Meditation From The Reason Things Are Hard

The birds in the trees, the light at dawn, the gorgeousness of morning: these things are all mixed up right now with dysfunctional politics, a precarious climate, and so much going on at home.

Mindfulness helps. Present moment attention without judgment, the first step, is crucial. And so is the next step.
The next step is, don’t wish things were other than they are. Work hard to change things, absolutely. But be present moment to moment with the joys and the sorrows, too.

Transcript

So finding a posture that is comfortable and upright and dignified because this is an important moment that we're each taking to to take a look in to take a look at our own mind and heart and closing the eyes or lowering them three quarters of the way down and gazing in at the heart or down at the ground and then locating the sensation of the breath in the body either at the nostrils or in the rising and falling of the chest or the filling and emptying of the belly or if placing the attention on the breath is not supportive for your practice then placing the attention on the sounds in your environment and then opening the awareness and seeing just what's present noticing thoughts as they come and go,

Sensations as they come and go the breath coming and going,

Sound coming and going,

Emotions coming and going and when something arises that is difficult just paying attention to how that feels seeing if it's possible to stay with whatever it is for a moment or two in order to explore how it feels could be a pain in the body,

Could be a difficult thought,

Could be an emotion and just seeing if it's possible to explore the difficulties that arise right now right here in formal practice without turning away or wishing them away or wanting the moment to be anything different than what it is right now and if the mind wanders just come on back to this moment and whatever the mind wandered away from the breath or sound and also this exploration of how things are right in this moment