A Meditation On Practicing With Poisons

There are moments when I know I’m aligned with whatever wisdom I have; when I know that nothing I’m doing is supporting a more weaponized, harmful, poisonous world.

How do we untangle the interests, loyalties, and values of our clients and the organizations we support, so that we know whether our work
falls on the side of wisdom, or wades into the territory, however tangentially, of dealing with weapons, humans, or poisons?

Join me in a short meditation on practicing with poisons.

Transcript

Find a comfortable posture that's also upright,

Dignified.

Bringing your whole presence to this moment.

Letting go of anything else that might be calling on you,

Pulling on you,

Letting go of all the words.

And just sensing this present moment and the breath as it's flowing in and out of the body.

Such a simple process and yet so amazing that we are alive and breathing.

Whatever distractions are tempting the mind,

Let them go whenever you notice.

And just come back to the breath,

The body.

Or if the breath is not a supportive anchor for your practice,

Then the sounds in your environment,

Noticing how each sound arises and then passes away,

Just like each breath.

How in one way our breath and our whole lives are just arising and passing away.

And maybe it doesn't even seem like this contemplation about wisdom in communication and action and in the way we work even matters.

But then how in another way we really belong to each other and we can't see the consequences of our actions.

We can't see the long term.

So it's really good to stay in alignment with wisdom as much as we can,

With compassion as much as we can.

Recollecting this present moment and how in this present moment there is no harm being done.

How aligned we are just right in this present moment,

Just by sitting together and practicing.

And what a benefit that is to ourselves as a kind of an imprint and also to each other and to the world.

And then fluttering the eyes open and just taking notice of the good that we've all done together here this morning or this afternoon,

Wherever you are,

Just by sitting together.