Guided Meditations
Nature Meditations
Surrender
This short, guided meditation is an invitation to visit, in one’s imagination, a favorite place in the natural world, and to connect deeply with this place through sensory awareness. When we know that we are held in place by something greater, it is easier to let go of the burdens we carry.
free download here
Sense Gratitude
Gratitude, as in the felt-sense of thankfulness, grounds us in the heart. This meditation is offered as a way of opening to and resting in the heart through the practice of gratitude. It brings together nature connection through sensory awareness of sounds in the natural world (including, an exquisite call and response with a canyon wren), and a practice I learned from a Native American teacher that honors the Four Directions.
free download here
Nest in the Stream
This meditation is inspired by Joanna Macy’s “Breathing Through Meditation” and an actual encounter I had in the natural world with a bird’s nest in a stream. It is offered as a practice to help us with whatever pain (as in anything uncomfortable or difficult) is in our heart. It brings together mindful nature connection (through sensory awareness of sounds in the natural world), mindfulness of breathing, and the counter-intuitive but powerfully healing practice of leaning into the pain.
free download here
Breathing with Leaf
This meditation begins by helping us to engage with the natural world through the sense of hearing and an imaginal encounter with a single, green leaf. Then, through mindfulness of breathing, we may come into an experience of reciprocity - the vital giving and receiving between our bodies and all that is green in the natural world. We may then find with Kabir that, “something inside us has reached to the place where the Earth is breathing.”
free download here
Breathing Through Tree
Trees take in carbon dioxide and change it into oxygen and nourishing sugars. The carbon rich sugars drop with gravity into the roots of the tree to be passed on to neighboring trees through a vibrant web of underground connections. By allowing us to descend into our roots, this meditation can transform what is painful and difficult by bringing us out of isolation into an open-living system
free download here
Deep Resilience Meditations
The following meditations are my slightly adapted versions of three foundational practices from Lama John Makransky’s Sustainable Compassion Training (SCT), which he has drawn from the Dzogchen teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. Please check out Lama John leading these practices, which are freely available on www.sustainablecompassion.org. Lama John and Paul Condon’s book, , provides a detailed description of these and other related SCT practices, along with much more about the philosophical and psychological basis of this approach.
Lama John explains that the first two practices, the and the, work by interrupting our habitual patterns of thought and feeling while evoking qualities of our deepest nature, the ground of being, such as warmth, openness, deep allowing, and a sense of being seen and held beyond judgment. The third practice, the , offers a more direct way to experience the qualities of our Buddha Nature.
The Field of Care
In this practice, by recalling a caring moment, a benefactor, or a spiritual field as if it were happening now, we interrupt our habitual patterns of thought and feeling and evoke qualities of our deepest nature. The key is to choose a Field of Care that evokes qualities such as warmth, kindness, and the feeling of being seen and held in unconditional regard—beyond all judgment and reactivity—that is accessible and present to us now, in this moment.
​
The instruction is not to get caught up in the content of the memory or visualization (which I tend to do), but to release that content and simply be with the bodily felt-sense of the experience, as though it’s happening in the present moment, right here, right now, and to stay open to these energies and qualities, letting them infuse every part of our being. We’re also instructed to notice any reactions that arise. For me, a common one is feeling unworthy of such unconditional love. I feel myself pushing back, thinking, “If she really knew me!” Here, the instruction is not to get caught up in rumination, but to notice the feelings that accompany these thoughts and gently bring them into the Field of Care.
free download here
Compassionate Presence to Feelings
Here, we begin by becoming aware of a physical sensation somewhere in our body and gently welcoming it, allowing it to be there, “giving it all the time and all the space it needs to find its own way of being here.” Then we notice whatever emotional feeling is present, no matter how subtle or strong, and instead of pushing it away, analyzing, ruminating, or acting on it, we simply “give it all the time and all the space it needs to find its own way of being here.” Afterward, we’re invited to be present with the feeling, with an attitude of deep allowing, “like a friend with a friend.”
At the heart of this practice is the capacity for —gently welcoming and being nonjudgmentally present with whatever we feel, without expecting it to change. By offering them the same hospitality and deep allowing, they settle in their own time and way and may ultimately reveal their true nature, which we may experience as an energy or softness.
free download here
Letting Be of Body, Breath, and Mind
At first glance, this might seem like a deep relaxation practice, and indeed, it is, but it is also more than that. Here, we begin with the letting-be of the body and breath by noticing where we’re “holding on” to sensations. This is important because releasing our grip is a powerful antidote to the habit of “clinging,” which the Buddha identified as the root of suffering. Next, we are encouraged to loosen our grip, allowing the physical sensations we’ve been holding onto to settle in their own time and in their own way, and letting the body draw us into a sense of oneness with it.
Then we notice any holding on in our minds—whether to thoughts or feelings—and once again release our grip, permitting those thoughts and feelings to settle naturally in their own time and in their own way. The practice concludes by letting the mind settle back into the background of its own awareness, and by allowing this sense of openness and awareness to draw us into oneness with it—to rest in this, to rest as this.