MAY 8-13

It is rare for me to travel to Europe to teach. In fact, this is the first time ever for me to lead a retreat in Europe (France, to be specific). I am psyched!!

Most Open Heart Project communal gatherings happen at a time or place that is not so convenient for those outside of North America. If you’ve ever wanted to meet in person to practice together and discuss your path, this is the time!

During this 4-day program, we will explore what it really means to have an open heart. This work begins with opening your heart to yourself by releasing guilt, shame, and the constant self criticism we live with.

When this happens, we find that only one thing remains: love.

We will rely on meditation, loving kindness practices, journaling, and small group dialogue to create a relaxed, spacious, and truly liberating inner experience. There will also be time for walks, resting, and generally letting go of our daily concerns to open to a larger reality.

To ensure that this retreat will happen, please register now. (It will cancel if there aren’t sufficient registrants). Thank you and I hope to see you there!

Open Heart Retreat
Dechen Choling
Mas Marvent
87700 St Yrieix sous Aixe, France
Tel: +33 (0)555035552

Hello, all. Inspired by Jonathan Fields, I wrote this annual report to try to make sense of 2012 and clarify my direction for 2013. Writing it was very instructive. I reviewed what worked, what failed, what influenced me, and where I plan to go creatively, spiritually, and professionally. Even though this report is about me, I hope you will find it beneficial to read.

Here’s to a year of brilliance and peace, Susan

If you feel moved to share it, here is the direct link.

It is almost impossible, no, it is impossible, to have any idea how to react to a tragedy as profound and senseless as the one that occurred today at an elementary school in Connecticut. It is impossible to grasp.

I’m sure that, like me, many of you have been crying all day.

An event this horrific causes us to see that all of our normal coping mechanisms are inadequate. We turn to each one—blame, hiding, medicating—and each one fails.

Nothing can make this okay. There is no explanation that helps. Blaming lack of gun control, insufficient guns, or inadequate mental health care may be entirely reasonable and valid, but it doesn’t matter. No matter how right you are (or aren’t), it doesn’t change the grief, rage, or numbness.

Using ideas to treat or metabolize feelings doesn’t work.

Then what? I’m afraid that there is not much we can do other than to be absolutely, irredeemably heartbroken. It turns out that this is helpful. Weep, sob, rage. Weep, sob, rage. Every time your mind tries to tell you, “this is because of poor gun control,” or “this world is rotten, terrible and I have to ignore it in order to survive,” and/or “if mental healthcare was better, we could help people before they explode into violence,” please ask it to wait. I’m not saying we shouldn’t act. WE SHOULD. But before we act, we should feel. Allow your heart to break. Let down your guard. There is strange redemption in heartbreak. Continue

Hello to the wonderful Open Heart Project community.

As we in the U.S. enter into our annual Thanksgiving, it is a great time to ponder the notion of gratitude. My friend, writer and teacher Patti Digh, has had ample opportunity in 2012 to contemplate gratitude and giving.

In the last year, her younger daughter was diagnosed with Aspergers and Patti realized she needed to shift her entire professional and creative world from one of teaching and traveling to one of teaching and staying home. She recreated her business as an online entity.

Some months ago, her husband was diagnosed with cancer and they came face to face with the fact that they had no health insurance–and all the anger, shame, and confusion that came along with admitting that. Friends started an Indiegogo campaign that promptly raised over a hundred thousand dollars and along with it, a cheering squad of thousands of loving folks. Continue

Before today’s 10-minute meditation, I wanted to briefly address an issue that comes up for most of us at some point in our life as practitioners: we find that we more sensitive. Rather than making us impenetrable, meditation makes us more permeable. And this is a very good thing.

The foundation of compassion is opening up our hearts and allowing this world to touch us.

To open in this way, to let go of fixed notions to tune in instead to what is actually happening, is, to me, the highest form of fearlessness.

In meditation, we practice letting go of thoughts over and over to return our attention to the rhythm of the breath, which acts as a sort of stand-in for the present moment. (Which it is—you can’t breathe in the past or future, only in the now.)

So, do the math with me: Sensitivity is the first step in compassion and is rooted in openness which is a form of fearlessness which is cultivated in the sitting practice of meditation.

Please know that as we practice today, we are training in both compassion and fearlessness, which turn out to be the exact same thing. Who knew.

Hello, wonderful members of the OHP. Welcome to your meditation practice.

In today’s video, we sit for 10 minutes and, before we begin, I answer the question on so many meditator’s minds: “How do I know if I’m doing it right?”

As you may have noticed, in the past few weeks, we have been talking about the 5 Paramitas or transcendent virtues. These are the activities, that should we engage in the all the time, would lead to indestructible happiness.

The first four are sort about actions we could take, but the last two are about the way we hold our minds.

To review briefly:

The first paramita is generosity and has to do with letting down your guard and allowing this world to touch you—there is nothing more generous you could offer than yourself, which begins with opening up in this way. Continue

One of the questions I get most frequently is, “why do we keep our eyes open in meditation…and do we really have to?” Check the video for my answer.

Stay tuned for our return to the discussion of the 6 Paramitas in the next newsletter.

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Today, we are going to discuss the 2nd of the 6 paramitas (or “transcendent actions) which is called discipline.

As you may recall, in a previous newsletter, we discussed the first paramita, generosity. That talk is [here](http://susanpiver.com/?p=5915).

If you’re like me, you may think of discipline of something onerous, a punishment, an activity in which you force yourself to do stuff you’d really rather not. It feels heavy. Shameful. Punishing.

The Buddhist view of discipline is quite different, Continue

Usually, when it comes to most feelings that arise during practice, we are able to basically let them go and return attention to the breath. We can get enough space around our feelings to see them, release them, and come back.

But what about those times when you are unable to do this? Are you just supposed to redouble the effort to label all emotions, “thinking” and let go? Continue