At the end of March (2020), as I saw the world get engulfed in fear and anxiety over the novel coronavirus pandemic, I followed a heart calling to offer live daily meditations for anchoring in the peace within ourselves.
What started as an unplanned, ad-hoc offering, has now blossomed into a regular, live, meditation online, called The Peace Practice. It is offered for free, on weekdays, at 7am and 10am Eastern Time.
What do we do in each Peace Practice session, which is about 15-minutes long?
Each meditation begins with a wisdom contemplation for about five minutes. Here I share an observation, or story, or poem that brings deep reflections for us about life.
This is followed by a meditation. The meditation goes to the heart of the main skill we need to cultivate: The art of resting attention. We cultivate resting attention in the silence of the heart.
We end the meditation with a noteworthy takeaway to implement in the day.
Why do we approach the meditation in this way?
We live in a world where attention is so splintered. We have a huge surge in attention-deficit over the past couple of decades. Our attention span is now lower than that of goldfish. Yet, attention is the quality through which we become aware of any experience. And here, these days, our attention is lost to a thousand things. Is it any wonder why our lives feel messy and there is much confusion, anger, fear, worries, and more?
We have lost the simple, and necessary skill of keeping our attention on one thing.
By cultivating the art of resting attention in the silence, we are:
(1) training to maintain attention on one thing versus have attention be fragmented, and
(2) we are deepening our roots in silence.
Why is silence important in life?
In practical terms, we might say that silence is an antidote to the noise and din of our thoughts and feelings and the pushes and pulls of the world.
In profound terms, silence is where courage, creativity, wisdom, peace, love, and happiness exist in their pristine pure form, and by resting attention in silence, we unleash these success ingredients into our daily life.
Going deeper, when we get adept at resting attention in silence, we are cultivating the art of surrender, we are cultivating the art of letting go of the grip of our limited sense of self.
Though simple in form, The Peace Practice brings profound benefits.
Try the Peace Practice for yourself
If you’ve not tasted The Peace Practice, join us for a few days, say a week, and experience it for yourself directly. Come and cultivate your love affair with silence! It is live, online, and it is free.
Learn: https://bit.ly/ThePeacePracticeHome
August 17, 2020 marked the 100th consecutive weekday of The Peace Practice. Come and join the small, but growing group of people who have made the Peace Practice a daily habit.
Love
Sundar.
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