Episodes

In the last five episodes, I’ve shared the ethical teachings of meditation. Traditionally, after learning these ethical teachings, often taught as ‘restraints’, we would then learn five more teachings known as ‘observances’. These next five teachings, known in Sanskrit as Niyamas, are principles that we observe within ourselves to develop a mindful way of moving through the world. These are in essence the guidance to Mindful Living. We start with one that feels very tricky to me… it is most of...

When someone says to me, “would you like to have a conversation about nature, culture and the sacred?” - the answer is always YES, which is how this interview came to be. Today, I get to share a conversation with the dynamic author, leader and organizer, Nina Simons. Nina is the Co-founder and Chief Relationship Officer at Bioneers. Throughout her career spanning the nonprofit, social entrepreneurship, corporate, and philanthropic sectors, Nina has worked with nearly a thousand diverse women l...

“Behind violence, dishonesty, stealing & indulgence lies one clear objective: gaining greater control over the objects of our desire and eliminating those with the potential to stand in our way. This phenomenon can be described in one word: possessiveness. We want to have enough to fulfill our desires and our desire knows no limit.” - Pandit Rajmani Tigunait The final teaching in our ethics series is the tenet of non-possessiveness - also referred to as non-attachment or non-clinging in many te...

This is a big one, y’all. Non-excess is likely the ethical tenet that I teach most often {even if I don’t specifically say ‘non-excess’}... Often this teaching gets translated as abstinence or celibacy, and in certain monastic orders, it is indeed practiced in this way. Yet, when we look at the original teachings of this tenet, we discover non-excess is about establishing vitality and balancing the mind, body and energy. Author Deborah Adele translates the teachings of non-excess as meaning ‘t...

The ethical tenet of non-stealing goes so much further than simply avoiding the physical act of theft. It prompts us to move fully into living a life of integrity and reciprocity. In this episode of The Mindful Minute, we delve into the myriad of ways we have absorbed the habit of stealing. We will reflect on how we steal from Others The Earth The Future Ourselves The primary invitation of non-stealing is to shift our focus from others to ourselves. What an odd sentence to write... no, I d...

Carl Jung once wrote - “A lie would make no sense unless the truth was felt to be dangerous.” Within the traditions of meditation, there are five ethical teachings taught to all initiates as they begin their contemplative path. The first teaching {see the previous episode} is the tenet of non-violence, and we learned that violence is always accompanied by fear. The second tenet is truthfulness, and as Jung reminds us, the truth is often felt to be very scary. So the practice of truthfulness m...

With this episode, we begin a new journey together. We will spend the next 5 weeks exploring the Ethics of Meditation. I find it profoundly poignant that the ethical foundation of meditation is always taught first in Eastern practices and yet is so often saved for 'later' in Western teachings. I confess that I usually assume the ethical teachings are inherent within the practice and have not explicitly taught them in a class setting. Until now. This is a mistake on my part, and one I look forw...

Over the last several years, Chanti Tacoronte Perez has taught me so much about exploring and relating to my dreams, and today, I get to share a conversation with Chanti all about dreams, the dark and the wisdom waiting for us there. Chanti is a Cuban-American creatrix, ritualist, and author; and she believes that images speak a profound language. Her life’s work is as a translator of the unseen and advocate for the imaginal. She holds a Masters in Engaged Humanities, a Masters in Depth Psychol...

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings. ~Wendell Berry I have a question for you - Do you equate peace with effort? Does it feel as though you must work to attain peacefulness? I think for many of us, it does feel this way - as though we are trying to get somewhere or attain something within this practice. The idea of enlightenment can easi...

In this meditation series, we are exploring the Dark. Winter is, by its very nature, the darkest time of the year, and our meditation practice, so often taught as an opportunity to chase enlightenment, can also be an invitation to linger in and celebrate endarkenment (as Deborah Eden Tull has phrased it). The dark so often is associated with something scary, and yet it is really simply something quiet. The quiet is only scary when you think you might hear something you don’t want to hear. Sti...

I love the winter. I find a surprising sense of energy and creative spark that comes with the darkest, coldest months. The cold makes me feel alive; soups and stews, fires in the fireplace, and rich oils for skin make me feel nourished and cared for; and the dark… well, the dark is where I feel most awake. I don’t mean that I'm a night owl… quite the opposite actually. I'm an in-bed-at-9-and-up-at-5 kinda gal. But those quiet, dark hours - when I’m in the liminal space of physical wakefulness a...

Friends, today I get to share a conversation with one of my personal favorite meditation teachers, Diana Winston! Diana is the Director of Mindfulness Education at UCLA, the author of several incredible books about meditation and a former Buddhist nun. Together, we talk about the second edition release of her book, Fully Present, as well as my personal favorite book, The Little Book of Being. Diana shares some insights on how the field of mindfulness meditation has evolved over the last ten ye...

How to make your practice so lovely, so vital that you won’t skip a day: Make your practice beautiful. Don’t cram it in; savor it. Ask for what you most need. Name your intention, your purpose, your hope for this practice. Dedicate the merit. Our practice is never just about ourselves. Friend, fellow teacher and former Mindful Minute guest Caverly Morgan in The Heart of Who We Are: “The longer we cling to the notion that there’s a separate self who awakens, the more arduous our path will b...

This month’s meditation series is a foundational challenge to help you build up to a 20-minute/day nourishing meditation practice. I want to get away from the ‘check-it-off-the-to-do-list’ mentality and instead build a practice that feels so vital and lovely that you wouldn’t skip a day no matter what happens. A piece of this nourishing practice comes when we specifically name what we most want or need from the meditation practice. Some of you will resonate with naming an intention; some of you...

Happy New Year! Every January, I see an influx of people who are ready to try a meditation practice, and every February, I see most of those people fall away once again. And so this year, I thought - “what can I do to help people immediately reap the benefits of meditation?” Normally, in January, I do an introductory series that lays out the foundations of a practice, and I stress that starting with even 5 minutes/day is enough. But I wonder if it is really enough to keep you practicing. Becaus...

This meditation series has been an exploration of time. For most of us, time appears to be as steady as a stone - something that is always here, guiding us along - reminding us where we are supposed to be by what time it is. But, things aren’t quite as they appear when it comes to time or to stones. Time is both flexible and relative. It moves at different speeds depending on where you are and if you are moving or not. The phrase ‘now’ has no meaning outside of your direct personal experience...

Let’s start with two scientific facts: When we are in motion, time contracts. The universe is made up of events, not things. In my exploration of time, I came across a sentence from physicist Carlo Rovelli that stopped me in my tracks. He wrote - “Now means nothing.” Now means nothing. Nothing?! What have I been teaching for the last decade if the truth of the present moment has been disproven by science? What are we meditating for, and what are we experiencing? The more I reflect on scient...

“I don’t have enough time” “Take your time” “You have all the time in the world” Common enough phrases; each signaling something about our interaction with the experience of time. Phrases hinting that we should move faster, or slower, that we should do something, or not. And all of which create a cascading story of beliefs for each of us. Time is such a funny thing. It feels fast and slow {sometimes all at once}. It feels like a separate entity 'out there' that we have no control over and wh...

Today, on The Mindful Minute, I am sharing a conversation with meditation teacher and author Caverly Morgan about her new book, The Heart of Who We Are: Realizing Freedom Together. Caverly is a meditation teacher, author, speaker, and nonprofit founder. She is the founder and Lead Contemplative of Peace in Schools—a nonprofit which created the nation's first for-credit mindfulness class in public high schools. She is also the founder of Presence Collective, a community of cross-cultural contemp...

There is nothing I love more than responding to student questions about meditation, and recently I was asked two really good questions that I thought would be useful to the greater Mindful Minute community. At the end of our Political Resilience series, I was asked about what to do if you want to forge connections, to return to the table, but everyone else is hostile? And, I was asked a crucial and common question about what to do on days when you are too busy or stressed or overwhelmed to med...

Our meditation practice is the practice of The Middle Way. Meaning the practice isn’t about perfection, a goal or an end-game. The practice IS the practice. A student once asked his teacher, “is there anything I can do to become enlightened more quickly?” And, the teacher responded, “as little as you can do to make the sun rise in the morning.” “Well, what good are these practices you prescribe?” asked the student. “To make sure you are awake when the sun starts to rise.” replied the teacher...

This meditation series has asked some really big questions of us. Can we start to let go of binary thinking? Can we believe that two seemingly opposite things can both exist as true in the same moment? That right and wrong are not the only two choices? In a very small way, this reminds me of starting a meditation practice. Do you remember that feeling? The feeling of believing that a meditation practice would be a good thing, and yet when you sat down to practice it was hard, uncomfortable and ...

This series is one of the more challenging undertakings I’ve shared on this podcast. Talking about democracy in a time of toxic polarization feels daunting and more than a little bit overwhelming. I’m not here to fix it, and I definitely don’t have the ‘answers’ but I believe deeply in naming the things that cause us pain and turning towards them rather than away. So here we are. Democracy is hard. In part 1 of this series, we explored the term ‘gaslighting’ and the implications that come whe...

Not Left, Not Right, but Deep - The Fetzer Institute. With the midterm elections surrounding us, I’ve been reflecting on the challenges I feel when it comes to engaging with democracy in this country right now. Sometimes I am all moral outrage and calling my representatives and going to rallys. Sometimes, I am overwhelmed, exhausted and scared so I shut down completely. I ignore it all. In that extreme vasciliation, I find myself often thinking, “am I crazy???” And that, my friends, is the num...