• WHAT’S ON
  • MEDITATIONS MENU
    • Basic Mindfulness meditations
    • Three Minute Breathing Space
    • Body Scans
    • Compassion meditations
    • Compassion & Insight 2016
    • Dealing with difficulties
    • Meditations from Follow on groups 2014-15
    • MEDITATIONS 2017
    • Mindful Movement
    • Developing Mindfulness
    • Insight meditations
    • MEDITATIONS ON PAIN
    • POSITIVE MIND STATES
    • THE FOUR IMMEASURABLES
    • STUDY DAYS – List
    • STUDY DAYS 2017
    • STUDY DAYS 2018
      • WHAT IS REALITY?
      • BEING POSITIVE
      • JUDGEMENT DAY
      • ALLIES AND DEMONS
      • RADICAL ACCEPTANCE
      • DEALING WITH NEGATIVITY
      • DEALING WITH OUR CONDITIONING.
      • AWARENESS, ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND RELEASING.
      • Living with ease.
      • COPING WITH CHRISTMAS
    • STUDY DAYS 2019
      • Understanding life ….. and death.
      • Coping with Insecurity
      • Being positive – Positive being
      • Compassion Study Day
      • STAYING OPEN WITH OURSELVES
      • ADDICTION & ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOUR
      • Happiness and Joy.
      • EMBRACING FAILURE.
      • 6WAYS TO BE HAPPIER AND MORE COMPASSIONATE
      • TEN PRACTICES TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE!
      • FINDING PEACE
    • Study Days 2020
      • STEPPING OFF THE TREADMILL
      • FINDING THE BALANCE (the middle way).
      • LIVING WITH EASE.
      • DEALING WITH DIFFICULTIES 2.
      • THE FEELING OF LIFE (and death)
  • ARTICLES
    • About Mindfulness
    • Acceptance
    • Death – our deepest fear
    • Does meditation work?
    • Ego
    • EMBRACING MY FAILURE
    • Embracing our shadow
    • EMOTIONAL REALISATION
    • Forgiveness
    • HOW TO MEDITATE IN SILENCE
    • Inquiry on effort and concentration
    • Inquiry on Intent
    • Inquiry on Right View
    • Letting go or non attachment
    • Metta meditation (Loving kindness and compassion)
    • MINDFULNESS FIRST AID.
    • Morality and the 5 Precepts
    • The end of mindfulness
    • The practice of generosity
    • WAYS OF LOOKING
    • WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
  • INSIGHT 2021/22
  • COURSES
    • Kindfulness
    • Mindfulness Based Living Course
    • Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Course
    • Intermediate mindfulness course
    • Meg’s Mindful Movement
    • OLD COURSES
      • Intermediate 2021
      • Teacher’s mindfulness course September 2014
      • Meditations from courses in 2014
      • MBLC
      • Insight meditation practices – 2014/2015 Course
      • Meditations from the Care Centre 2015
      • NURSERY COURSE 2016/2017
      • DRUM HEALTH CENTRE COURSE 2017
      • Cannich Course 2018
      • RNI Course 2018
      • RNI Chapel Course Jan-Mar 2019
      • Intermediate course
  • INHERENT EXISTENCE.
  • Meet the Team
  • Donations
  • Books / Reviews / Verse
  • Privacy Policy
  • EMPTINESS

Highland Mindfulness Group

Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation SC050141

Feeds:
Posts

Books / Reviews / Verse

We now have a Book Reviews page on our website. Feel free to send us your reviews!


Here are some of the poems which have been shared during recent mindfulness sessions.

What If There is No Need to Change – By Oriah Mountain Dreamer

What if there is no need to change?
No need to try to transform yourself
Into someone who is more compassionate, more present, more loving, or wise?
How would that affect all the places in your life where you are endlessly trying to be better?

What if the task is simply to unfold,
To become who you already are in your essential nature:
Gentle, compassionate, and capable of living fully and passionately present?

What if the question is not
‘Why am I so infrequently the person who I really want to be?’
But ‘Why do I infrequently want to be the person I really am?’
How would this change what you think you have to learn?

What if becoming who and what we truly are happens not through striving and trying
But by recognising and receiving the people and places and practices
That are for us the warmth of encouragement we need to unfold?
How would this shape the choices you make about how to spend today?

What if you knew that the impulse to move in a way that creates beauty in the world
Will arise from deep within
And guide you every time you simply pay attention
And wait.

How would this shape your stillness, your movement,
Your willingness to follow this impulse
To just let go
And dance?


MEDITATION BLUES by Stephen Levine

Sometimes it breaks my heart

to watch my mind–

cold self interest,

insistent fear and judgement,

whispered insults,

vengeful fantasies,

triumph and despair.

A conditioned unfolding,

so impersonal,

we take it personally.

Sometimes aghast

at the casual cruelty

of even minor fears

and celebrations.

Sometimes it breaks my heart

to watch my mind.

And sometimes it stays broken

long enough to touch

even this pain

with love.

Sometimes the mercy washes

even Mrs. Macbeth’s hands,

and tragedy turns to grace,

and makes it all worthwhile.

Sometimes it breaks my mind

To watch my heart

This poem comes from his book Guided Meditations, Explorations and Healings (1993) Gateway Books.


The Guest House by Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


  • Follow Following
    • Highland Mindfulness Group
    • Join 42 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Highland Mindfulness Group
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d bloggers like this: