by Melissa Moore
Tibetan Buddhism offers us a language and maps to navigate the multiple states of existence that continually occur between death and rebirth. These states vary in length and texture, but they entirely mirror our attitudes and conduct in everyday life. Just consider your life in the time frame of a single day; we get up usually having morning rituals to help us enter the day with composure, and then we enter the stream of experience, which varies wildly according to where we are, what we are doing, and whom we are interacting with. It's like the water in a river, constantly flowing through the same channel, but never the same water or experience. We notice several heightened moments in the transition flow, called the Bardos of everyday life.
In the upcoming class Embracing the Bardos of Everyday Life, we explore and befriend life's transitions through the contemplative lens of loving-kindness and compassion. In a sense, we are always preparing for our death when we study the Bardos, but we are preparing for death with kindness, openness, and awareness. As a young 24-year-old student at Naropa University (then Naropa Insitute), I was told by one of my esteemed professors, “The entire reason we practice meditation is to prepare for our death.” At the time, I felt insulted to be discussing death; I thought I was too young to be subjected to such tortuous contemplations. My reaction turned out to be my Midwestern cultural conditioning, where death is not a polite topic for everyday conversation.
The study of the Tibetan Book of the Dead brings to awareness how we live our lives now and its relevance to our inevitable death. This teaching heightens our relationship to impermanence and change – our habits of navigating groundlessness, change, and death and illuminates our conditioning around these lifescapes. I’m someone in my late 60s, which brings old age and death much closer into focus. I constantly ask myself if the topic or issue that is irritating me at the moment – will matter at the moment of death. Or if I could simply leave it alone, as I’m continually instructing my dog to do on walks. That is what we are practicing during meditation: to leave alone the torrential stream of distracting thoughts and relate to what we are experiencing in the moment.
Bardos are part of our psychological makeup, but we often miss the bardo-like experience unless we are paranoid or groundless. Like losing our phone or car keys, a suspended moment of panic will wake us to where we are and what we are doing. Learning to navigate these moments of groundlessness is actual preparation for our death.
The Six Bardos include The Natural Bardo of this Life, where we all find ourselves now. The Bardo of Dying occurs when we receive a diagnosis of a fatal illness up until the moment we are dying, which, of course, doesn’t happen to everyone, as we can go instantly. Then there is The Bardo of Dharmata, which occurs once we have entirely passed away, and then The Bardo of Becoming, when we are on our way to being born. The other two crucial bardos we explore are The Bardo of Meditation and The Bardo of Dreaming. Each bardo offers a unique opportunity for complete realization, recognizing our true nature. All of the bardos are significant opportunities to wake up! Thus, learning more about transitions can widen our minds and hearts and increase awareness. Also, first and foremost, we understand that how we live is how we will die; with the help of Pema Chodren’s book, we deeply dive into the bardos in everyday life.
Please join me for seven 2-hour sessions every other week ONLINE. Tuesday evenings beginning January 7 through April 1, 2025, with a final 3-hour Grieving Ritualon Saturday, April 5, 2025.
We are offering 7 CEs for attending the entire course, and each class will be recorded should you need to miss the live session. In between courses, we offer you a channel on the Circle format membership site to discuss your experience with the Bardo with prompts.
By Melissa Moore
“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.” Brene’ Brown
In Karuna Training, we are interested in cultivating a genuine connection with ourselves and wholeheartedly connecting with others. This kind of heartfelt connection requires taking a risk into the vast internal arena of our vulnerability.
Consider all the times we have fretted about how to let another person know what and how we feel. For example, when entering into a new relationship, we may feel insecure about ourselves for various reasons, like we’ve been out of a relationship for some years, or we feel insecure about sexuality, or we just are scared of getting hurt again. Expressing those vulnerabilities openly and honestly to our love interest will reveal important information. If they respond equally openly, then we are usually relieved and happy to go forward in the relationship- and if not, then we wouldn’t have wanted to enter that relationship anyway.
Or what about with people we love and care about the most, like our parents, children, or partners - when we want them to know how we feel and what is happening with us in the face of their behavior? Sometimes, the people we are closest to are the most difficult people with whom to show our vulnerability. However, having led process groups and communication sessions with multiple people, I’ve come to trust that our open expression of vulnerability is almost always reciprocated or held with deep respect. It takes a lot of bravery to open up when we lack trust in another. And that bravery usually pays off, even though it's counter-intuitive to wade into the murky waters of feeling ill at ease.
Sometimes, we feel vulnerable, and we are not even sure why we feel that queasy, shaky sensation inside, but it's helpful to have tools to explore our emotions, especially when they are undefined. That is precisely what we dedicate ourselves to in Karuna Training. We offer methods to stop trying to think our way through emotions and instead ground ourselves in our bodies to explore emotional energy as it arises somatically. It's not always comfortable, but it's a method that makes us more robust and courageous and breeds strength of heart and clarity of mind.
We begin to discover that our vulnerability is the cauldron of our greatest strength. What we are avoiding is falling apart or making a fool of ourselves. However, when we open up to others with genuine feelings, we take responsibility for ourselves, which breeds respect and resonance. Somewhere along the line, we have internalized a message that showing weakness is not okay. And yet, it is our willingness to display our soft spots that connects us to other human beings. All humans have soft spots, which are the grounds of a compassionate and courageous heart, and these soft spots need to be tapped to activate them.
Showing and admitting vulnerability is most difficult for me when I want to be right or be the one who wins, say, in an argument or in holding a particular point of view. Sometimes, when my husband and I have a flash of anger or a strong disagreement, we solidify our boundaries and become very tight and close to being the right one. At some point, for the energy to flow again, one of us has to soften and enter into that sickening feeling of giving in; we could call it forgiveness. Forgiveness is a very vulnerable arena to enter and accomplish. It takes softening toward ourselves first - enough to admit our part in a conflict. I experience that when I embody my feelings and accept my internal vulnerability inside - it is always reciprocated.
Karuna Training has refined a trauma-informed approach, allowing participants to explore vulnerability in a facilitated space of a familiar community aimed toward the same aspirations. The training operates in a cohort model, where we explore our relationships with one another over two years to discover our particular style of vulnerability and how we solidify our egos when we choose not to feel vulnerable. It is a golden opportunity to learn and experiment trusting our vulnerability within the cohort, rather than in our regular lives, so Karuna provides a practice ground. In doing so, we birth a genuine heart of strength, courage, and the ability to find an authentic expression in our acquaintances, relationships, and families. Please join me on Saturday, July 27th, from 9 AM to 11 AM Mountain time for a live, in-person introduction to Karuna's methods for discovering strength within vulnerability. I hope to see you there.
By Melissa Moore
Last night, I dined with a 92-year-old woman and her 98-year-old husband, both still in good health; although she has severe osteoporosis, she is still gardening, throwing pots on a kiln, and he is golfing twice weekly - and only stopped skiing less than five years ago. It's wild how enamored I was of their energy at their age - they had been married for 71 years. The woman joked and said,’ You mean our denial of aging.’ This made me wonder if aging is as much of a mental process as she makes it sound – and if how we hold our age impacts the aging experience.
Colorado is full of healthy 85+-year-old folks all over the slopes, cross-country skiing in the winter, and running and biking up and down mountains at high altitudes all summer. This is the state with the lowest BMI per capita, and the idolization of being active and fit while elderly is a State obsession. It is a common topic at dinner parties. I see it all as further ageism and ableism – yet I’m guilty of the same infatuation and aspiration as I age. Ageism is the degradation of aging, making a natural process something to hide or be ashamed of. Ableism is thinking that everyone has all the capacities to achieve and succeed, especially physically, with enough willpower, not realizing the impact on people with disabilities.
Undoubtedly, there is a skillful means to the aging process that challenges the impact of ageism and ableism. To grow old is good fortune for most - old age is a precious time to review the choices we’ve made in our life, our regrets and our accomplishments, the decisions we felt forced into, and the lifestyles we crafted – all bearing fruit in old age in an air of ‘looking back.’. Sorting through all of it is deemed a necessary exercise. Much like sorting one’s things, who will mess with all the stuff when we are gone?
It's also true that we have learned some things and accrued wisdom in life, which longs to be shared and witnessed in circles of openness. We only sometimes find those opportunities in families or nursing homes across North America. Although there are many open-hearted people and programs for the elderly, we often encounter a warehouse of the elderly, lonely, confused, and frequently feeling they have inadequate help and nobody to talk to.
What would the world look like if we honored and appreciated our elders—as most indigenous cultures have always done? We would honor the fact that a long-viewed perspective is valuable and can only be attained through old age. We have life experience and a historical perspective that can be necessary to understand where we came from, our ancestors, and the lost generations and stories.
What will the world look like as we are forced to return to intergenerational homes due to economics, where the babies are cared for by elder relatives, and the family is operated as a system for all versus just the individual? Today’s food and housing costs are forcing families to try on the time-tested model of intergenerational households; unfortunately, many youth interpret this as a failure instead of the opportunity before them.
In Karuna Training, the cohorts we gather for our training are often multi-generational in age range, with youth and elders mingling. We’ve found a wholesome example of respect for elders' experience in our circles, and when we don’t make a big deal about age but interact as humans in a circle of equality.
As elders, we bring responsibility into any communal space to take our seats and remember our potential contributions. Sometimes, we need to notice our habits of mind and speech, and together, we support one another in opening up. Here are a few ideas that we could practice:
We need to learn to express gratitude for life's long view. History always swings wild in a lifetime, as do inventions and so-called progress, which always look different from the lens of old age than it does to the youth. We can learn to express our gratitude to have witnessed such history, whether we understand it or not.
We must skillfully work with life’s regrets and acknowledge our lessons learned with humility rather than self-blame. The old’ if we knew then, what we know now’ meme applies here, and we can adapt that meme with humor and humility, looking back with compassion and understanding for our life experiences, painful or joyful, all part of the soup of life.
We should review our narratives with a healthy dose of a ‘not-knowing mind.’ We could review our narratives in life—what is right and wrong, political, cultural, religious, or otherwise influenced—with curiosity and let go of knowing all the answers. Especially if we desire to have a conversation, we can be curious about what and why others think what they do!
To release what was, embrace what is. Old age requires us to release past identities and capacities that separate us from what we know. This loss can bring complaints and suffering, thus reinforcing our cultural conditioning of old habits. We could begin to open our minds to the wonders in front of us now, which may mean procuring a source for the wonder, when possible, strolls in nature or sitting on one’s front stoop as Spring dawns. When we only see doom and gloom, it may be an indication to raise our gaze to the present moment and allow the elements of wind, water, air, and sun to do their magic.
These are not prescriptions by any means, but they support reflection on elegant ways to age gracefully and to aspire to be as open and in awe of the world as possible.
Please tune into our Podcast, to listen to an invigorated conversation with four Karuna-infused wise women who will discuss the details and skillful means of aging elegantly.
By Melissa Moore
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Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning ‘circle’ or anything with a center, a periphery, or a fringe. It can include any society, group, or association and often has connotations of a spiritual gathering. In many Eastern traditions, wisdom mandalas are used as meditation practice tools.
In Karuna Training, we engage the wisdom Mandala of the Five Buddha Families (5BF) by practicing space awareness to learn to trust and understand the nonduality of the seen and unseen forces of the world. Through convening with the 5BF Wisdom Mandala, we learn to access and integrate our innate wisdom.
Is this a therapeutic approach? Well, yes and no. It depends on how we define therapeutic. If therapeutic means curing or ‘fixing’ an ailment or addressing a pathology, then no, space awareness practice is not therapeutic. However, in the contemplative definition of healing, when we learn to come home to who we are, unique to each of us, it could be considered healing and certainly relaxing.
Karuna Training offers a deep dive into the practical and imperceivable aspects of the Five Buddha Families through the Mandala's body, speech, mind, quality, and action. These families are experienced in both confused and wisdom manifestations. The spectrum between confusion and wisdom is the ground we tread daily and where most land habitually. Bringing space, kindness, and awareness to the dimensions of the 5BF Mandala as it manifests within us performs the healing properties of space awareness practice.
The outer aspect of the 5BF Mandala is the elements and where we begin in Karuna Training: space, water, earth, fire, and wind—making up the entire universe and all its inhabitants. We study each element's unseen energetic aspects and then how the elements transfer into emotional styles and eventually habituate into conditioned experiences. The confused and wise aspects of the 5BF energies are nondual realities, and we exchange with them daily. We call them families because they’re so familiar; however, bringing contemplative awareness to these energies ignites our wisdom mind.
It's the old adage of ‘it's not what happens to us, but how we hold it that matters’ - a shift of mind can make a difference in our perception and experience. For example, if we plan a picnic and it rains, we may experience disappointment, but if we are farmers amid drought, we experience the rain as a blessing. Our conditioning toward the elemental aspect of the energies matters, and the 5BF also engages deeply with the primary emotions of passion, aggression, ignorance, pride, and envy - all possessing nondual wisdom in their own right. Through space awareness, widening the mind with space and relaxation, we begin to experience the respective wisdom of the 5BFs: discernment, clear seeing, accommodation, equanimity, and skillful action.
In Karuna Training, we learn to trust the world's intrinsic sanity by studying the 5BF Wisdom Mandala, exchanging ourselves with others' energies, and turning our allegiance to their intrinsic sanity. We practice this through Compassionate Exchange, which allows a broader perspective on the 5BF energies. For example, what passion looks like in me will be very different from all others. The same is true for all shades of emotion. Again, we learn to widen our minds and hearts with space and relaxation to open to the wisdom of others.
We are befriending ourselves as we learn to embody and befriend the energies. This is often experienced as healing because internally, we relax, and externally, we expand out of trust and love for the world as it is—not as we wish it to be. So even when emotional energies are uncomfortable, we stay with them and learn to transmute the innate wisdom within the emotion. We make friends with ourselves and become less reactive to the world with its omnipresent impermanence and suffering.
Space awareness is therapeutic, but not in the sense that we change ourselves; it's much more about befriending and becoming more of who we are, which is always sane and reasonable at our core.
By Melissa Moore
“May this Winter Solstice season bring peace, love, and relaxation.
We wish you a good book to read, a blanket to keep you warm,
a hot drink in your cup, and friends with whom to weather any storm.”
~ Otherworldly Oracle
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We need to bring light and insight into the darkest hours of the year, light to turn the page, light to move forward, and heart light to bring cheerfulness into the darkest time of year. Humans have marked this annual transition from dark to light since time immemorial. Nowadays, when we ritually observe and celebrate the Winter Solstice, we connect to what is ancient in us as human beings.
We may tap an embodied memory when we move ritually in tune with the seasonal changes.
Winter and Summer Solstice rituals are cross-culturally known to human beings worldwide. One could imagine they abide in our DNA as a species, consciously or unconsciously; there is an impulse to mark these significant annual dark-to-light and light-to-dark transitions.
Creating Rituals to Acknowledge Transitions
Karuna Training explores how rituals help us embody and acknowledge substantial events and life transitions. Through ritual, we learn to commune directly and energetically with the invisible elemental forces and tune into the world's seasonal significance and greater wisdom.
Through ritual, we bind ourselves to reality through our body, speech, and mind. The Body - is the embodied action, the actual act or rite of the ritual. The speech aspect is the feelings stirred and invoked by the rituals. Rituals allow our voice to be heard, and we speak directly to the invisible forces - taking back our human capacity and power to commune directly with the sacred. The mind holds the intention we set for our rituals; with clarity on what we aspire toward, we are more likely to magnetize whatever we desire.
Both conscious and unconscious rituals are essential to human psychological health and sanity. A ritual here does not necessarily mean following an official rite or a prescribed religious ceremony; we can discover all kinds of rituals. When speaking of ‘sacred ritual, we acknowledge the freedom to create and amalgamate whatever we care to incorporate, as humans have done for eons, in creating a meaningful ritual for oneself. Mundane rituals can be as everyday as making our tea, relating to our phone, greeting our partner or children, calling our mothers weekly, etc. They are meaningful and essential to be intentional in one’s body, speech, and mind.
If we create rituals, we unconsciously enact them, usually through self-destructive or unsatisfying behaviors. In Contemplative Psychology, we understand destructive addictive behaviors, usually ritualized, arise out of separation toward the sacred. Sacred here refers to evoking an experience of the world and its wisdom, which is more significant than us but not separate from us. We are all seeking connection with that which feels more powerful than we are. We aspire to belong to someone, something, and the World. Even if we have renounced belonging and live in solitude- we’re in reaction or evolved away from our need to belong.
Evoking the sacred means learning to enact conscious rituals or create contained experiences that bring forward a sense of belonging to the greater whole. We can remember to mark significant transitions in the year with meaningful rituals that we amalgamate from our history and current values. Creating rituals or combining those familiar to us and those we love is an opportunity to evoke the sacred - to make the holiday season meaningful and personal to feel they belong to us and we to them.
When the sun is far away, we can supplicate the light to return, metaphorically, ‘What shadow areas do we wish to shine light in our lives?’It is courageous to invite light, which in Buddhism is synonymous with luminosity or appearances. We are bringing light into the shadow time of year, a shared collective turning point on the globe's Northern poles.
“We tell ourselves stories to live.”
Joan Didion
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I recently took a road trip with an old colleague and friend with whom I’ve not spent much time for several years. It was their first time traveling through the Southwest Canyonlands, and we spent a lot of time in a hot car together. The past occasionally came up in conversation, and I found it astounding how differently we remembered the same events! We each had a markedly different narrative about what happened 20 years ago.
Story-making is the act of weaving meaning through narration that orders our experience to make sense of what happened to us. We all integrate meaning through a story from life’s precarious and unceasing events. Narratives can be highly therapeutic and sometimes necessary to synchronize with one’s world. I am addressing when our narratives conflict with others or we hold them so tight there is no room for another’s experience.
It's widely understood that individual memory is extraordinarily subjective and faulty. (Shaw, J., & Porter, S., 2015). Therefore, when we notice we have different narratives than someone else on shared history, perhaps with friends, siblings, or family members, we will be challenged to find agreement, and schisms occur. We’re confronted by an entirely different perspective than our own, and sometimes, it feels threatening and groundless.
From a Buddhist perspective, thoughts weave our personal stories together, and these thoughts arise from deeply conditioned and habituated aspects of our minds. Buddhism understands a storehouse consciousness, one of eight consciousnesses, which holds onto every action, emotion, experience, and thought as a seed waiting to ripen when the right causes and conditions occur. Buddhism believes our storehouse consciousness is full of seeds from this life and all previous lives.
I’m not realized enough to know if there is a storehouse consciousness. Still, I can recognize that I repeat emotional and behavioral patterns I thought I’d already worked through. I am repeating patterns in relationships, friendships, and life challenges that play out similarly as they have before. This repetitive nature of our habitual patterns is the ripening seeds arising from our storehouse consciousness. We can purify the storehouse consciousness, but not without intentional mind and heart training.
I’ve learned from my dharma practice and study over the last 40 years to understand that my narrative is nothing more than how I’m making sense of life and certainly nothing solid. Also, I notice how my stories change over time as I edit and re-edit them in the telling.
Knowing how to loosen our narratives is beneficial in today's divided world of politics, family dynamics, science zealots and deniers, and a general information overload. Widening our minds around our narratives offers us and others flexibility of mind, an openness of heart, and the ability to become curious about another’s perspective. Openness is the seed of compassion, what we cultivate in Karuna Training.
I have often reminisced with my brother and sister about our family vacations as a matter of relief and entertainment. We’ve found great camaraderie in these recallings at times. My siblings are both considerably younger than me, and in reality, we had different family lives, but we shared the same father and grandparents. When we speak about our father and grandparents, I notice we have entirely different relationships with those family members, leading to varying narratives, which can occasionally cause tension.
What makes siblings exciting, regardless of the age gap, is that they are the most extended relationships we tend to have. Family conflicts can arise when siblings hold tight to their version of ‘what happened.’ Recognizing that it’s natural for our siblings to perceive family experiences differently is an important aspect. A practice of loosening our narratives could be helpful in the name of maintaining essential relationships.
The way to loosen our narrative in the name of mutual understanding with those with whom we love and share experiences is to let go of what we think we know. That's a challenging task! However, loosening the narrative makes space in our mind for new perspectives and demands we investigate why we hold things from such a different point of view. How do we let go of these storylines, especially when they feel like they’re gluing us together?
Meditation is beneficial to accomplish this mind-unraveling task, which is one of the main goals of meditation practice. We sit silently with ourselves and synchronize our bodies, breath, and mind in the present moment. Letting the breath and the space at the end of the out-breath be our anchor to the present moment; we continually let go of our thoughts and return to our breath. Meditation builds the muscle in our minds to let go of what we think and experience what is happening fresh in life off the meditation cushion.
When we encounter a situation where we have a different viewpoint from someone else about what transpired, we practice letting go because that skill has been developed. It shows up like pausing and asking ourselves, ‘Is it necessary to hold onto my story as the right story?’
I faced that question this summer when my friend presented a different interpretation of our shared past. At that moment, I had to instantly broaden my perspective to listen genuinely to their point of view. It served as both a gesture of goodwill towards our relationship and evidence of how much I cherished our friendship to be willing to release my narrative. Join me for a one-hour free Karuna Live on Thursday, October 26, from 7 - 8 PM MT to discuss and explore where we hold our narratives tightly and when that is a problem.
By Melissa Moore, PhD
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Perhaps we’ve heard or used the phrase ‘taking space,’ yet do we know how to take space for ourselves in a beneficial way? It's often invoked amid relational tension when we’re at a crossroads and need to back off and take some time and distance from one another. Sometimes one partner in a relationship will say, ”I need to take some space,” which can be perceived by the other partner as a threat. What do we mean by taking space, and how can we do so with genuine kindness toward ourselves and others?
We need to take space in relationships sometimes, especially when caught together in destructive patterns of speech. How can we simply pause and touch into space to re-group without shutting down completely?
Sometimes, when in need of space in my relationship, I shut down the space and stop relating altogether. When I do so, I don’t feel spacious at all, I feel claustrophobic and controlling. That's not taking space – it’s an act of suppressing space and refusing to feel anything. Part of learning to evoke space is the capacity to notice the contrast between feeling spacious and feeling ignorant and suppressed. The latter is a habit of employing space to ignore and become dull. Space has multiple qualities, and how we relate to these qualities is a question of awareness.
Space is one of the five elements of the Five Buddha Family Wisdom Mandala. The elements are water, earth, fire, and air. Space abides in the mandala's center, where all elements are born and dissolved. Karuna Training teaches us to embody space and all the elements. We learn to evoke space and discern when it's needed.
Making a deep relationship with space is one of the benefits of meditation practice. When we sit with ourselves in silence, in the beginning, we find we are filling the space with many of thoughts. We do so because open space can threaten our ideas of who we are; we sense groundlessness, and automatically, we will avoid the space and fill the openness. Often we’re inclined to admonish ourselves for thinking so much - but thinking is a way to fill up the space and confirm our existence. Meditation is learning to befriend ourselves while we feel uncomfortable not filling the space. So even when our minds feel out of control, and it’s challenging to be with ourselves, we stay open to what arises.
Eventually, the chatter subsides when we sit in meditation long enough, and then the boredom sets in. There is such a thing as hot boredom and cold boredom. Hot boredom is irritating, fidgety, and another way to fill the space. Cool boredom, however, is a physical and mental acceptance of boredom, a sense of contentment amid the boredom. Chögyam Trungpa said, “In Western society, when any little irritation comes up, there is always something to cure it. From little things like pads for your spectacles to the biggest of the biggest, as long as anybody can afford it, the Western approach is to cure any kind of boredom or irritation at all… They even sell little pads to stick on your spectacles to keep them from sliding down so they stay on your nose properly… And a practitioner is someone who can maintain themselves, who can relate with boredom.”
In Karuna Training, we center ourselves around meditation practice and expanding our intensity capacity to sit with boredom, irritation, and discomfort; to grow and develop further capabilities of being with ourselves as we are, not what we wish we could be. We learn to evoke ‘Maitri,’ a Tibetan word meaning loving-kindness toward ourselves and others as they and we are. True maitri occurs when we love ourselves regardless of how we feel or what our mind is doing.
In meditation practice, we learn to soften the most uncomfortable parts of ourselves as they are, and when we do so, we are planting the seeds of maitri and mixing our minds with space, an open space we can feel internally. To discover genuine space takes time and training to relax and rest in the silence of space. We aspire to integrate space as a known state we can evoke when feeling claustrophobic.
Once we’ve established a regular meditation practice, we take space with kindness daily to be with ourselves as we are, not with the agenda of fixing or making ourselves better. Regular meditation shows us what space is and what it feels like to have it. Meditation practice for 30 minutes a day is like taking a preventative pill that will allow us to approach our lives with more space and kindness.
Learning what space is and how spaciousness feels internally is one of the many things we study in Karuna Training. Then we advance on to develop that capacity of holding space for others – while honoring our own need for space is what is practiced in compassionate exchange—this is one of the key methods of Karuna Training.
Can we hold space for others, meaning can we be present for another when they are in pain? Or do we need to offer advice to fix them and find a solution to their problems? Holding space is a practice of non-judgemental deep listening that communicates consideration and love.
We learn that space is necessary for the mind to be discerning, perceptive, pliable, and kind. We can make space an ally and evoke it in our bodies, speech, and mind. Learning how to evoke space can only occur through a relationship with loving kindness.
We invite you to spend an hour learning Karuna's views, methods of evoking space kindness, and other fundamental methods of Contemplative Psychology. Please join me for an hour-long Karuna Live on Saturday, June 17, at 10 AM MT to explore your relationship with space and kindness.
By Melissa Moore
This article is related to an event, click here to learn more.
Change is coming, and there's nothing we can do to stop it, so the question is, ‘ how do we move gracefully through the inevitability of life’s changes and be wisened by them?’
Some societal changes sweep in change faster than we can prepare for, like unexpected election results or suddenly being laid off by a giant tech company. There are gradual changes, like aging, kids growing older and leaving home, or societal shifts that occur without too many disruptions or annoyance, like the introduction of artificial intelligence or the rise of the smartphone. And then there is drastic and unexpected change; sudden deaths, natural disasters, illnesses, family tragedies, or accidents that come out of nowhere. These changes evolve naturally; for the most part, we integrate them as they happen; gradual societal changes are viewed as progress and expected.
It's the unexpected change that most of us struggle with, complain about, resist, and sometimes willfully sabotage. Sudden change is usually out of our control and imposed on us, either by others who have the power or by greater circumstances like the weather. We can also prepare for unexpected change, but not with our usual attempts to ensure ourselves against calamity. We can become busy nailing down the rug of our lives to ensure we’re not caught off guard. But suppose we could raise our gaze beyond our preoccupations with security? We can discover the inevitable aspect of change that is always in process and the changes that move us toward living a more responsive, wise, and dynamic existence. In other words, life wisens us when we learn to embrace change.
The ability to accommodate and navigate change falls on a continuum; on one end is utter resistance and a refusal to move forward – on the other is an expectation for change. Meaning if it's not changing, we get nervous. We all fall in different places on the continuum, and it's essential to know our habits around meeting any life changes.
For several years I was the director of the research and training division of one of the oldest social service agencies in San Francisco. I was the agency’s labeled ‘change agent,’ which didn’t make me popular with the clinicians who worked in the many mental health programs the agency oversaw.
My job was to help the CEO update an outdated agency to modern times. In 2005, that meant getting people to use email, implementing a newly designed data management system for client record keeping and billing, and bringing evidence-base-practices to all of the agency's services. Clinicians hated the changes. So in that job, I experienced firsthand the strategies to avoid change.
Many clinicians resisted the change I implemented across the agency, first by ignoring them, then by actively undermining the system. It was so tricky that I ran all the agency's clinicians through a ‘change adoption survey’ to find out where they fell on the adaptation-to-change continuum. Adaptability to change scales measured the clinician's proclivities to an experience of change. I fall on the far end of the continuum of a person who is quite comfortable with change. I get anxious if things stay the same, which made me a complete outlier in that agency. Many fell on the other end of the continuum, where any change brought anxiety and struggle. Learning about people’s propensity to change was informative, and I realized people need to be taught to navigate change because change will happen, like it or not.
I had to think about what made my proclivity to change so open and expecting. Perhaps a groundless childhood, moving countless times between divorced parents. I’ve also traveled a great deal – all seasoned travelers know things do not go as planned, almost ever. Don’t get me wrong, I still feel anxious in the face of unexpected change, but I’m also known as an ‘early adapter’ in a system of change. I believe the Buddhist teachings on impermanence have prepared me the most for adaptation to change. As a practitioner, I’ve sat in contemplation for many hours around the truth of impermanence.
Impermanence is a natural process that teaches us that once something is born into existence, it is subject to death. We are naive to think we can put things in place in life forever, whether that be a relationship, a job, a home, or even a way of thinking about life. Holding and integrating the truth of impermanence allows us to prepare for the change that will eventually appear. It doesn’t mean change will not break our hearts or irrevocably interrupt us.
Integrating the truth of impermanence allows us to be less self-occupied when change occurs. We become more proactive in creating the changes we desire. As Gandhi said, you must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Preparing for the truth of impermanence will allow us to navigate the winds of change. If you would like to practice working with impermanence in a group setting and share what’s arising, please join me for a Karuna Live on Thursday evening, March 9, at 6 PM MT.
By Melissa Moore
It’s that time of year again…
It’s time to consider the opportunity of the New Year before us, a new chapter, and potentially a fresh start. Usually, we resolve to do things differently, and often we identify something we want to stop doing. How many resolutions have you made that didn’t go anywhere? We resolve to stop eating sugar, stop binging on Netflix, spend less time on devices, or get off the couch and exercise! Many New Year’s resolutions are based on self-admonishment, and we use the New Year to reprimand ourselves with resolve to do it differently.
This New Year, we could find another way to initiate the change we desire by learning to make aspirations over resolutions. Aspirations are a more friendly approach toward ourselves to instigate change. For example, we could aspire for inspiration to cook for ourselves in a way that nurtures us the same as sugar does; or we can aspire for more engaging activities with friends and more passion in life than we find on Netflix. Or we could aspire to find real-world activities like walks in nature, musical instruments, or books that nourish us more than our electronic devices.
Learning to aspire over resolve in the New Year invites passion, creativity, and space. New Year aspirations, as opposed to resolutions, are less defined and open-ended.
New Year’s resolutions based on self-admonishment can be unkind ways of perpetuating the habit of making ourselves wrong and unworthy. We forget to reflect on what’s driving our undesired behaviors or relationships. We forget to ask ourselves what these behaviors and relationships are serving. For example, we binge on sugar because we’ve eaten poorly all day, or we binge on Netflix because we feel unengaged in our relationship. Typically, it’s difficult to understand what is going on when we take the time to reflect on ourselves with kindness. In Karuna, we call this practice of reflecting kindly Maitri, a Sanskrit word that means loving kindness towards ourselves and others. With the attitude of Maitri, we learn to foster self-understanding and patience toward ourselves.
True aspiration is something we feel inspired by. It adds direction and curiosity to our lives. We find out there are more things we want than things we don’t want. Opportunities manifest when we learn to cultivate a rising mind of aspiration. Instead of something flat and dry like, “ I aspire to exercise more in 2023’. An aspiration sets a psychic intention, is more open-ended, and is inspired. “I aspire to discover an exercise that I enjoy doing” or “I aspire for an exercise partner, which makes exercise more fun.” We rise to aspirations out of passion, as opposed to resolutions that often result from aggression towards ourselves. This can be subtle, but a resolution solves a problem. We firmly decide on a course of action and lock into something we’ve come to out of failure and disgust.
I like to make lists to know what I have to do and to stay on task. Long ago, in reality… only six years ago, I realized that my ‘to-do’ lists were seriously weighing me down. I was so busy accomplishing what was on the list that I was losing track of what I wanted to do. The more enriching things in my life that mattered to me were not on those lists. My aspirations were not on those lists: writing a book, learning to play guitar, studying history, reading more fiction, etc.
I’ve also noticed that specific dreams I’ve accomplished have come about organically, like learning to garden or hand-tiling my patio with river rocks. I never wrote those things down on a list – although they were things I’d aspired for many years. I’d seen hand-tiled patios in Northern California everywhere, and I desired to do the same one day.
Last year, in March, I took my gardening aspiration to a new level and grew seeds indoors. beginning in March. I live in Colorado, where the growing season is short, and gardening is more challenging than in California, where I learned. So aspirations evolve and develop and offer us an exploration of the things we are most passionate about.
Aspiration doesn’t need to be written down, although people are different in modalities that work for them. Aspiration can be mulled over in one’s mind for years, and then one day, we notice - there we are - deep into gardening. Also, aspirations evolve and look differently than we initially imagined them.
Choose a rising mind aspiration this New Year by learning to make open-ended aspirations!
You can take yourself through a simple exercise by answering these questions.
Take time to reflect on your answers, either through contemplation or journaling. Tune into your body and notice where you are in the present moment before you begin.
When we arise out of aspirations - we are inspired to find opportunities. An open aspiring mind generates auspicious coincidences; our main task is recognizing the opportunities to make a change.
By Melissa Moore
There is an online event related to this article that you can find here.
In the Northern hemisphere, there is a melancholy to the end of November when the grasses turn brown and the trees are freshly naked. We participate in this annual death of light, the descent into darkness… for a spell, and if we’re not wrapped up in activities, we might glimpse the sacredness of this seasonal transition. And yet, I notice that November tends to be one of the busiest times of the year. Like so many things, we’re propelled by the bottom line—instead of following the natural tendencies of the season. The seasons always display a natural wisdom of what to do at their respective time of year, and it’s so obvious—we miss it!
Following the seasons, no matter the time of year, is attuning to the sacred and exchanging directly with the invisible forces of life.
The Spring season is natural when we hatch anew, enliven, plant, and cooperate with emerging life. The summer is a time to accomplish—because one can move, expand, and grow when there is an ease of activity. The fall celebrates the harvest and gives thanks for the richness. Wintertime’s arrival—often unwelcome, we can taste the invitation to stock up and hibernate. Winter is a beautiful time for a solitary retreat when that opportunity is available. However, most of us fill our calendars with engagements and family reunions. Of course, meeting with our families is important too, and there’s a short season of bringing our children to meet their elders. Still, we need to find a balance with the seasonal flow.
In the late fall, going into the holidays in North America, no matter our spiritual roots, the season of darkness heralds a time to honor the quiet. Everything needs time and space to die and renew. We foster our natural connection to the sacred by allowing ourselves to synchronize with this quiet time of year in some way, whatever our life affords us. That may mean getting up at dawn for sunrise meditation before the kids are up. Or a slow walk with a beloved pet in the chill of the morning.
These glimpses of stillness emerge organically in the flow of our lives. Often it’s a matter of offering ourselves the space to be quiet. We don’t have to call it meditation; silently sitting or walking is enough. The dark time of the year lends us its hush, silence, and luminous stillness.
I recently walked out of a cabin at Drala Mountain Center at 8000 in elevation in the Rocky Mountains at 6:35 AM. I was on a group retreat, and I’d just completed a Maitri practice room. The color I chose to intensify in this retreat was yellow or the Ratna Buddha family, associated with fall, earth, generosity, and bounty, among many other things. Ratna is the color of death and ancestors. During the retreat at the Mountain Center that morning, it had snowed, and snow had collected on the land through the night up to 14 inches. Early in the frisky morning dawn, I noticed winter had arrived through the silence. The snow hushed the forest to a stillness only afforded by fresh snowfall. I opened my ears and stood still to allow the silence to open my heart. It is like I caught up with myself at that moment.
Recalling when nature has awed us into open-hearted silence is an excellent exercise.
I only need to stop typing this article and raze my gaze right out my office window. I’m awed to see the beauty of golden light reflected through the bare elm and plum trees—and experience the kiss of autumn wind rustling the dead leaves. In this instant, my mind is quieted, and I notice the subtleness of the elements opens my heart.
Contemplative practice is learning to attune our hearts to the energies of the present moment, nature, and a cultivated relationship with the elements I find it is the most accessible experience of that which is eternally sacred. One can also tune into the present moment in a crowded airport and experience much the same, but this takes training.
The primary practice is remembering because we have a lot more training in forgetting there is an instant resource in our natural environments. We need to slow down and tune into the present to remember to do. Failing to raise our gaze and feel our experience in the present moment is so simple. Trungpa Rinpoche called this always-available sacred moment Nowness. Nowness is also referred to as the fourth moment in Buddhism. The fourth moment is beyond time and simultaneously incorporates all time, past, present, and future.
I’ve experienced the death of the seasons as an excellent time to reflect on our year. Starting at the end of November and early December—moving forward through the Winter Solstice, and between Years… This is the season when the planet is most distant from the sun. This is the season we are invited to go inward to access and reflect on our year of experience and the transition of what was—to what is—to what will be… all accessible right now.
What happened in 2022?
What did you learn, and how do you want to apply that wisdom? What are we working with as we transition into 2023, what are we completing in life, and what are we willing to carry forward – even though we still may carry a burden? What is unfolding now for you going forward? Staying in the present to answer these questions is a point of access to our innate wisdom. But, it requires we go inside and sit openly, and wait…
When the underground energies settle down, the earth protects our life force while allowing time for rest. We do not need to figure anything out logistically, we can surround ourselves with loving kindness and stay with whatever arises.
We can attune to nature’s stillness—in the Northern hemisphere, at this time of year, the days are short, and the nights are long—can we find respite in the dark season by following nature’s lead?
Attune to the stillness, the silence, and the joy of the sacred this holiday season in a Karuna community. We will walk through a group ritual together, a time of reflection. Please bring a candle, an instrument, or anything that opens your heart and represents the sacred.
On Thursday evening, December 15, at 6 PM Mountain Time, we meet on the rise of the waxing crescent moon and practice a seasonal ritual of contemplating our year. Please join us for Attuning Our Hearts to the Sacred.