The First Factor Of Awakening: Mindfulness

As you might imagine, we cannot develop a mindfulness practice without first learning how to be mindful. But, what does mindfulness (or sati, in Pali) really mean? And, how do we do this? In this talk, Shell explores this foundational factor of our spiritual development, and offers suggestions about how we can both utilize and strengthen it in order to discover more freedom.

Transcript

I hope you enjoyed this talk.

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You can do so by visiting my website at www.

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Com.

Thank you so much.

So,

Many of you may recall that a few weeks ago I offered a summary talk on what are called the seven factors of awakening,

Or the seven factors of enlightenment,

Which are also known as the seven treasures of awakening.

And I kind of like that last one the best because I really think they are treasures.

Sometimes they are also known as the seven friends,

The seven friends or the seven treasures of practice.

And you might also recall the cool Pali term for these seven factors,

Which is Satta Bojanga,

Which I love.

And Satta means seven.

Bodhi,

Of course,

Means awakening.

And Anga means causative,

Which means Satta Bojanga essentially means that when we cultivate these seven factors,

Or qualities of mind and heart,

They become the causes of enlightenment.

And some people don't love the word enlightenment actually because there's some connotation with enlightenment culturally,

And the term often used is awakening.

So,

Along with all those other names,

They're also often called the anti-hindrances because they are considered the antidotes to the hindrances or the fetters.

And those are all the states of mind that serve as obstacles to our practice,

To our awakening.

They're so important,

In fact,

That in the suttas,

The Buddha tells us this,

Bhikkhus,

Which means us.

I do not see even one thing,

I do not see even one thing that when developed and cultivated leads to the abandoning of the things that better,

So effectively as this,

The seven factors of awakening.

When developed and cultivated,

They lead the one who acts upon them to the complete destruction of suffering.

When we read that last part again to encourage you.

When developed and cultivated,

They lead the one who acts upon them to the complete destruction of suffering.

So,

As you might imagine,

We want to be really aware of these seven factors.

And most of you know them.

As a reminder,

They include mindfulness,

Which I'll be talking about tonight,

Sati,

S-A-T-I,

Investigation,

Vichaya,

Energy or effort,

Virya,

Rapture or joy,

Piti,

Tranquility,

Pasaditi,

Concentration,

Samadhi,

And equanimity,

Upekka.

And they lead as a practice and according to the teachings,

These qualities of mind and heart tend to flow in a progression with each factor supporting the development of the next.

And then they mature together along that path.

So tonight,

I wanted to dive into a series of talks on these seven by exploring the very first of these,

The foundational factor,

Which is mindfulness,

Sati.

But before we begin a discussion about sati,

I want to mention that since the term mindfulness has become so popular in our culture in the past decade or so,

There have been many,

Many,

Many misunderstandings of what sati really means.

And I could talk for hours about these actually,

These misunderstandings.

One of the most popular is that mindfulness is awakening itself.

You know,

What we're aiming at is mindfulness.

But it's important to remember that mindfulness is conditioned.

It's simply a tool.

It's a path that we use as we're walking.

You know,

It's one of the spokes of the wheel.

The experience of nirvana is not,

Right?

The experience of nirvana is not conditioned.

It's unconditioned.

And it's not a tool.

I like the way the great modern monk and scholar,

Tanisarobiku,

Talks about this.

He says,

Mistaking one of the factors on the path to awakening for awakening itself is like reaching the middle of a road and then falling asleep right there.

You never get to the end of the road.

And in the meantime,

You'll get run over by aging,

Illness,

And death.

I kind of like that.

So in Pali,

Sati literally means to recall,

Remember,

Recollect.

And what we're being asked to keep in mind are the four foundations of mindfulness,

Or the four satipatanas,

With patana meaning origin.

So several thousands of years ago,

The Buddha was essentially saying that there are four important things for us to constantly keep in mind and remember,

These four satipatanas,

Which is where our practice originates.

And as a reminder,

These include being aware of,

Being mindful of,

Constantly remembering the body,

Feelings,

Vedana,

Feeling tone,

Mind,

And dhammas,

Which in other words is the entirety of the teachings,

The dhammas,

Diligently,

Clearly knowing and mindful,

Free from desire and discontent in regard to the world,

Which you might recall is the refrain from the satipatana sutta.

So it's not about just being aware of what's happening in the present moment,

But it's how we are being asked to be aware,

How we meet the present moment.

How do we do it?

How do we meet it?

There's a very famous story from the Zen tradition on mindfulness that points to the way that we are being asked to meet our lives and our experiences,

Which I know many of us here have heard before,

But I love it,

So I'm going to tell it again.

It's traditional.

So it's about a man who's walking through woods,

And suddenly he's surprised by this huge tiger that's growling and walking towards him.

And as you might imagine,

This man turns and starts to run,

And the tiger starts chasing him.

And just as the tiger is about to leap and attack,

The man sees that what he's been running towards is actually a cliff,

And way below him is the sea.

And so he doesn't have much of a choice here,

Right?

So he crawls off the cliff,

Only to realize that there's a vine that's growing on the side of the rocks,

And happily it can support his weight.

And so he starts to climb down this vine,

And as he's doing so,

He starts to recognize that he's essentially caught somewhere between the tiger above him and the sea below him with the rocks.

And then,

On top of that,

He sees suddenly that there are two rats,

One black one and one white one,

And they're gnawing on the vine.

And in that very moment,

Stuck in the middle of all this,

He spots this big,

Beautiful,

Ripe strawberry growing right in the face of the cliff,

Not really far away from him.

And so with one hand holding the vine,

He reaches out and plucks it and takes a big bite of it.

And of course,

It's one of the most delicious things that he can remember eating in a really long time,

Right?

And of course,

This is exactly where we all find ourselves,

Right?

Right here in the space between our past and our future,

Facing the strawberry of our life,

Which is this moment,

The present,

Which is all we ever,

Ever have.

In each moment of our lives,

We are being asked to give as much attention to our experience as that man gave that strawberry.

Because why do we believe that our last moment is any more important than any other moment of our lives?

Why?

Don't we place more emphasis when people are dying on that moment,

You know,

This moment?

It's every moment.

We're always in between.

Traditionally,

The tiger at the top represents our past and the sea below is the mystery of our future,

Which includes our ultimate end,

Which as we all know is also a mystery.

The two rats represent time,

Night and day,

Which are always nibbling at us,

Right?

And the truth is,

We are each born into this world without much of a choice.

We start climbing over that cliff the moment we are born and those rats immediately start nibbling.

So in our current position stuck between birth and death,

We have no choice but to face the reality of our time here,

The truth of impermanence,

Anicca.

And as the teaching show us,

In order to stop so much unnecessary suffering and struggle for ourselves,

We need to learn to recognize three things.

One is that stuff happens.

There is suffering,

Dukkha,

Right?

To all of us,

It's just life happens.

That everything is in constant flow,

Always,

Always,

Anicca,

You know,

In flow and fleeting,

Including ourselves,

Anacca,

Right?

We too are constantly in flow and changing and at some point will be impermanent.

We also need to recognize the truth that the only moment we ever have or is ever guaranteed is just right in front of us right now,

This one,

Just important as your last moment,

Right now.

And if you think about it,

Each moment is precisely precious because of where we find ourselves,

Caught on this vine of life.

And of course,

Some of us are closer to the tiger and some of us are closer to the sea,

Right?

With a full awareness that the nibbling of those two mice day and night is never ending and they will eventually chew through that vine.

It's going to happen,

Right?

If we're honest with ourselves though,

We might notice that we spend a vast amount of time and energy trying to deny this reality,

Trying to run away from it,

Outrun it,

Change it,

Ignore it,

Pretend it isn't happening or even true.

I'm not going to die,

Everybody else is going to die.

Not me,

I'm going to figure it out,

Right?

And of course,

This resistance to reality is the main source of our suffering.

And unfortunately,

Just as we can't stop the flow of time,

We also need to recognize that we cannot climb back up the vine either.

As much as we would like to sometimes,

We can't go back in time,

It happened.

And we have to accept that reality as well,

Right?

And I like the way the writer Derek Lynn talks about the tiger of our past.

He says,

If we constantly beat ourselves up for not being able to do certain things as well as we should have,

Or if we wallow in regret and shame over mistakes we've made,

Then the tiger has wounded us with its sharp claws.

If we cannot let go of negative experiences from the past that make us timid and afraid,

Or feel like victims because we come from a traumatic or perhaps abusive background,

Then the tiger has taken a painful bite out of us.

Unfortunately,

The pathway of time is a one-way street.

The fearsome tiger guards the top of the cliff and mere mortals may not pass.

So the idea here is that if we're so preoccupied with the tiger of our past or with the fear of what lies ahead,

That vast mysterious sea,

We won't be able to enjoy the strawberry that's right here in front of us.

In fact,

We miss so much of our actual lives,

All those strawberries along the way,

By not training ourselves to be mindful of right now,

This present moment,

However it is,

And being open to the mystery of what's next.

And of course,

If we're clinging too tightly to that vine,

We're not going to be able to let go with one hand so that we can reach out and enjoy those strawberries either,

Right?

Or clinging too tightly.

It's like maybe we'll see that the strawberry is there waiting for us right in front of us,

But we can't allow ourselves to enjoy it because we can't seem to allow ourselves to let go,

Even with one hand.

On the other hand,

We also want to remember,

Be aware of each moment so that we can truly recognize what causes us to suffer and what really truly brings us happiness and very intentionally train ourselves to avoid that kind of suffering in the future and intentionally cultivate and nurture the states of mind and heart that create true happiness.

So how do we actually do this?

How do we practice being mindful?

Mindfulness is often described as bare,

Immediate,

Whole body and mind awareness of the present moment.

So when we are being mindful,

Practicing mindfulness,

We're fully present without judgment or bias with what is.

We're right here between the tiger and the sea,

Just this moment,

Just this moment.

We're not lost in daydreams or anticipation,

Indulgences,

Worry.

We're right here,

Right?

And we're here with a fresh,

New kind of non-conceptual awareness of our bodies and minds and whatever's happening.

So this means even if the moment is unpleasant,

Right,

With mindfulness,

We're simply experiencing it as it is right now.

Right now there's fear,

Right?

I'm going to get to know that fear just like the strawberry.

There's anger,

There's grief,

There's pain,

There's joy,

Whatever it is,

We're right here present for it.

We're experiencing it as it's happening without adding all the layers of our thoughts and conditioned beliefs and biases and stories to it or making the pain maybe of whatever's happening worse by adding all our negative narratives and stories to it.

When we're practicing mindfulness then,

We are learning to simply experience,

In the words of Thich Nhat Hanh,

This is it.

This is what we're experiencing right now,

No matter what it looks like.

And those three words are so simple and yet they're so powerful.

This is it.

The Buddhist monk Bhikkhu Bodhi explains mindfulness this way.

To practice mindfulness is a matter not so much of doing but of undoing,

Not thinking,

Not judging,

Not associating,

Not planning,

Not imagining,

Not wishing.

All these doings of ours are modes of interference,

Ways the mind manipulates experience and tries to establish its dominance.

Mindfulness undoes the knots and tangles of these doings by simply noting.

It does nothing but note,

Watching each occasion of experience as it arises,

Stands,

And passes.

In the watching,

There is no room for clinging,

No compulsion to saddle things with our desires.

There is only a sustained contemplation of experience in its bare immediacy,

Carefully and precisely and persistently.

Now some of us might be thinking or assume that we're always aware of the present with what's right here in our lives.

Where else would we be?

But if we really start to examine this honestly,

It's really not at all true,

Is it?

The Thai meditation master Ajahn Budodhassa summarized our habitual way of living in three words,

Lost in thought.

Right,

We're lost.

One of the wonderful gifts of our mindfulness practice is that it helps us to really notice how often we really aren't here,

How often we're lost in our thoughts and our stories.

So the more we practice,

The more we might start to notice that what we're really experiencing so much of the time is the mind actually having a variety of different conversations with itself,

Maybe even about our present moment,

Right?

What's happening?

Think about when you watch a sunset.

You just with the sunset or you immediately start thinking about the sunset,

Having that conversation,

Right?

It's also like when you're watching a movie,

You know,

And you're watching a movie and then you turn on the director's commentary and now there are other people talking over the movie and did we ever do that?

So then there's the movie happening and then there's this,

You know,

Not unreal drama,

By the way,

Because it's a movie.

And then there's the second conversation or commentary that's right on top of it.

And this is what we do in our lives,

Right?

We're experiencing our lives from the viewpoint of the director's commentary,

Constantly being distracted by,

Caught up in all the director's opinions and views and explanation about what's happening in front of us.

And when we're doing this,

In essence,

What we're really doing is dreaming.

In practice,

We're asleep.

We're not experiencing our lives as they are right now in this moment.

So just as for instance,

Think about what your day was like today,

Right?

Just remembering your day.

What is it now?

It's a dream now,

Isn't it?

It's just a dream.

It's not happening,

Is it?

Can have thoughts about it,

But we make all that stuff up anyway,

Mostly.

What about tomorrow?

No plans?

Yeah,

It's Thanksgiving.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Right.

Couple days.

What's that?

It's just a dream,

Isn't it?

We don't know what's going to happen.

Does it ever turn out the way we think it's going to turn out ever?

It can be similar,

But rarely if ever.

It's a dream,

Right?

So much of the time,

We're not only dreaming,

But we're using the present moment actually as a springboard for even more thoughts,

Which not only keeps us asleep,

But can create its whole new universe,

Its whole new other dream land that we create.

So with our meditation practice,

We can really start to observe how we do this,

How we use our thoughts as springboard so we can catch ourselves when we're doing it in our daily lives.

We can do this through our meditation practice,

Okay?

So an example of this would be maybe we're sitting and we're meditating and we're listening maybe to the crickets or the leaves or whatever it is outside.

We might be aware of the warmth of the fire on our skin or a breeze,

Aware of our breath,

Aware of the state of our body,

We're completely in,

We're aware,

And then suddenly we hear a plane flying by.

And without warning,

Our minds start to think about how much we're afraid of flying and almost immediately about that family visit that's coming up.

And then maybe we start visualizing packing our suitcases,

Worrying about what we need to remember,

And then we start thinking about that difficult conversation we had last month with one of our relatives and how resentful we feel about this.

And then we start going over and over the conversation in our heads and start planning exactly what we're going to say when we see them,

And pretty soon we're just completely furious and we need to get up and stop meditating and go have a beer.

All from the sound of a simple airplane flying by.

So that is an example of this mental construction that the Buddha called Papancha,

Which is sometimes also translated as elaboration,

Embellishment,

Or conceptual proliferation.

And if you'll remember the word Papancha,

Actually sounds a lot like popcorn,

Right?

And so it sounds like that pop pop pop Papancha.

So think about when you're making popcorn.

It starts out kind of slow,

Right?

Just a few pops here and there.

Just a few thoughts.

And then suddenly there's an explosion of pops all at the same time.

And if you're totally distracted and let's us keep going,

What happens?

Everything gets burnt and the smoke alarm goes off.

So it's the same thing with our minds.

When we're letting our minds drift further and further into that story line,

Which of course includes all our opinions and stories and beliefs,

This can lead to the fire alarm going off,

If you will.

And we start to feel the burn of frustration,

Anger,

Envy,

Shame,

Greed,

All the unwholesome qualities of mind.

So mindfulness practice is so much about training ourselves to see our thoughts and our natural tendency towards Papancha and training ourselves very intentionally to wake up,

Awaken and come back again and again and remember,

Recall the present moment.

Sati,

Remember,

Recall,

Recollect the present moment.

Come back home.

So for instance,

An example of this,

Coming back.

Maybe we're washing the dishes and we start to become lost in thought.

Our Sati,

Our mindfulness,

Can remind us to recollect,

Remind us to come back to the immediate bare experience of simply washing the dishes.

Feeling the warm water on our hands,

Smelling the soap,

Hearing the squeaking,

Feeling our feet on the ground,

Noticing our breath,

Or maybe the sunshine through the window.

We come back to this moment and when we're suddenly present and not lost in thought,

We might suddenly recognize that maybe there's an emotion present here.

Maybe we're experiencing sadness or grief or maybe a sense of gratitude or contentment,

Which we're going to miss if we're lost in thought.

So whatever's happening,

With mindfulness we are fully awake to all of it and letting it flow through us.

And when we do this,

We can start to trust more and more that we can just be with our thoughts,

Observing the thoughts as they arise and pass,

Rather than being our thoughts,

Rather than identifying with them and becoming our thoughts or our emotions.

We can recognize that we are simply experiencing a feeling or even a belief,

Observing it as it's passing through us,

Rather than becoming that feeling or believing that thought,

Repping our identity around it.

Pema Shodran,

You all know is my favorite Buddhist nun,

Explains it this way.

We are all a mixture of aggression and loving kindness,

Hard-heartedness and tender openness,

Small-mindedness and forgiving open mind.

We are not a fixed,

Predictable,

Static entity that anyone can point to and say,

You are always like this,

You are always the same.

Life's energy is never static,

It is shifting,

Fluid,

Changing as the weather.

So it's really important to remember that with our mindfulness practice,

We are not practicing to float away somewhere to some blissful other state where we are free of all thought or emotion.

That is not what we're practicing.

We want to use our mindfulness practice to actually keep us grounded here in the present more and more so that we are not constantly floating away into the past or the future or daydreaming or getting caught up in our constant papancha.

So this means that if during our formal meditation practice,

If we find ourselves drifting to some other place that feels like we aren't here,

Maybe somewhere that feels otherworldly or like it's nothing,

Like we've completely gone away,

We're not practicing mindfulness,

We're practicing going away.

That's what we're practicing.

So we want to make our mindfulness practice again a powerful grounding force,

Something that helps us to anchor ourselves in this present moment.

And this grounding force of mindfulness is often compared to a stone or a rock.

And a mind without mindfulness is compared to a pumpkin.

Bhikkhu Bodhi explains it this way.

A pumpkin placed on the surface of a pond soon floats away and always remains on the water surface.

But a stone does not float away.

It stays where it is put and it once sinks into the water until it reaches bottom.

Similarly,

When mindfulness is strong,

The mind stays with its object and penetrates its characteristics deeply.

It does not wander and merely skim the surface as the mind destitute of mindfulness does.

I really like that metaphor.

So this object of mind that we stay with could be the breath or a sound or a physical sensation or even our thoughts themselves.

Because we're using our practice to very intimately observe all the characteristics of this object,

Which is called object in practice.

And when we can use our bare awareness to keep the mind focused on a particular object,

It can simultaneously calm the mind even more and then we can see things even more clearly.

As an example,

Maybe we discover that the mind is racing for whatever reason.

When we recognize this,

We might literally in our daily life stop,

Close our eyes,

And go to what are called our touch points,

Which are our feet,

Remember,

Our hands,

And our seat.

Can you feel them right now?

Really grounds you.

Those are your touch points,

The grounding forces in the body.

Then we can place our focus on the breath and make a conscious effort to just stay with the body and our breath and breathing moment by moment.

Or maybe we even just stop and look at something.

It could be as simple as a cup of water shimmering in the sun,

Reflecting whatever it's reflecting.

Stop.

When we do this,

It can temporarily take us out of the dream world,

You know,

Of our mind and bring us back home to this present moment,

To the body.

This is how we practice.

Then we might see the mind like that water,

A little more clearly,

And finally be able to see what it's reflecting,

What it's been saying to us,

What it's been believing,

And then of course question that without automatically believing everything we think and acting on it.

This is exactly where we can wake up and discover more peace and ease in our lives,

Right in the present moment,

Right here.

The great teacher Sharon Salzberg tells us,

In times of great struggle,

When there is nothing else to rely on and nowhere else to go,

It is the return to the present moment that is the act of faith.

From that point,

Openness to possibility,

Strength,

Patience,

And courage can arise.

Moment by moment,

We can find our way through.

We love that.

Moment by moment,

We can find our way through.

We trust that.

We learned to mention faith.

We trust that.

Trust the present moment.

So that's the grounding element of mindfulness.

It helps to bring us back to right now,

This present moment,

Keeps us from floating away into our worry,

Fear,

Anger,

Negative commentary,

Et cetera.

Mindfulness is also traditionally considered a type of guard,

In that it keeps watch over our thoughts,

Right,

Like thoughts that are stirring up the calm lake of our mind,

If you will.

So for instance,

We can notice that our mind is suddenly occupied by thoughts that are causing the water to stir up,

And we can then either calm them or,

And or,

Abandon them before these thoughts cause harm to ourselves or others,

Okay?

Remembering that it's not outside forces that are stirring up our waters.

It's really not.

It's our own thoughts about what's happening around us that is causing the waters to stir up.

You might even think of this guarding aspect of mindfulness as a kind of mindful lifeguard,

Where he or she is on the lookout for all those misbehaving thoughts,

You know,

That want to dive in the water and start splashing all around and making a mess.

Finally our mindfulness is also sometimes referred to as the knowing aspect of our practice.

And to quote my very favorite forward phrase from the teachings from Bikku and Alio,

Who famously summed up our entire practice,

We keep calmly knowing change.

We keep calmly knowing change.

We keep remembering,

Recollecting calmly without resisting with patience and equanimity,

Knowing being mindfully aware of change,

Okay?

And that last part,

That change part,

Includes being continually mindful of remembering,

Keeping in mind what are called the three characteristics,

Which are dukkha,

Again,

Their suffering,

We all experience it,

And our suffering comes from clinging to,

Remembering that vine,

Clinging to,

Anicca,

Impermanence,

That we're all,

Everything in this life is impermanent,

Including ourselves,

Which is anatta.

This is how we apply our mindfulness practice with these three characteristics or sometimes truths of existence in mind.

So I think I'm going to end there with some very brief but sage advice about mindfulness practice from Dr.

John Kebbett Zinn,

Who many of you know is the founder of mindfulness-based stress reduction,

Who suggests,

If we hope to go anywhere or develop ourselves in any way,

We can only step from where we are standing.

But if we don't really know where we are standing,

We may only go in circles.

All right.

So let's end with a brief mindfulness practice.

So I'll invite you all just to close the eyes as you're ready.

And you might,

Again,

Take a nice deep breath in,

A slow breath out.

Just again,

Recollecting your awareness here in the body to this present moment,

However it is here in the body.

We gather.

And again,

You might think of that stone.

We settle here in the body,

Not letting the mind float away like the pumpkin.

And again,

Taking a deep breath.

I'm going to invite you to try a very simple practice I like to use,

Which is simply using the phrase,

I'm aware of that.

And then noticing what you're aware of.

This can be very simple,

And you don't have to do this quickly.

But here,

Generally,

You go to your senses.

This is how we live through our bodies,

These vehicles.

So you might notice what you're hearing or what you're feeling with a breath or maybe even an emotion or a thought.

So as an example,

I'll give an example.

I'm aware that the tip of my nose feels cool.

I'm aware of the sound of cars passing on the highway.

I'm aware of a slight buzz sound.

I'm aware that I'm a little thirsty.

I'm aware of the thought that I should probably stop my examples now.

So when you do have a thought,

See if you can disidentify it and have a thought of,

I see the thought that,

Not I'm aware that I want to go wherever you want to go after this to eat.

Or I'm aware of the thought that.

I'm aware of the thought that.

So try that on with the phrase,

I'm aware that.

And start with your senses.

You can go very slow.

I'm aware that,

And just name it.

And if it's an emotion,

You might say,

I'm aware that I'm feeling anxious or frustrated or whatever it is.

You're sad.

Stay with the breath.

Stay here in the body.

Here's what I get around.

The mind wanders into story,

Bring it back.

Bring it back.

Start again.

The head is finally broken when it comes back.

And finally,

With the eyes to close,

Just listening to these words from Julia Varenbacher tells us,

If you find your attention being pulled by the sound of birdsong,

Let yourself be pulled.

And then no matter how hurried you think you are,

Stop whatever you are doing and listen.

Listen as if this moment is all there is,

As if every answer to every question you have ever asked rests in the rhythm of inhale and exhale.

Listen as if one day you will run out of time to listen.

Listen until you are so full of song you can't help but sprinkle it like seed to every hungry heart.

And when bird lifts her wings to fly,

Go,

Please,

Go fly with her.

Go fly with her.

Reviews

Beautiful talk and meditation, as are many by this teacher.

When Bird lifts her wings to fly, go fly, go fly with her. Exquisite.

Superb 🌟 Loved the laughter in this one and the lifeguard analogy 😁

Thank you

You make the complex understandable and I feel as if these concepts are obtainable. Thank you for your teachings. You have and are, a gift🌻

I love how you define mindfulness. Thank you so much for this great talk 🙏

So grateful for this, Shell.

Clearly spoken, concise, and very easy to understand. Thank you.

Your laugh got me laughing too! Thabk you for this 🎁

I believe in god but mindfulness is crucial to come back to the present moment and what is. Thanks for this talk...I really appreciate it.

Wow, I had a dream while I worked the last company like this teaching- it is....

Thank you for this beautiful teaching! 🙏🏻

So good ! ❤️
I can not wait to listen to #2!
Namaste ♥️

thank you for such a soothing grounded talk

Thank you for your lively talk.
Namaste

Clear & inspiring. Thank you very much!

Informative with humour sprinkled in. Really enjoyed it and the meditation at the end.
Namaste ✨🙏✨

Brilliant, fun, insightful. Shel, please put more guided meditations on Insight Timer. I loved your short meditation after your delightful talk.