Aloha, Noah Markus checking in from Maui on a beautiful Saturday evening.
We had a marvelous, intense, invigorating, and inspiring day here, with some very generous wisdom given by our panel of teachers. Let’s get right to the juicy stuff…
Past recaps: True Generosity Day 1 | True Generosity Day 2 | True Generosity Day 3
The Methodology of Mindfulness
- Joseph Goldstein started the morning off by exploring three questions: What is mindfulness (and what is it not)? What do we learn from being mindful? What role does mindfulness play in the development of compassion?
- There’s absolutely too much from Joseph’s discourse to cover in a few bullet points, but one of the most poignant things he talked about was the very simple truth that whatever arises in our experiences in life will also come to pass at some point. Nothing is permanent except for change.
- To illustrate mindfulness, Joseph guided us through a quick and easy practice you can try right now. Spend a few moments simply moving your arm back and forth in front of you, just from shoulder to shoulder. Are you forcing it? Is it a struggle? No! Mindfulness is no more than that.
Walking Each Other Home
- Next we had Sharon Salzberg talking to Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush about their new book, Walking Each Other Home. The book is a series of conversations between Ram Dass and Mirabai about loving and dying.
- Ram Dass talked about how to work with death is to enter a space of truth. When he sits with a dying person he wants to be a “loving rock.” That means you’re there for the person in a loving way, but you’re not bringing your own stuff, your own baggage, into the situation with you.
- Finally, during the Q&A at the end of the session, a very brave audience member talked about the experience they are currently undergoing with terminal cancer. It was particularly amazing to watch Ram Dass connect with this person, and bring love and laughter into the room for us all to share.
Luminous Beings and Chaleesas
First up in the afternoon was Trudy Goodman and Jack Kornfield talking about how we can tend the garden of the world. Trudy asked us to not only contemplate the places where we get stuck, where we feel troubled, but also the places where we think things
Aloha for now.