Leadership Embodiment: Recent Episodes
Leadership Embodiment
Dzogchen Practice – by HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche The everyday practice of dzogchen is simply to develop a complete carefree acceptance, an openness to all situations without limit.
We should realize openness as the playground of our emotions and relate to people without artificiality, manipulation or strategy.
We should experience everything totally, never withdrawing into ourselves as a marmot hides in its hole. This practice releases tremendous energy which is usually constricted by the process of maintaining fixed reference points. Referentiality is the process by which we retreat from the direct experience of everyday life.
Being present in the moment may initially trigger fear. But by welcoming the sensation of fear with complete openness, we cut through the barriers created by habitual emotional patterns.
When we engage in the practice of discovering space, we should develop the feeling of opening ourselves out completely to the entire universe. We should open ourselves with absolute simplicity and nakedness of mind. This is the powerful and ordinary practice of dropping the mask of self-protection.
When engaging in meditation practice, we should feel it to be as natural as eating, breathing and defecating. It should not become a specialized or formal event, bloated with seriousness and solemnity. We should realize that meditation transcends effort, practice, aims, goals and the duality of liberation and non-liberation.
The continual stream of new discovery, revelation and inspiration which arises at every moment is the manifestation of our clarity. We should learn to see everyday life as mandala. The aspects of our mandala are the day-to-day objects of our life experience moving in the dance or play of the universe.
By this symbolism the inner teacher reveals the profound and ultimate significance of being. Therefore we should be natural and spontaneous, accepting and learning from everything. This enables us to see the ironic and amusing side of events that usually irritate us.
The 4th paramita, translated as “exertion, effort, energy and perseverance.” From where do we summon the ‘energy’ to override our habit of wanting of doing what is familiar and comfortable? We know it takes more energy to do our behaviour differently – In this case interrupt our personalities momnentum.
How do we activate or engage with enough life force that we can overcome the resistance we may have to sitting down with ourselves?
- Then we need a context in which to focus the energy to work with the resistance that may arise once we are sitting down.
- Is it correct to think that it takes exertion, effort and energy to turn inward and examine our patterns of thinking?
- Ritual creates a container for that effort.
- Ritual is preparing our biology to notice the distinctions that matter in the situation we are engaging in.
- The ritual of sitting with mindfulness suspends our personalities habitual was of relating to the situation.
Meditation in this context is a ritual……
the 5th paramita – meditation. How do you define meditation? – if someone asks you what do you say?
Here are some ideas that found:
Prayer is when you speak…Meditation is when you listen
Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s definition:
Bring the mind into the present by focusing it on the breath, and then make a calm, mindful analysis of the processes of the mind as they present themselves directly to immediate awareness
Finally, a definition that I love, is this of Zen master Dogen (13th century). Although he said it of enlightenment, it can be applied equally to meditation:
Meditation is to be intimate with all things.
If you are not familiar with Wendy’s style of meditation, she would like to offer a brief orientation below:
[audio:https://leadershipembodiment.com/audio/2012_08_02_meditation_intro.mp3] Full Meditation [audio:https://leadershipembodiment.com/audio/2012_09_13_meditation.mp3] Talk [audio:https://leadershipembodiment.com/audio/2012_09_13_talk.mp3]
If you are not familiar with Wendy’s style of meditation, she would like to offer a brief orientation below:
[audio:https://leadershipembodiment.com/audio/2012_08_02_meditation_intro.mp3] Meditation [audio:https://leadershipembodiment.com/audio/2012_08_30_meditation.mp3] End of Meditation and Talk [audio:https://leadershipembodiment.com/audio/2012_08_30_talk.mp3]
If you are not familiar with Wendy’s style of meditation, she would like to offer a brief orientation below:
[audio:https://leadershipembodiment.com/audio/2012_08_02_meditation_intro.mp3] Full Meditation [audio:https://leadershipembodiment.com/audio/2012_08_23_meditation.mp3] End of Meditation and Talk [audio:https://leadershipembodiment.com/audio/2012_08_23_talk.mp3]
Introduction Wendy would like to offer a brief orientation to her form of meditation:
[audio:https://leadershipembodiment.com/audio/2012_08_02_meditation_intro.mp3] Full Meditation Click play below to listen to the full 30-minute meditation
[audio:https://leadershipembodiment.com/audio/2012_08_02_meditation.mp3] End of Meditation & Talk Click play below to hear the end of the meditation and Wendy’s short talk on the paramettas:
[audio:https://leadershipembodiment.com/audio/2012_08_02_meditation_talk.mp3]
Each Thursday, starting July 26th, Wendy Palmer will offer a meditation and talk at the LE Center in San Rafael.
You can download the 30-minute meditation by right-clicking on this link and choosing “save as…” or “Download Linked File As…” etc. Meditation #1, July 27, 2012
[audio:https://leadershipembodiment.com/audio/2012_07_26_meditation.mp3]
There are many methods and practices of Meditation.
In this short talk about kratom masters, Wendy Palmer orients us to the self-inquiry with compassion that has informed her practice for decades, descending from the techniques she learned from Trungpa Rinpoche.
[audio:https://leadershipembodiment.com/audio/2012_08_02_meditation_intro.mp3] Meditation with Wendy – the flyer