“The Gift of Contemplation” with Jane this Sunday at Minneapolis Insight

Dear Community,

Sunday 10am Community Practice & Discussion

This Sunday Jane will lead a practice and exploration based on a May 5, 2022 article in Tricycle by Vanessa Zuisei Goddard entitled; “The Gift of Contemplation”.

From Jane: I have been contemplating the ideas that the author offers in this article over the last few weeks, as I have struggled with various ways that I resist a variety of realities in our world and in my life. I look forward to contemplating together how do we each access these and other teachings to help us stay present and engaged.

From the article: Contemplation gives us the space, time, and conditions to see things and ourselves as we really are. The practice of contemplation, creates a space in which to work with our resistance so that we can choose is. (IS: a term the author uses for presence or connectedness) …We don’t have to like all aspects of reality. Like or dislike have nothing to do with contemplation. Yet we can learn to love reality’s isness, which means honoring ourselves and others and things and beings as we and they are. From this perspective, contemplation is the profound practice of loving what is, of resting in and into what is, of not distancing ourselves from ourselves and the world.

All of us have wanted things to be otherwise at some point in our lives. All of us have wished for different choices, different stories, different results. Yet there’s enormous strength—and infinite possibility—in learning to love what is, instead of what should have been, and one way to do this is to learn to attend, allow, and accept.

The Author goes on the define Attend, Allow and Accept in these ways:

Attending is the opposite of denying or ignoring. It’s turning toward whatever we’re struggling with and choosing to not evade or repress. Attending is choosing to stay fully present to every shade of our being, from light to dark.

Allowing is stepping in…. giving yourself permission to walk among others just as you are, and letting them be who they are. When we allow, we realize we don’t have to control the situation. We don’t have to dissociate or numb out. Instead, we can stay embodied and step in closer.

Accepting is saying yes to reality. It’s deciding that no matter what happens, you want to be comfortable……. like or dislike have nothing to do with it—that by accepting you’ve consented to reality, which means you’re now in a position to decide what to do next.

We hope that you will join us for this exploration on Sunday! Registration and Zoom information available here.

With mettā,
Minneapolis Insight