Resource Type: Meditation

These litanies can be used anywhere in a workshop that a centering ritual is needed, for example, before or following intense practices in Honoring Our Pain, or transitioning to Seeing With New Eyes.  They are often done as responsive readings, with the guide reading the major sections and the rest of the group responding at… Read more

also know as Learning to See Each Other This meditative practice is adapted from the Buddhist Brahmaviharas, or Heavenly Abodes, sometimes called the Four Abodes of the Buddha, which are loving-kindness, compassion, joy in the joy of others, and equanimity.  It helps us to truly see each other and experience the depths of our connectivity.… Read more

Compassion, which we generally understand as grief in the grief of others, is but one side of the coin.  The other side is joy in the joy of others– which Buddhists call mudita.  To the extent that we allow ourselves to identify with the sufferings of others, we can identify with their strengths as well,… Read more

Basic to most spiritual traditions is the recognition that we are not separate, isolated entities, but integral and organic parts of the vast web of life.  We can open to the pain of the world in confidence that it can neither shatter nor isolate us, for we are not objects that can break.  We are… Read more

Loving-kindness, or metta, is the first of the four “Abodes of the Buddha,” also known as the Brahmaviharas.   Meditation to arouse and sustain loving-kindness is a staple of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement for community development in Sri Lanka, and is accorded minutes of silence at the outset of every meeting.  Organizers and village workers find… Read more

Most spiritual paths begin by recognizing the impermanence of human life.  Medieval Christians honored this in the mystery play of Everyman.  Don Juan, the Yaqui sorcerer, taught that the enlightened warrior walks with death at his shoulder.  To confront and accept the inevitability of our dying releases us from triviality and frees us to live… Read more

This simple spoken meditation, composed by John Seed and Joanna, guides us into precise and close identification with the elements, and with the evolving life forms of Earth.  This meditation is often done in pairs or as a Milling, with people contemplating one another while listening to the words. What are you?  What am I?… Read more

This spoken meditation is most effective if participants can stretch out. Lie down, stretch out…relax into the floor… Feel your breathing in your lungs, abdomen… how it glides in and out…  The oxygen ignites each cell, stirs it awake as it burns in the metabolism of life… Extend your awareness deep within to feel this… Read more

To heal our society, our psyches must heal as well.  Haunted by the desperate needs of our time and beset by more commitments than we can easily carry, we may wonder how to find the time and energy for spiritual disciplines.  Few of us feel free to take to the cloister or meditation cushion to… Read more