Many blessings to everyone and especially to anyone creating peace, freedom, and wisdom (inside and outside).
“The work of artists is to find what’s humanly possible — possibility’s furthest reaches. But perhaps the work of citizens is to find what’s immediately possible. I can’t tell you how your work as artists contributes directly to your work as citizens, if in fact art does contribute directly, if in fact certitude and directness are not as inimical to art as despair is to politics. I’ve been writing plays for nearly two decades and I only know, or at least I think I know, that only in activism — organizing, arguing, fundraising, electioneering — can one exercise with some small degree of certainty one’s agency as an actor in politics, on the historical stage. Politics, as they say, is the art of the possible.”
— quoted from the School of Visual Arts commencement speech (in New York City, May 14, 2010) by Tony Kushner (b. 1956)
Please join me today (Wednesday, July 16th) at 4:30 PM or 7:15 PM for a yoga practice on Zoom.You can use the link from the “Class Schedules”calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email myra(at) ajoyfulpractice.com.
Wednesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “07162023 Hooked by the Classics”]
“If you have value as an artist it’s probably going to be in your capacity to let things inside you get past things that are placed there to keep you from telling the truth. The more you see things as clearly and coldly as you can, the more value you’re going to have.”
— Anthony Robert “Tony” Kushner
If you are thinking about suicide, worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, you can dial 988 (in the US) or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255)for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call this TALK line if you are struggling with addiction or involved in an abusive relationship. The Lifeline network is free, confidential, and available to all 24/7. YOU CAN TALK ABOUT ANYTHING.
White Flag is an app, which I have not yet researched, but which may be helpful if you need peer-to-peer (non-professional) support.
In the spirit of generosity (“dana”), the Zoom classes, recordings, and blog posts are freely given and freely received. If you are able to support these teachings, please do so as your heart moves you. (NOTE: You can donate even if you are “attending” a practice that is not designated as a “Common Ground Meditation Center” practice, or you can purchase class(es).
Donations are tax deductible; class purchases are not necessarily deductible.
Many blessings to everyone and especially to anyone practicing peace, freedom, and wisdom (inside and outside).
“But when the mind opens, and reveals the laws which traverse the universe, and make things what they are, then shrinks the great world at once into a mere illustration and fable of this mind. What am I? and What is? asks the human spirit with a curiosity new-kindled, but never to be quenched. Behold these outrunning laws, which our imperfect apprehension can see tend this way and that, but not come full circle. Behold these infinite relations, so like, so unlike; many, yet one. I would study, I would know, I would admire forever. These works of thought have been the entertainments of the human spirit in all ages.”
— quoted from the 1838 “Divinity School Address” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
You can read this coda before or after you check out the post excerpted below; because, it involves a “full circle” moment I had a few days ago when I was talking to a neighbor.
This neighbor, who has known me all my life, was talking about sharing a meal with old friends and about the conversations that did and did not come up during the meal. Then she said that the problem with the world was that we were taught, as children, that it wasn’t polite or appropriate to talk about certain subjects in public. I mentioned, as I do in the post excerpted below, that I learned this lesson in a different way. Now, here, I should note that my neighbor and I have different hair textures — and, ironically, her mother occasionally did my grandmother’s hair — but, she got my point.
What struck me about the moment is how some rules and mores get passed down (and around) without people knowing why they are the rules and laws that govern our behavior. For instance, here in the United States, certain laws related to slavery are no longer on the books and yet people — of all races and ethnicities — behave as if they are still the law of the land.
More to the point: We don’t talk about this! In some cases, we don’t discuss certain things because we don’t want to start an argument — which is why we need to practice getting “unhooked”.
In other cases, we don’t talk about certain subjects because we don’t want to be banned (for 27 years… and 6 days) as Ralph Waldo Emerson was after addressing the Harvard Divinity School graduating class today in 1838.
“The intuition of the moral sentiment is an insight of the perfection of the laws of the soul. These laws execute themselves. They are out of time, out of space, and not subject to circumstance. Thus; in the soul of man there is a justice whose retributions are instant and entire. He who does a good deed, is instantly ennobled. He who does a mean deed, is by the action itself contracted. He who puts off impurity, thereby puts on purity. If a man is at heart just, then in so far is he God; the safety of God, the immortality of God, the majesty of God do enter into that man with justice. If a man dissemble, deceive, he deceives himself, and goes out of acquaintance with his own being. A man in the view of absolute goodness, adores, with total humility. Every step so downward, is a step upward. The man who renounces himself, comes to himself.”
— quoted from the 1838 “Divinity School Address” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Please join me today (Tuesday, July 15th) at 12:00 PM or 7:15 PM for a yoga practice on Zoom. You can use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class.You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below or by emailing myra(at) ajoyfulpractice.com.
Tuesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “07152020 Peace & Compassion RWE”]
If you are thinking about suicide, worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, you can dial 988 (in the US) or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255)for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call this TALK line if you are struggling with addiction or involved in an abusive relationship. The Lifeline network is free, confidential, and available to all 24/7. YOU CAN TALK ABOUT ANYTHING.
White Flag is a new app, which I have not yet researched, but which may be helpful if you need peer-to-peer (non-professional) support.
In the spirit of generosity (“dana”), the Zoom classes, recordings, and blog posts are freely given and freely received. If you are able to support these teachings, please do so as your heart moves you. (NOTE: You can donate even if you are “attending” a practice that is not designated as a “Common Ground Meditation Center” practice, or you can purchase class(es). Donations are tax deductible; class purchases are not necessarily deductible.)
Many blessings to everyone and especially to anyone practicing peace, freedom, and wisdom (inside and outside).
For Those Who Missed It: The following was originally posted today in 2024.The 2025 prompt question was, “Who (or what) pushes your buttons, gets your goat, and gets you fired up like nobody’s business??”
You can request an audio recording of this practice or a previous practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email myra(at) ajoyfulpractice.com.
In the spirit of generosity (“dana”), the Zoom classes, recordings, and blog posts are freely given and freely received. If you are able to support these teachings, please do so as your heart moves you. (NOTE: You can donate even if you are “attending” a practice that is not designated as a “Common Ground Meditation Center” practice, or you can purchase class(es).
Donations are tax deductible; class purchases are not necessarily deductible.
“Somebody says a mean word to you and then something in you tightens — that’s the shenpa. Then it starts to spiral into low self-esteem, or blaming them, or anger at them, denigrating yourself. And maybe if you have strong addictions, you just go right for your addiction to cover over the bad feeling that arose when that person said that mean word to you. This is a mean word that gets you, hooks you. Another mean word may not affect you but we’re talking about where it touches that sore place — that’s a shenpa. Someone criticizes you — they criticize your work, they criticize your appearance, they criticize your child — and, shenpa: almost co-arising.”
— Pema Chödrön
For the record, I am not going to say, practice, teach (or preach) anything I haven’t been teaching, practicing, and saying (or preaching) for years. Maybe I will tweak the phrasing. Maybe you will hear/see/understand things in a special way — thereby gaining new insight. Either way, regardless of all that is happening in the world, it still comes back to this: Sometimes the only thing you can do is not make it worse.
Yes, sometimes we can do things that make our life and the lives around us better. Sometimes we can write legislation, vote for legislation, and/or vote for people who write and/or vote for legislation that creates more opportunity for peace, freedom, prosperity, and wisdom. Sometimes we can create organizations or work, volunteer, and/or donate to organizations that cultivate peace, freedom, prosperity, and wisdom. There are, however, times when we are too poor — in spirit, heart/courage, skills, and/or material resources — to do anything other than send “thoughts and prayers.”
All that being, I am of the mindset that we can not know what we are able to do and/or what is the best way to respond — rather than react — until we sit down, get still, get quiet, and get honest about our intentions. Once we are grounded and centered, then we can act accordingly. In other words, practice the four R’s:
RECOGNIZE (that your buttons have gotten pushed and you have the urge/impulse to react).
REFRAIN (from doing anything, especially that knee jerk reaction).
RELAX (maybe breathe peace in and breath peace out, or do use a centering prayer).
RESOLVE (to move forward with mindfulness and intention).
This is the practice taught by the American Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön, who was born today in 1936. I often add another R (or two):
REMEMBER (your intention and why you are doing the thing you are doing).
RECOGNIZE (again, that sometimes the only thing you can do is not make it worse).
You may be thinking, I don’t have time for all that “navel gazing” and introspection. And, yes, there are definitely times that require a quick response. At the same time, if you make this practice a habit, it only takes a split second to engage when you really need it.
“By trying this, we learn exactly where we are open and where we are closed. We learn quickly where we would do well to just practice abiding compassionately with our own confused feelings, before we try to work with other people, because right now our efforts would probably make a bigger mess. I know many people who want to be teachers, or feed the homeless, or start clinics, or try in some way to truly help others. Despite their generous intentions, they don’t always realize that if they plan to work closely with people they may be in for a lot of difficulty—a lot of feeling hooked. The people they hope to help will not always see them as saviors. In fact, they will probably criticize them and give them a hard time. Teachers and helpers of all kinds will be of limited use if they are doing their work to build up their own egos.”
— quoted from “Unlimited Friendliness: Three steps to genuine compassion” (Winter 2009 issue of Tricycle) by Pema Chödrön
There is no playlist for the Common Ground Meditation Center practices.
The playlist used in previous years is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “07142020 Compassion & Peace for Pema”]
“Prince Guatama, who had become Buddha, saw one of his followers meditating under a tree at the edge of the Ganges River. Upon inquiring why he was meditating, his follower stated he was attempting to become so enlightened he could cross the river unaided. Buddha gave him a few pennies and said: “Why don’t you seek passage with that boatman. It is much easier.”
— quoted from Matt Caron and from Elephant Journal
If you are thinking about suicide, worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, you can dial 988 (in the US) or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255)for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call this TALK line if you are struggling with addiction or involved in an abusive relationship. The Lifeline network is free, confidential, and available to all 24/7. YOU CAN TALK ABOUT ANYTHING.
White Flag is an app, which I have not yet researched, but which may be helpful if you need peer-to-peer (non-professional) support.
“If you are curious, you’ll find the puzzles around you. If you are determined, you will solve them.”
— Ernö Rubik
Please join me for a 65-minute virtual yoga practice on Zoom today (Sunday, July 13th) at 2:30 PM.Use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below or by emailing myra(at) ajoyfulpractice.com.
Sunday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for the “06032020 How Can We See, Dr. Wiesel” playlist.]
If you are thinking about suicide, worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, you can dial 988 (in the US) or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255)for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call this TALK line if you are struggling with addiction or involved in an abusive relationship. The Lifeline network is free, confidential, and available to all 24/7. YOU CAN TALK ABOUT ANYTHING.
White Flag is an app, which I have not yet researched, but which may be helpful if you need peer-to-peer (non-professional) support.
In the spirit of generosity (“dana”), the Zoom classes, recordings, and blog posts are freely given and freely received. If you are able to support these teachings, please do so as your heart moves you. (NOTE: You can donate even if you are “attending” a practice that is not designated as a “Common Ground Meditation Center” practice, or you can purchase class(es). Donations are tax deductible; class purchases are not necessarily deductible.)
Peace and blessings to all, and especially to those completing the the Apostles’ (Peter & Paul) Fast during this 5th Week after Pentecost and/or beginning the month of Kalimát (“Words”)!
For Those Who Missed It: The following compilation post containing was originally posted in 2023. Class details and some formatting have been revised. Links and a little extra note have been added for context, and one link was converted into an excerpt.
“When from a long distance past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny, and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.”
— quoted from “Overture” in Swann’s Way, Volume 1 of Remembrance of Things Past (or In Search of Lost Time) by Marcel Proust
You’re probably familiar with that old adage that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” but what’s the value of a thousand words that paint a picture? For that matter, what of a million? As I mentioned a few days ago, Marcel Proust wrote over a million words about memories and reflections — and, also, about how we recollect. He wrote about the very human thing we all do: look back over our days.
Sometimes we do it intentionally, deliberately — like the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who would end each day by reviewing what he had done between rising and retiring. The stoic emperor’s practice is a good reflection meditation, which can help us be more productive and (sometimes) can help us to sleep better. It’s a way to literally put to bed unresolved issues that might otherwise keep us awake. Unfortunately, sometimes, we find ourselves in bed regurgitating memories that no longer serve us.
“We are able to find everything in our memory, which is like a dispensary or chemical laboratory in which chance steers our hand sometimes to a soothing drug and sometimes to a dangerous poison.”
— quoted from The Captive, Volume 5 of Remembrance of Things Past (or In Search of Lost Time) by Marcel Proust
Memories can also pop up, unexpectedly. We can be eating a madeleine or a biscuit, sitting by a moonlit lake, reading a book, listening to music, sitting down to take off or put on our shoes, or practicing on our mat and suddenly — out of nowhere it seems — we are bombarded with a very visceral memory. It seems as if it comes from nowhere, but it actually comes from inside of us. It is visceral because we not only feel it all the way to our bones, it comes out of our bones, out of our tissues, out of our minds and bodies.
So, how do you show up, in the present, when your mind-body can — at any given moment — transport you into the past? How do you make remembering useful? How do you very deliberately, very intentionally, harness the power of your memories and your ability to reflect?
What I’m really asking is: How do you remember with the intention of Thoreau and the eye of Eastman? (And, if you have that “eye of Eastman” how do you use it without (metaphorically) losing focus of the present moment?)
“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”
— quoted from a journal entry dated August 5, 1851, as printed in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: Journal, Walden Edition by Henry David Thoreau, compiled and edited by Franklin Benjamin Sanborn and Bradford Torrey
Born today in 1817, in Concord Massachusetts, Henry David Thoreau was a teacher and a writer, who is remembered as a writer and naturalist. He is also remembered as being very close to his brother John. I have heard that the brothers were close despite having different temperaments. Henry David was introverted and all about the books; John was out-going, extroverted, and fun-loving. Additionally, John supported Henry David’s every endeavor — helping him pay for tuition at Harvard and even started a new school when Henry David was fired for objecting to corporal punishment. They shared a lot of memories.
When John died, unexpectedly, in his brother’s arms, Henry David floundered. He lived with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s family for a period of time and served as a teacher to the Emerson children. Along with Edward Hoar, he accidentally burned down several hundred acres of Walden Woods. Not long after the fire, Emerson allowed Thoreau to retreat to a cabin located on 14 acres of land, about 1.5 miles from Emerson House.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
— quoted from “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” in Walden, or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau lived in the cabin, on the banks of Walden Pond, for two years, two months, and two days. He spent that time writing his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, which he self-published on May 30, 1849. The book was a memorial for his brother and it related the story of a trip the brothers took in 1839. He also wrote the work most people associate with the name Thoreau: a collection of essays entitled Walden, or Life in the Woods.
Both of Thoreau’s books are full of words that painted pictures. He was, after all, a “mental picture” taker. After his brother died unexpectedly, Henry David Thoreau was undoubtedly comforted by the images formed by his words, but think of how he might have felt (or might have written) had he and John been born decades after George Eastman.
“I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”
— quoted from “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” in Walden, or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau
George Eastman, born today in 1854, in Waterville, New York, was an entrepreneur, inventor, and philanthropist who founded the Eastman Kodak Company. He and two older sisters (Ellen Maria and Katie) were initially raised on a 10-acre farm his parents purchased shortly before George was born. Unfortunately, their father — a successful entrepreneur himself — died of a brain disorder when Eastman was almost 8 years old. By then, the Eastman family was living in Rochester, NY and life on the farm was but a memory.
George, who had been self-taught until his father’s death, was sent to private school and his mother took in boarders in order to survive. By the time he was 15, the youngest of his sisters (Katie) had died of polio. Soon after her death, George left school and started a photography business. By the time he was 30 years old, he had patented the first practical “roll of film”. Before the age of 35, he had developed the Kodak Black camera, designed to use roll film. Eventually, his company became the first, and the leading company, to supply film stock. Along the way, George Eastman changed the way people remembered — and he incorporated what would become a billion dollar company (all with a made up name).
“What we do during our working hours determines what we have; what we do in our leisure hours determines what we are.”
— George Eastman
While some of details of their lives are very different, Henry David Thoreau and George Eastman were both very private men, who lived very solitary lives, and who believed in community. They also believed in serving the community — albeit in slightly different ways.
Henry David Thoreau was a transcendentalist and an abolitionist who read the Bhagavad Gītā and believed in civil disobedience. He was criticized for a number of things throughout his lifetime, including the decision to live alone with those regulated to the fringes of society (which some viewed as “unmanly”). His maternal grandfather, Asa Dunbar, led a student revolt at Harvard in 1766 (the first recorded in the United States) and Henry David spent a (very) short period of time in jail for “tax evasion” — which was not the first time he had refused to pay something he thought he should not have to pay. It is possible (and probable) that he also helped others escape tax liens.
“Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like. Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children I maintained…. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience.”
— quoted from “Economy” in Walden, or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau
George Eastman also lived a solitary life (in that he never married or had children). He was considered a progressive in the social and political sense. He fought the labor union movement by offering worker benefit programs, which included employee profit-sharing for all employees. He also promoted Florence McAnaney to the top position in the personnel department — establishing her as one of the first women to hold an executive position in a major U. S. company. He also founded “an independent non-partisan agency for keeping citizens informed” in Rochester, which continues to this day.
“If a man has wealth, he has to make a choice, because there is the money heaping up. He can keep it together in a bunch, and then leave it for others to administer after he is dead. Or he can get it into action and have fun, while he is still alive. I prefer getting it into action and adapting it to human needs, and making the plan work.”
— George Eastman
Henry David Thoreau was not a financially wealthy man. However his contributions to the world are priceless. His philosophy and viewpoints regarding “unjust laws” (like the Fugitive Slave Law, which he frequently attacked in lectures), influenced Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. His legacy to the modern world includes over 20 volumes worth of articles, essays, journals, and poetry.
On the flip side, George Eastman was a philanthropist, who donated (often anonymously, as “Mr. Smith”) millions of dollars to a variety of organizations including the University of Rochester (which was also the beneficiary of his estate); the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT); and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He established the Eastman School of Music and schools of dentistry and medicine at the University of Rochester, as well as the Eastman Dental Hospital in London, England. Low-income residents of London and other European cities also benefited from Eastman’s generosity as he provided funds for multiple clinics across the pond. Additionally, donated millions to Tuskegee University and Hampton University — historically Black universities.
“Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth….”
— George Eastman
Please join me today (Saturday, July 12th) at 12:00 PM for a yoga practice on Zoom. You can use the link from the “Class Schedules”calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email myra(at) ajoyfulpractice.com.
Saturday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “07122020 Strenuous, Deliberate Life Photo”]
If you are thinking about suicide, worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, you can dial 988 (in the US) or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255)for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call this TALK line if you are struggling with addiction or involved in an abusive relationship. The Lifeline network is free, confidential, and available to all 24/7. YOU CAN TALK ABOUT ANYTHING.
White Flag is an app, which I have not yet researched, but which may be helpful if you need peer-to-peer (non-professional) support.
In the spirit of generosity (“dana”), the Zoom classes, recordings, and blog posts are freely given and freely received. If you are able to support these teachings, please do so as your heart moves you. (NOTE: You can donate even if you are “attending” a practice that is not designated as a “Common Ground Meditation Center” practice, or you can purchase class(es). Donations are tax deductible; class purchases are not necessarily deductible.)
Peace and blessings to all, and especially to those commemorating the Martyrdom of the Báb!
This is the “missing” post for Wednesday, July 9th.Some links will take you to sites outside of WordPress (and are marked accordingly).You can request an audio recording of this practice or a previous practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email myra(at) ajoyfulpractice.com.
In the spirit of generosity (“dana”), the Zoom classes, recordings, and blog posts are freely given and freely received. If you are able to support these teachings, please do so as your heart moves you. (NOTE: You can donate even if you are “attending” a practice that is not designated as a “Common Ground Meditation Center” practice, or you can purchase class(es).
Donations are tax deductible; class purchases are not necessarily deductible.
But those ways are dependent on our sense of self.
What if, however, we aren’t the one that is dreaming? What if we are living inside someone else’s dream? How would we even know?
In Christopher Nolan’s science fiction thriller Inception (which premiered July 8, 2010), characters refer to a “totem” the status or presence of which indicates a dream state versus a waking state. In real life, however, we may not have a “spinning top” or “loaded die” — we only have our mind… and our sense of self.
“If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self—himself—he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it.”
— quoted from The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks
Born today (July 9th) in 1933, Dr. Oliver Sacks was a neurologist, naturalist, historian of science, and best-selling author who was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), for services to medicine, in the Queen’s Birthday Honours on November 26, 2008, and received a number of awards and honorary degrees from several professional associations, universities, and colleges. He was also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP), as well as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (Literature); a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences; a Honorary Fellow at the Queen’s College, Oxford; and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Class IV—Humanities and Arts, Section 4—Literature.
With the exception of a four year period, from 1939-1943 — when he and his older brother (Michael) were evacuated and sent to boarding school to escape the Blitz during World War II, Oliver Sacks was born in raised in Cricklewood, a town in North London, England. He was the youngest of four children born to two Jewish doctors. His father, Samuel Sacks, a Lithuanian Jewish doctor. His mother, Muriel Elsie Landau, was one of the first female surgeons in England — and she would sometimes bring “work” home with her.
Given his childhood, it is not surprising that Dr. Sacks had an early interest in chemistry and that, in 1958, he earned a medical degree from The Queen’s College, Oxford. He migrated to the United States soon after he received his degree and, after completing an internship and residency in California, he moved to New York City where he began to make a name for himself.
Dr. Sacks published 18 books and hundreds of articles and essays consumed by scientist as well as lay people. His books included two memoirs (Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood and On the Move: A Life), as well as Everything in Its Place, a posthumously collection of essays. He became a household name when his 1973 book Awakenings — which chronicled his work with survivors of the 1920s sleeping sickness encephalitis lethargica epidemic — was turned into an Academy Award-nominated movie starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. Some of his other books were also turned into feature films, animated shorts, plays, and an opera. His work also inspired the creation of dance pieces, find art, and music.
Throughout his career, Dr. Sacks wrote about everything from music to color blindness to sign language to migraines to hallucinations to gratitude to his own experience with prosopagnosia (also known as “face blindness”) — which was also the diagnosis of “the man who mistook his wife for a hat”. Finally, he wrote about his own experience with death and dying.
Since yesterday was all about Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and her work related to death and dying and living, part of me wants to skip right to the end — because Dr. Oliver Sacks’s experience with death and dying was just as interesting as his experience with life. But, since his life was so interesting, I am resisting the urge to skip to the end!
— “[The five types of mental activity] are correct knowledge, misconception, imagination, sleep [or knowledge found in deep sleep] and memory.”
While the subjects about which Oliver Sacks wrote may seem very different on the surface, what connected all of his work was the brain (and the way the brain works). These are also subjects that have fascinated me since I was a young child.
Similar to Dr. Sacks, my fascination probably started because I grew up with medicine in the household. My father has a PhD in neurology and physiology and so I grew around him teaching medical students about the brain and the nervous system. Then I started reading about psychoanalysis. Fast forward to my adulthood and, when I started practicing yoga, I (eventually) discovered that Patanjali devoted a lot of the Yoga Sūtras to how the brain/mind works and how we can work the brain/mind.
While there are some obvious differences between Western science and Patanjali’s philosophical discourse related to how afflicted/dysfunctional thought patterns lead to suffering — which can manifest physically as well as mentally, emotional, and/or energetically — it is also interesting to note the ways in which modern science dovetails with ancient science when it comes to perception, understanding, and the ways in which our mind-bodies process sensation/information (when we’re awake and when we are asleep).
“Rodolfo Llinás and his colleagues at New York University, comparing the electrophysiological properties of the brain in waking and dreaming, postulate a single fundamental mechanism for both—ceaseless inner talking between cerebral cortex and thalamus, a ceaseless interplay of image and feeling irrespective of whether there is sensory input or not. When there is sensory input, this interplay integrates it to generate waking consciousness, but in the absence of sensory input it continues to generate brain states, those brain states we call fantasy, hallucination, or dreams. Thus waking consciousness is dreaming—but dreaming constrained by external reality.”
— quoted from the commentary/notes in An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales by Oliver Sacks
MUSIC, BEETHOVEN, & MEMORY
“‘Every act of perception,’ [Dr. Gerald] Edelman writes, ‘is to some degree an act of creation, and every act of memory is to some degree an act of imagination.’”
“Many composers, indeed, do not compose initially or entirely at an instrument but in their minds. There is no more extraordinary example of this than Beethoven, who continued to compose (and whose compositions rose to greater and greater heights) years after he had become totally deaf. It is possible that his musical imagery was even intensified by deafness…. There is an analogous phenomenon in those who lose their sight; some people who become blind may have, paradoxically, heightened visually imagery.”
— quoted from Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Dr. Oliver Sacks
Serendipitously (because the initial impulse had nothing to do with this practice), I did a deep dive into the amygdala on Tuesday night and started learning how the cells many of us associate with fear-based reactions actually processes all sensation and pays particular attention to anything the mind/brain thinks is relevant to survival. This can be things we might (consciously) consider good/positive/safe as well as things we might (consciously) consider bad/negative/dangerous. This process also contributes to how we form and retain memories — all of which also comes up in various texts related to the Yoga Philosophy.
Research has shown that imagining yourself doing something over a period of time can actually help you do the thing better — as long as you’re imagining yourself doing the thing in the best way possible (i.e., doing things the correct way). For instance, you can benefit from imagining yourself practicing yoga… the right way.
What is the wrong way to practice (or imagining yourself practicing)? Any way that is not mindful.
Remember, movement is good for the mind-body and part of what can make yoga good movement is the repetition — which the brain/mind also appreciates.
MORE MUSIC
“There is certainly a universal and unconscious propensity to impose a rhythm even when one hears a series of identical sounds at constant intervals… We tend to hear the sound of a digital clock, for example, as ‘tick-tock, tick-tock’ – even though it is actually ‘tick tick, tick tick.’”
“There are, of course, inherent tendencies to repetition in music itself. Our poetry, our ballads, our songs are full of repetition; nursery rhymes and the little chants and songs we use to teach young children have choruses and refrains. We are attracted to repetition, even as adults; we want the stimulus and the reward again and again, and in music we get it.”
“Music is part of being human”
— quoted from Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Dr. Oliver Sacks
CLICK ON THE EXCERPT BELOW FOR A POST ABOUT MUSIC & THE MIND.
“A MONTH ago, I felt that I was in good health, even robust health. At 81, I still swim a mile a day. But my luck has run out — a few weeks ago I learned that I have multiple metastases in the liver….
I feel grateful that I have been granted nine years of good health and productivity since the original diagnosis, but now I am face to face with dying. The cancer occupies a third of my liver, and though its advance may be slowed, this particular sort of cancer cannot be halted.
It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me. I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can. In this I am encouraged by the words of one of my favorite philosophers, David Hume, who, upon learning that he was mortally ill at age 65, wrote a short autobiography in a single day in April of 1776. He titled it My Own Life.
‘I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution,’ he wrote. ‘I have suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange, have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a moment’s abatement of my spirits. I possess the same ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company.’”
— quoted from the essay “My Own Life” by Oliver Sacks (published in The New York Times, Feb. 19, 2015)
For most of his life, Dr. Oliver Sacks was pretty quiet about his personal life. For most of his career, he didn’t write about being gay or about the fact that he was celibate for 35 years. However, in his 2015 autobiography On the Move: A Life, he wrote about how his friendship with Bill Hayes, a contributor to The New York Times, whom he met 2008, evolved into a long-term partnership. Their partnership lasted until Dr. Sacks died in 2015.
Just as was the case with everything else he found interesting, Dr. Sacks wrote an essay about the fact that he was dying. It was published in The New York Times a little over six months before he died. It is, in some ways, an obituary. It is also letter of gratitude and thanksgiving, for a life well lived.
Finally, it is a bit of wisdom — really, several bits of wisdom — about living.
“I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers.
Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”
— quoted from the essay “My Own Life” by Oliver Sacks (published in The New York Times, Feb. 19, 2015)
Wednesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “07092022 Awareness of the Mind’s Awareness”]
A FINAL NOTE ABOUT MOVING
“There is a direct union of oneself with a motorcycle, for it is so geared to one’s proprioception, one’s movements and postures, that it responds almost like part of one’s own body. Bike and rider become a single, indivisible entity; it is very much like riding a horse. A car cannot become part of one in quite the same way.”
— quoted from the chapter “Muscle Beach” in On the Move: A Life by Oliver Sacks
Click on the excerpt below for my brief Kiss My Asana post and short video about proprioception.
If you are thinking about suicide, worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, you can dial 988 (in the US) or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255)for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call this TALK line if you are struggling with addiction or involved in an abusive relationship. The Lifeline network is free, confidential, and available to all 24/7. YOU CAN TALK ABOUT ANYTHING.
White Flag is an app, which I have not yet researched, but which may be helpful if you need peer-to-peer (non-professional) support.
Peace and blessings to all, and especially to those commemorating the Martyrdom of the Báb!
“Rodolfo Llinás and his colleagues at New York University, comparing the electrophysiological properties of the brain in waking and dreaming, postulate a single fundamental mechanism for both—ceaseless inner talking between cerebral cortex and thalamus, a ceaseless interplay of image and feeling irrespective of whether there is sensory input or not. When there is sensory input, this interplay integrates it to generate waking consciousness, but in the absence of sensory input it continues to generate brain states, those brain states we call fantasy, hallucination, or dreams. Thus waking consciousness is dreaming—but dreaming constrained by external reality.”
— quoted from the commentary/notes in An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales by Oliver Sacks (b. 07/09/1933)
Please join me today (Wednesday, July 9th) at 4:30 PM or 7:15 PM for a yoga practice on Zoom.You can use the link from the “Class Schedules”calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email myra(at) ajoyfulpractice.com.
Wednesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “07092022 Awareness of the Mind’s Awareness”]
If you are thinking about suicide, worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, you can dial 988 (in the US) or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255)for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call this TALK line if you are struggling with addiction or involved in an abusive relationship. The Lifeline network is free, confidential, and available to all 24/7. YOU CAN TALK ABOUT ANYTHING.
White Flag is an app, which I have not yet researched, but which may be helpful if you need peer-to-peer (non-professional) support.
In the spirit of generosity (“dana”), the Zoom classes, recordings, and blog posts are freely given and freely received. If you are able to support these teachings, please do so as your heart moves you. (NOTE: You can donate even if you are “attending” a practice that is not designated as a “Common Ground Meditation Center” practice, or you can purchase class(es). Donations are tax deductible; class purchases are not necessarily deductible.)
“A MONTH ago, I felt that I was in good health, even robust health. At 81, I still swim a mile a day. But my luck has run out — a few weeks ago I learned that I have multiple metastases in the liver….
I feel grateful that I have been granted nine years of good health and productivity since the original diagnosis, but now I am face to face with dying. The cancer occupies a third of my liver, and though its advance may be slowed, this particular sort of cancer cannot be halted.
It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me. I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can. In this I am encouraged by the words of one of my favorite philosophers, David Hume, who, upon learning that he was mortally ill at age 65, wrote a short autobiography in a single day in April of 1776. He titled it My Own Life.
‘I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution,’ he wrote. ‘I have suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange, have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a moment’s abatement of my spirits. I possess the same ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company.’”
— quoted from the essay “My Own Life” by Oliver Sacks (published in The New York Times, Feb. 19, 2015)
CORRECTION: Original post contained wrong date and class times.
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
“Strange though it may seem to you, one of the most productive avenues for growth is found through the study and experience of death. Perhaps death reminds us that our time is limited and that we’d better accomplish our purpose here on earth before our time runs out. Whatever the reason….Those who have been immersed in the tragedy of massive death during wartime, and who have faced it squarely, never allowing their senses and feelings to become numbed and indifferent, have emerged from their experiences with growth and humanness greater than that achieved through almost any other means.”
— quoted from Death: The Final Stage of Growth by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
There are places in the world where people have almost always had to grapple with life and death and dying on a daily basis. However, for many in the world, the last few years have included more struggles with life and death and dying.
These are hard things to contemplate, but they are also important things to contemplate; because, death and dying (and the feelings associated with them) are all part of life.
My condolences to people who are dealing with death and dying, especially when it is an unexpected loss, a tragic loss, and/or the loss of those who were so very young.
May their memories bring you comfort.
For Those Who Missed It: The following was originally posted today in 2020 & 2023. Class details and some formatting have been updated. I have also moved some quotes around.
“I cannot leave out the problem of life and death. Many young people and others have come out to serve others and to labor for peace, through their love for all who are suffering. They are always mindful of the fact that the most important question is the question of life and death, but often not realizing that life and death are but two faces of one reality. Once we realize that we will have the courage to encounter both of them….
Now I see that if one doesn’t know how to die, one can hardly know how to live—because death is a part of life.”
— quoted from The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation by Thích Nhất Hạnh
Today’s post and class will be tricky for some. Today’s theme is always tricky for some. Although, I would assert that it shouldn’t be. After all, death is part of life. That can come off glib and easy to say — specifically because it is a little glib, or shallow, because it belies the fact that loss is hard and that most of us haven’t/don’t really face the concept of death until we (or someone we love) is dying. The statement “death is part of life” is also shallow because it belies the fact that, even if we meditate on and prepare for death, loss is still hard. Yes, death and dying are something that we all have to deal with, but to just leave it at that is what makes the subject tricky. We have to, as Thích Nhất Hạnh instructs in The Miracle of Mindfulness, go deeper.
“The five stages – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance – are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with the one[s] we lost. They are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling. But they are not stops on some linear timeline in grief. Not everyone goes through all of them or goes in a prescribed order.”
— quoted from On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Grief by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler
Born in Zürich, Switzerland today in 1926, Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was the oldest triplet in a family of Protestant Christians. Despite her father’s wishes, she grew up to be a psychiatrist known for her work on death and dying, life and death, and the five stages of grief. Her ultimate work was in part inspired by her work with refugees in Zürich during World War II. After the war, she participated in relief efforts in Poland and, at some point, visited the Maidanek concentration camp in Poland. As a young woman, standing in a place of destruction, she was struck by the compassion and human resilience that would inspire someone to carve hundreds of butterflies into the walls of the death camp.
Dr. Kübler-Ross originally planned on being a pediatrician. However, she married a fellow medical student (in New York in 1958) and became pregnant. The pregnancy resulted in the loss of her pediatrics residency, so she switched to psychiatry. Unfortunately, she also suffered two miscarriages before giving birth to two children. The loss of her residency and her miscarriages were not her first (or last) experiences with loss. Her marriage ended in divorce and, when she attempted to build a Virginia hospice for infants and children with HIV/AIDS, someone set fire to her home (in 1994). The house and all of the belongings inside were lost to arson.
When she started her psychiatry residency, Dr. Kübler-Ross was struck by the way hospitals in the United States treated patients who were dying. She began to host lectures where medical students were forced to meet and listen to dying people outside of a clinical setting. Her intention was to get medical students to “[react] like human beings instead of scientists…and be able to treat [terminal patients] with compassion the same compassion that you would want for yourself.” As she moved through her career, she continued hosting the series of seminars which used interviews with terminally ill patients. Her work was met with both praise and criticism — most of the latter was because she was so obviously questioning the traditional practices of psychiatry. In 1969, she released her seminal book On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families, which provided a grief model for people who were dying and for those they were leaving behind.
“Those who have the strength and the love to sit with a dying patient in the silence that goes beyond words will know that this moment is neither frightening nor painful, but a peaceful cessation of the functioning of the body.”
— quoted from On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Dr. Kübler-Ross explained from the beginning that her outline was not intended to be linear and yet, people wanted to be able to step through the stages with grace and ease. The problem with that mindset is… life is messy and so is grieving. A perfect example of the messiness of life and death can be found in Dr. Kübler-Ross’s own life… and death. In 1995, after a series of strokes which left her partially paralyzed on her left side, she found herself confronted with the reality of her own death. Added to her grief was the closing of Shanti Nilaya (“Final Home of Peace”), a healing and growth center which she had established in the later 1970’s (shortly before her divorce) after convincing her husband to buy 40-acres of land in Escondido, California.
Despite a 2002 interview with The Arizona Republic, where she stated that she was ready to die, Dr. Kübler-Ross struggled with the fact that she could not choose her own time of death. He son Ken, Founder and President of the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation, served as her caregiver for the last decade of her life. In a 2019 interview with the hosts of ABC Radio’s Life Matters, Ken said, “A few weeks before she passed she said to me, ‘Kenneth, I don’t want to die.’”
“It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we’re alive – to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.”
— quoted from Death: The Final Stage of Growth by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Ken Ross admitted that he was taken aback by his mother’s statement that she did not want to die. It turned out, Dr. Kübler-Ross was not only physically paralyzed; she was also stuck in the anger stage of her own grief model. She caught flak in the media — as if she were somehow above being human simply because she had studied, taught, and spoken so openly and so frequently on the subject of death and dying. She did not stay there (in the anger stage), however, as her family and friends encouraged her to keep living and to keep processing the experience of dying. Her son even literally pushed her out of her comfort zone by assisting her in wheelchair marathons and in visiting her sisters in Europe.
“[She] let herself be loved and taken care of, then that was her final lesson — and then she was allowed to graduate. For years I thought about this and what I realized was that’s exactly what she teaches. [When] you learn your lessons you’re allowed to graduate.”
— Ken Ross in a 2019 “Life Matters” interview on ABC Radio National
“In Switzerland I was educated in line with the basic premise: work, work, work. You are only a valuable human being if you work. This is utterly wrong. Half working, half dancing – that is the right mixture. I myself have danced and played too little.”
— Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D. in an interview
Please join me today (Tuesday, July 8th) at 12:00 PM or 7:15 PM for a yoga practice on Zoom. You can use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class.You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below or by emailing myra(at) ajoyfulpractice.com.
Tuesday’s playlist is available on YouTube andSpotify. [Look for “07082020 On Death & Dying”]
“If we could raise one generation with unconditional love, there would be no Hitlers. We need to teach the next generation of children from Day One that they are responsible for their lives. Mankind’s greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear.”
— Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D.
If you are thinking about suicide, worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, you can dial 988 (in the US) or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255)for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call this TALK line if you are struggling with addiction or involved in an abusive relationship. The Lifeline network is free, confidential, and available to all 24/7. YOU CAN TALK ABOUT ANYTHING.
White Flag is an app, which I have not yet researched, but which may be helpful if you need peer-to-peer (non-professional) support.
In the spirit of generosity (“dana”), the Zoom classes, recordings, and blog posts are freely given and freely received. If you are able to support these teachings, please do so as your heart moves you. (NOTE: You can donate even if you are “attending” a practice that is not designated as a “Common Ground Meditation Center” practice, or you can purchase class(es). Donations are tax deductible; class purchases are not necessarily deductible.)
Revised 07/08/2023 & 2025.
### “People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” EKR ###
Many blessings to everyone and especially to anyone celebrating Ivana-Kupala, saints, and/or cultivating a heart full of peace, freedom, and wisdom (inside and outside).
For Those Who Missed It: The following was originally posted today in 2024. Some links, formatting, and class details have been updated. (The 2024 weather report was deleted.) The 2025 prompt question was, “If you were going to give or receive a gift, would you prefer bread, chocolate, and/or music?”
You can request an audio recording of this practice or a previous practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email myra (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.
In the spirit of generosity (“dana”), the Zoom classes, recordings, and blog posts are freely given and freely received. If you are able to support these teachings, please do so as your heart moves you. (NOTE: You can donate even if you are “attending” a practice that is not designated as a “Common Ground Meditation Center” practice, or you can purchase class(es).
Donations are tax deductible; class purchases are not necessarily deductible.
“Wie ich Dich liebe, Du meine Sonne, ich kann mit Worten Dir’s nicht sagen. Nur meine Sehnsucht kann ich Dir klagen und meine Liebe, meine Wonne!”
In which way I love you, my sunbeam, I cannot tell you with words. Only my longing, my love and my bliss can I with anguish declare.”
— German and English lyrics of a love poem (to Alma Mahler-Werfel) associated with the final movement of “Symphony No. 5” composed (and written) by Gustav Mahler (b. 07/07/1860)
Born today in 1860, the composer Gustav Mahler expressed his love for his wife Alma with poems and music, like the Adagietto (“little Adagio”) movement in “Symphony No. 5.” In a similar situation, others might give the gift of chocolate… or bread, both of which we are celebrating today.
CLICK ON THE EXCERPT TITLE BELOW FOR MORE (including a fun video).
If you are thinking about suicide, worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, you can dial 988 (in the US) or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255)for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call this TALK line if you are struggling with addiction or involved in an abusive relationship. The Lifeline network is free, confidential, and available to all 24/7. YOU CAN TALK ABOUT ANYTHING.
White Flag is an app, which I have not yet researched, but which may be helpful if you need peer-to-peer (non-professional) support.
Many blessings to everyone and especially to anyone cultivating a heart full of peace, freedom, and wisdom (inside and outside).
“On the occasion of my 90th birthday, I understand that well-wishers and friends in many places, including Tibetan communities, are gathering for celebrations. I particularly appreciate the fact that many of you are using the occasion to engage in initiatives that highlight the importance of compassion, warm-heartedness, and altruism.
I am just a simple Buddhist monk; I don’t normally engage in birthday celebrations. However, since you are organizing events focused on my birthday I wish to share some thoughts.
While it is important to work for material development, it is vital to focus on achieving peace of mind through cultivating a good heart and by being compassionate, not just toward near and dear ones, but toward everyone. Through this, you will contribute to making the world a better place.”
— quoted from “90th Birthday Message” (dated July 5, 2025) by Dalai Lama
Born today in 1935, His Holiness the Dalai Lama is doing what he typically does: teaching and sending a message to the world.
This year, his birthday message focuses on continuing his “commitments of promoting human values, religious harmony, drawing attention to the ancient Indian wisdom which explains the workings of mind and emotions, and Tibetan culture and heritage, which has so much potential to contribute to the world through its emphasis on peace of mind and compassion.”
He is also spending this weekend sharing how his legacy will continue — and how that legacy includes a 15th Dalai Lama, as well as each and every person dedicated to cultivating a good heart.
“I develop determination and courage in my daily life through the teachings of the Buddha and Indian masters such as Shantideva, whose following aspiration I strive to uphold.
As long as space endures, As long as sentient being remain, Until then, may I too remain To dispel the miseries of the world.
Thank you for using the opportunity of my birthday to cultivate peace of mind and compassion.”
— quoted from “90th Birthday Message” (dated July 5, 2025) by Dalai Lama
Please join me for a 65-minute virtual yoga practice on Zoom today (Sunday, July 6th) at 2:30 PM.Use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below or by emailing myra(at) ajoyfulpractice.com.
Sunday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “07062021 HHDL Big Day”]
If you are thinking about suicide, worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, you can dial 988 (in the US) or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255)for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call this TALK line if you are struggling with addiction or involved in an abusive relationship. The Lifeline network is free, confidential, and available to all 24/7. YOU CAN TALK ABOUT ANYTHING.
White Flag is an app, which I have not yet researched, but which may be helpful if you need peer-to-peer (non-professional) support.
In the spirit of generosity (“dana”), the Zoom classes, recordings, and blog posts are freely given and freely received. If you are able to support these teachings, please do so as your heart moves you. (NOTE: You can donate even if you are “attending” a practice that is not designated as a “Common Ground Meditation Center” practice, or you can purchase class(es). Donations are tax deductible; class purchases are not necessarily deductible.)
###
A Joyful Practice 