Choices

Today’s Reading is a excerpt from “My Stroke of Insight” by Jill Bolte TAylor, Ph.D  From Page 148.
……….More often than not, I don’t like how agression feels inside my body so I shy away from the hostile confrontation and choose compassion.
For me now, it’s really easy to be kind to others when I remember that [...]

Some Reflections….

I’ve been spending a lot of time delving into personal work since October.  Evaluating and exploring my inner-self, yet with nothing to report to my journal.  I think I’m still in that mode but I’m beginning to bud and will eventually blossom.
I’m focusing on releasing myself from everything.  Allowing myself freedom from want and desire [...]

Ring..Ring the Election is Calling

With all the anxiety about the election and things flying at citizens from every angle, mail, Internet ads on our favorite sites, phone calls, signs, etc….  I decided to take a page out of Thich Nhat Hanh’s poetry book, namely the cuckoo telephone.  Every time one of these things interrupt your life, use it as [...]

Letting the Mind Float in the Heart

Teaching and Guided Meditation taken from excerpts of the books Who Dies? by Steve Levine, The Quaker Book of Wisdom by Robert Lawrence Smith and Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach.
Teaching:
Sometimes we have bad thoughts, it is all part of being human.  Thoughts that the practice of loving kindness tells us are unacceptable.  Feelings we are certain our fellow practitioners [...]

Moving Into New Territory

I am so very thankful to have found the Wednesday Mindfulness Meditation Group at St. James United Church of Christ.  I probably started attending in February or March of 2008.  In December of 2007, my mother gave me The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering Into Peace, Joy & Liberation by Thich Nhat Hanh [...]

Silence is Golden

Excepts from the Quaker Book of Wisdom by Robert Lawrence Smith
“SILENCE. Even speaking the word seems to violate its meaning. 
In reality, silence is almost nonexistent.  If we stop speaking and turn off our telephones and televisions and radios and computers, there is always some sound of technology at work, nearby or far off.  A refrigerator [...]

According with Nature

“Who once was in attentive
But now is not,
Illumines the world
Like the moon set free from a cloud.”
           – Dhammapada 172
Excerpt from “The Issue at Hand: Essays on Buddhist Mindfulness Practice” by Gil Fronsdal
“According with Nature
All spiritual practice involves change, or a wish for change: to go from a state of suffering to a state without [...]

Mindful Musings

Welcome to a  new addition to the St. James Website.  I (Kara) will be making regular updates from the ongoing Mindfulness Meditation group that meets weekly at St. James.  The Meditation Group meets Wednesdays from 9:30am untill 11ish weekly.  This is an informal, shared leadership meditation group.
The goal of these submissions are to provoke thoughtful [...]