Welcome to this meditation entitled,
Watching from the Heart and Quieting the Mind.
It was written by Maggie Mullins,
Who is a founding member of Colusa Hachi Mindfulness.
Mindfulness invites us to stop the activity of the mind and be present,
Pay attention.
We talk of the qualities of mindfulness and we can picture the workings of our neural networks.
In all this we are thinking,
Reacting,
Planning.
We are filled with emotions,
Pleasant,
Unpleasant and neutral that come from thinking.
We have all in all of our lives thought that we would not be able to solve anything.
If thinking could bring us the truth,
We would all be sages by now.
Our heart center invites us to watch,
To be quiet,
To pay attention and to allow.
Our heart center does not label,
It does not cling.
It receives stimuli from the brain.
We receive stimuli from inside and outside our bodies.
Our hearts allow us to connect energetically with other people and outside stimuli.
The heart can hear what the lesson of the moment is and it doesn't judge it.
It does not judge envy,
Jealousy or anger.
Our hearts have mercy and compassion for ourselves and for others.
It has room for everything.
However,
When we armor our heart,
When we're frightened,
Feel unsafe or alone,
We may call it anger,
Envy,
Pain,
Fear,
Emotions that are so painful we suppress them.
We build a wall around our hearts and hide those feelings even from ourselves.
As we begin to recognize this,
We can gently begin to remove the armor and find our hidden,
Strong core of our self.
The qualities of the heart,
Of an open heart,
Are tenderness,
Vulnerability,
Spaciousness,
Compassion,
Non-judgment,
Accepting and allowing.
With an open heart,
We can have a joyous mind.
Heart and minds are just convenient terms to use.
But when the mind drops concepts it has created,
It is nothing other than our heart.
There is no heart and no mind,
Just our spacious,
Natural being.
