing a tree as though you are seeing it for the first time – let yourself be curious and amazed (trees truly are amazing!). Look around at flowers, the sky, clouds, houses, mailboxes, cars with this same sense of curiosity and wonder. Notice what it feels like for your body to move – consider the anatomy of walking with one foot lifting off the ground, while moving your arms, hips, and shoulders in harmony.

After one of these walks, experiment with writing what you noticed and how you felt. You can do this in a journal or on your computer; writing can be a way of installing and supporting greater well being.

At times, merely reflecting that we are here, alive, together, on this planet can be awe inspiring.

To explore the topic of awe further, take a look at The Art of Creating Awe – a TED talk by Rob Legoto, creator of the movie effects for the film Apollo 13.

Awe is, of course, rather subjective. But here are some other performances, quotes, and poems that inspire awe for me:

Billie Eilish singing her breakout song Ocean Eyes
Nina Simone playing piano and singing I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free
Neil Young performing Full Moon Rising
The London Symphony Orchestra performing Beethoven’s Symphony #9
“All I really need is a song in my heart, food in my belly, love in my family

–Raffi (watching my 1 year old grandson singing along with this children’s singer is also awe-inspiring!)
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within”

–James Baldwin (particularly relevant for these times)
“You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.”

–Franz Kafka
Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

What inspires awe for you right now?

The post A Taste of Awe appeared first on Marc Lesser.