Sometimes life offers pain, confusion, and sorrow. There’s no way to stop those circumstances, nor to stop the difficult emotions that might arise alongside them. This week, Frank Ostaseski offers a meditation to investigate all of the circumstances of our lives with curiosity, and that can help us welcome everything that comes, or at least allow it. When we allow what is to simply be, we relieve ourselves of the suffering that can get heaped on top of our moments of difficulty. That extra suffering is optional, even if the difficult causes and conditions are not.
12-Minute Meditation: Welcome Everything
To welcome something doesn’t mean we have to like it, and it doesn’t mean we have to agree with it; it just means we have to be willing to meet it. In this practice which you can also find in the February 2022 issue of Mindful magazine, Frank Ostaseski offers six steps to open up to the present moment—whatever it may bring.
Surrendering to the Sacred
The Paradox Of Vulnerability, End Well Symposium
Frank Ostaseski shares how his series of strokes and the sudden switch in roles from caregiver to care-receiver have deepened his understanding of the surprising ways vulnerability can unlock personal resilience and cultivate compassion for oneself and others. In his conversation with Courtney E. Martin, the Zen Hospice Project co-founder speaks about the loss of identity in the setting of illness and why he’s more interested in discovery, not recovery.
Wisdom, Sacred Awareness, Buddhism, Zen Hospice: Science and Non-Duality
Caring for people who are dying can be an intense, intimate, and deeply alive experience. It often challenges our most basic beliefs. It is a journey of continuous discovery, requiring courage and flexibility. We learn to open, take risks, and forgive constantly. Taken as a practice of awareness, it can reveal both our deep clinging and our capacity to embrace another person’s suffering as our own.
“The part of you that knows you are afraid is not afraid.”
—Frank Ostaseski
Courageous Presence with Frank Ostaseski
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