ii. 2/3 Subtle - aligning with self and Self

PRACTICE: Gratitude and the wound

connect the gratitude practice to that deep wounded part in you, let them meet, and let gratitude be thankful for the wounding, all of its deep discomfort and pain

- start to see how the world is supporting you, to see what’s coming in (like the love), see all the gifts that come in

Mindfulness is the capacity of being there body and mind united. When you drink your orange juice, drink mindfully and you will enjoy your juice because you are really there one hundred per cent.

Thich Nhat Hanh • Rest In the River

Thich Nhat Hanh

And it should be effortless. The habit energy is struggle. The natural state is effortless ease - to enjoy the miracle of that moment.

humility is the antidote to humiliation - it requires surrender and acceptance of what is.

we were never trained for this - perhaps only the saints at the blue level completely in servitude to God are the closest examples we have, and have turned away from because of the negative aspects of organized religion. Don’t let those aspects blind you to t

“Faith in something,” he has written in several books, “is an inducement not to dormancy but to action.”

Jimmy Carter

confront a kind of resilience that isn’t really about returning back to the way you were before, but is much more about reclaiming whatever new shape your form has taken. A resilience that doesn’t really ask us to forget, but that carries the memory of whatever harm or whatever fire we’ve been through. A resilience that carries that memory and stil... See more

Resilience Requires Flexibility

Resilience = emergence of something new, not a maintaining of the same

My belief is that tears, although they look like a mere emotive reaction, are much more: a deeply free action that many do not enjoy. They proceed from deep inside, where we are most truly ourselves. Tears reveal the depths at which and from which we care.

—Richard Rohr

When was the last time you shed tears for the planet? For another human? For yourself?

How do you know what you truly care about if you have not cried for it.

We can’t shed tears for those or that outside of us unless we can shed tears for ourselves.

If our doctors tell us that we have a terminal illness and can expect to live only another year, or five years, how would we respond? In fact, we confront exactly the same question if we are still healthy and have a life expectancy of fifteen or twenty more years.”

“The Virtues of Aging”

Jimmy Carter

Let us visualize the waves on the ocean, several waves appearing on the surface of the ocean. Some waves are big, there are those that are small, and each wave seems to have its own life. A wave may have ideas like, “I am a wave. I am only a wave among many waves. I am smaller than the other wave. I am less beautiful. I last less than the other wav... See more

Thich Nhat Hanh • Rest In the River

bridging 2-3: noticing our individuality and our unity, like the wave in water.

While living the life of a wave, a wave can live a life of the water.

Ask people to sit in those different perspectives - the silence that hears your thoughts is the water. Thoughts are the wave

Thich Nhat Hanh

PRACTICE: Gratitude (concrete and subtle)

Pair up with someone you trust and have a relationship with

Take 4 minutes

back and forth sitting across from each other finish the stem: “I’m grateful for…”

Doesn’t matter what we say - share whatever comes through. See where it goes in 4 minutes.