Part 1: Mindfulness Meditation for Difficult Times (talk)

This talk explores the challenges of living wisely and compassionately in these times and the role mindfulness can play in providing skills and practices to meet the world wisely and open-heartedly. The talk is accompanied by a guided meditation that can be listened to separately.

Transcript

This is a talk and accompanying guided meditation,

Mindfulness meditation for difficult times.

It begins with a reflection on the challenging times we're living in and the role that mindfulness can play in helping us live more wisely and compassionately,

Helping us respond to our own challenges and the suffering of the world.

It continues with a guided meditation that provides skills and practices for cultivating mindfulness in difficult times.

You can listen to the talk and meditation separately.

I want to begin with a poem by Wendell Berry on what can support us in challenging times,

The peace of wild things.

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood rake rests in his beauty on the water and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.

I come into the presence of still water and feel above me the day blind stars waiting with their light.

For a time I rest in the grace of the world and am free.

We're living in difficult and challenging times.

It's not an easy time to be a human being,

To say nothing of other creatures,

Other sentient beings.

War and violence in many regions have forced 60 million people from their homes,

The highest number of refugees and displaced people since the end of World War II.

Despite economic growth in much of the world,

Nearly half of the world's population,

Three billion people,

Including a billion children,

Still live in poverty,

Surviving on less than $2.

50 a day.

And 22,

000 children die each day due to poverty.

Rising temperatures caused by human action are already having an unprecedented impact on the lives of millions around the world,

With more extreme hurricanes and cyclones,

Floods,

Fires,

And unprecedented heat,

Which threaten to cause great suffering to billions of people worldwide.

And political polarization and division are increasing in many parts of the world.

Where I live in the United States,

Divisions are deeper than they've been at any point in my lifetime,

And are affecting people throughout the world.

These and other profound challenges need to be addressed through social and political action,

Locally,

Nationally,

And globally.

But they also call for inner changes,

And a genuine change in the way we speak,

Engage,

And relate to each other.

As the late poet,

Singer,

And songwriter Leonard Cohen said,

The heart has got to open in a fundamental way.

Can we allow ourselves to open with care and compassion for ourselves,

Our loved ones,

And all our fellow humans and other beings,

And for our planet,

Without being overwhelmed,

Or shutting down,

Or getting swept up in blame and anger?

T.

S.

Eliot,

In his poem The Four Quartets,

Said,

Teach us to care and not to care.

Teach us to sit still.

Can we care deeply and respond wisely,

Without clinging and blaming,

And creating further separation and division?

It might be said that much of the human-caused suffering in the world comes from our inability to open fully to our own emotions and mind states,

So that rather than allowing ourselves to feel our fear,

Or our anger,

Or grief,

We easily lash out at others,

Blaming others for our suffering.

Almost 400 years ago,

The French philosopher Blaise Pascal said,

All of humanity's misfortunes come from man's or our inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

If we're not able to sit with our pain,

Our grief,

Our anger,

It will almost inevitably come out in painful or harmful ways.

Another more recent French philosopher and writer,

Albert Camus,

Said,

We all carry within us our crimes,

Our ravages,

Our places of exile.

Our task is not to unleash them on the world.

It is to transform them in ourselves and others.

Mindfulness meditation provides skills and practices to help us to open fully to what the Taoists call life's 10,

000 joys and 10,

000 sorrows.

To open to our fears and our joys,

Our pains and our pleasures,

So that we can act in the world with wisdom and compassion.

And if we are able to open to our own pain,

Hurt,

Fear,

And grief,

We can be more effective and present in helping others.

And we can be able to truly serve our world.

I work with humanitarian aid workers in the Middle East who are aiding Syrian and other refugees who have fled their homes.

We provide training in mindfulness and other skills to build resilience so that the aid workers can be as present and as effective as possible in working with the refugees and displaced people.

We share with them the instruction that flight attendants give before the plane takes off.

In the event of an emergency,

Put on your own mask first before assisting others.

If we don't take care of ourselves,

We won't have the capacity to help others.

Whether it's our children or our aging parents or our patients if we're a therapist or health professional or a refugee family if we're an aid worker.

Mindfulness meditation provides skills and practices that can strengthen resilience and equanimity so that we can engage wisely and kindly with the suffering of the world.

This poem,

Clearing by Martha Postlethwaite,

Speaks of the way in which taking the time to pause and come into silence and stillness can help us transform our experience and respond wisely.

Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose.

Instead,

Create a clearing in the dense forest of your life and wait there patiently until the song that is yours alone to sing falls into your open cupped hands and you recognize and greet it.

Only then will you know how to give yourself to this world so worthy of rescue.

When we sit and meditate,

We can let go of the incessant doing and planning and busyness and we can pause and allow ourselves to experience whatever is present in the body,

The heart and the mind.

In the silence and stillness,

We can let go of clinging to our wants and fixations and rest in the present moment just as it is.

Clarity and insight can arise that can help us return to the world and engage with greater kindness and wisdom.

Mindfulness meditation is a training of the heart and mind,

Seeing where we're holding on and letting go and cultivating states of heart and mind like joy,

Compassion and peace that lead to happiness and well-being.

In the accompanying meditation,

We will practice together,

Working with all that's arising in body,

Heart and mind.

Reviews

A lovely calm start to my day. Thank you. Looking forward to Part 2.

That was so lovely and I badly needed a reminder to be and embrace the quiet the silence that’s always there for us and especially needed right now in the very challenging times

Thank you very much for your wise talk,
Blessings

So meaningful!🙏🧡

I would like more on this subject. It is needed now more than ever.

Brilliant explanation of what mindfulness is and how it can help the individual and the world

Thank you Hugh for this inspiring talk which I listened to in my lunch break. It feel as if we are living through such challenging times. Helpful reminders to ' put own mask on first ' and to find stillness and clarity amid the anxiety. May you be well.

Yes! Beautiful words and effortless delivery.
So comforting to listen to.

I can’t articulate how deeply helpful this talk was. I’ve worked with a humanitarian non-profit for twenty years and lived in El Salvador for fifteen. Managing my own heart and mind went from difficult to almost impossible after 2016 U.S. election campaigns. I feel I’m just now emerging from the grief and anguish that year caused in me. This talk, in all its facets—its poetry, its philosophical reflections and insights—gave me a sense that I am not alone, that there is good reason to be hopeful, and that a path towards peace and presence is worthwhile. So deeply grateful for the gentle and profound instruction.

A reminder of how to live in today’s challenging world.

Clear, positive & inspiring guidance. Thank you

lovely, deep, insightful...love your voice and poems...

Thank you 🙏 I love how you use such beautiful poetry in your talks and meditations. Thank you

Well,this calmed me right down!
I had worked myself into an anxious,angry state of mind over a very minor frustration and knew I needed to start my day over. This was a very effective way to do it. Very balancing! Thank you do much

A good talk to stay mindful

Lovely, practical, timely. Includes some beautiful poems.

Beautiful. The poems are a welcome touch.

Wonderful intro to MBM

Hugh's soothing voice and insightful usage of well known and not so well known poetry is always a perfect place to start and/or end the day. Thank you.