Wrapping up 2023, Thanissara and Raghu discuss how we can use mindfulness to relate to and make sense of the times we are living in.
Thanissara and Raghu examine these topics:
- The depth of the illusions we have built our civilization on
- The shifts that need to happen to enable us to live sustainably
- Political positioning and moral stances
- Becoming desensitized to the chaos and pain of the world
- Taking social action to create a better future for the next generation
- How mindfulness can be a huge part of the path forward
- Being receptive to how it is and taking small steps in our practice
- Fears that can be awakening versus the habit of fear
- Collectively working on a shift in consciousness
- The sangha as the coming Buddha
“We are getting, in a very weird way, conditioned by and inured to all of this climate change, violence, wars, pestilence, all of this. It’s a lot. We are getting inured to it. It is just becoming part of the fabric where we don’t pause the way we paused when it first came out.” – Raghu Markus
Links & Recommendations From this Episode:
Dive deeper into Kabir’s book that Raghu recites from for more mystical poetry
Check out The Movie of Me to the Movie of We, the audio-book collaboration between Duncan Trussell and Raghu Markus
About Thanissara:
Thanissara is a teacher, poet, climate activist, and co-founder of the Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat. She spent 12 years as a Buddhist nun and holds an MA in Core Process Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy Practice. Thanissara was a founding member of Chithurst and Amaravati Buddhist Monasteries in England. She helped initiate/support a number of HIV/Aids response projects in deep rural South Africa. In addition, she has facilitated meditation retreats internationally for 30 years. She teaches across the U.S., in South Africa, and the UK. She is the author of several books, including her most recent, Time To Stand Up, A Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth.
“To work with the mind, the unfettered mind, the mind that hasn’t had any sense of containment in relationship to the practice of meditation, it’s going to need a lot of patience. So can I just maybe sit for 10 minutes and take 10 count on my fingers? I still do this after 50 years of practice. In a way, when we’re asked what’s happening, it’s something very simple. It’s to taste the natural state of your being here which is always peaceful, always inviting, always opening and revelatory unto its own nature. What’s complex is the way the mind moves around that.” – Thanissara