Beloved community,

Welcome to spring, the season of renewal and of Heart's continuation! This April we embark on our 6th year of living, loving and practicing within intentional community together! Thank you for the many memories, for the care, tenderness, compassion and connection. I look forward to the future and delight in the astounding potential of what is to come for all of us. <deep bow>

We began this calendar year talking about what it means to live a life that is steeped in mindfulness: awake, potent, generous, compassionate and loving. The motivations and methods for practicing mindfulness with one another are limitless and create an impactful collective energy that can heal and transform both ourselves and the broader world.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is its own flavor of energy that is not separate from us. We can connect with it at anytime, in the immediacy of just being and noticing. In bringing our minds back to the body's experience we get in touch with what is happening right now, both within us and around us. Like connection to a power supply, on the spot we are energized, present and fully available to ourselves and to our experience.

What is it not?

Mindfulness is not depleting. It is not difficult work or a siphon of energy. We might want to dismiss it as ancient wisdom but on the contrary it lives and breathes, continuing to be the thing that produces the insight necessary to approach the many modern day challenges that we face.

How do we connect with it?

At anytime, anywhere, no matter who you are. On the spot we can touch life deeply, whether breathing, making a meal, washing our hands, standing in the shower, walking the dog, working out, meditating... thinking, speaking, working, playing, living.

What's more inspiring, is that like anything beautiful and worth pursuing, we can apply an art and skill to unearthing many more unique ways of generating the energy of mindfulness, peace, and happiness in our everyday lives. For example, mindfulness meditation has its own artistic method that skillfully produces three kinds of energy: smrti or mindfulness, samadhi or concentration/ absorption, and prajna or insight. The energetic wave of mindfulness carries with it the energy of concentration. These 2 forces together are so potent that they produce insight, understanding or what we might call enlightenment. Thich Nhat Hanh says, "whenever there is mindfulness, there is already some insight". What a beautiful and encouraging reminder and motivation to not only practice but to live as an intentional living, breathing work of art!

This month we explore the five mindfulness trainings as one of the most direct ways to practice mindfulness. It is valuable to recognize that these are universal in their nature and can be found similarly in all spiritual traditions! In Buddhism they are presented not as a set of rules or laws but as a path to develop skillful actions of body, speech and of mind that can contribute to the capacity for health, beauty and compassion in our collective society and world.

These trainings are based on the precepts developed during the time of the Buddha to be the foundation of practice for the entire lay (peeps leading a domestic life) community. Not surprisingly, the energy of mindfulness provides the framework for each of us to reflect on our actions, speech and thinking so we can avoid creating harm to ourselves and others. Mindfulness energy positions us to allow everything in life to become art, creating more happiness for all of us through the direct experience of calm, interest, connection, safety, and creativity. 

What are the five mindfulness trainings? 

1. Protection of life - mindfulness of interbeing

2. True happiness - mindfulness of generosity

3. True love - mindfulness of right use of energy

4. Loving speech and deep listening - mindfulness of communication

5. Nourishment and healing - mindfulness of consumption

    

The choice to produce and share light is something that belongs to all of us. Furthermore, we are in this together, able to support one another to recognize and activate that light within us should we be unable to see it. Thay reminds us that, "we have the tools... the path... the ability - with practice - to have insight. All we need to do is begin... with one breath, we can commit to living our daily lives in a way that brings happiness and well-being to the planet, to our beloved communities, and to ourselves". Feeling motived? Let's (em)POWER up, sangha!

In love and sangha,

Meg Lucks | Konchok Dzeden Zangmo