Liana Merrill
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Niki, I have also been thinking a lot about the “language” or point of view used to guide when speaking, so thank you for bringing this up! With Susan being my only experience with a teacher, I notice that she uses both – for example, “relax the shoulders” sometimes and “let the shoulders relax” other times. I tend to like the “let the” language better in my head, so I experimented with that language for my first try this past weekend. I’m looking forward to continuing to experiment with language and see what feels best (and maybe switch it up depending, as Susan does). Thanks for reminding me of this important piece!
Vy, it is so comforting to hear that even as an experienced practitioner and teacher you still feel some slight self-doubt! I have this feeling in other ways that I’ve taught before (as a professor, etc.) and so it shouldn’t come as any surprise to me that this would be the case here, but it’s a wonderful reminder for the journey ahead. I’ve always thought that a slight sense of self-doubt is a good thing – for authenticity, for humility, etc. Thank you (and Susan!) for the reminder that a big piece is working on surrendering and trusting. Very helpful.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Stina! I was/am curious to hear of people’s uncertainty with the speaking again after the initial instruction. It is not something I ever considered before, simply just because of my experience having only meditated with Susan and never having her speak again after the initial instruction in her videos. So it was just never on my radar. But my partner went first, and he did speak a bit a few times after the initial instruction. Although I was startled by it (in a sense that I wasn’t expecting it), I found that I really enjoyed it – it was calm and soothing and helped me go even deeper into the practice. So just from that experience I started to think about this aspect, and then hearing others reflect on this as well got me even more curious! Definitely something to experiment with for sure.
Hi Melanie – I totally resonate with your essay, particularly the part about feeling hyper self-awareness despite having heard and followed the instruction for so many years. I was also excited about giving instruction finally in the same vein (I love how you frame the feeling!) and was so curious to ultimately see how different it felt to actually for it from what I might have imagined. Now that I have some words for it (thank you!), I am excited to work with this hyper self-awareness as we continue on through the course and this teacher journey.
I was so happy to hear several others share in the last class about how they have been dealing with the instruction and thoughts of “teaching” during their own meditation practice, as this is something that has been happening for me since deciding to embark on this teacher journey. I have been meditating “with” Susan and the OHP since 2015. I had my first thoughts that maybe I would want to teach this to others about 8 years later, then it took me another almost 2 to sign up. Once I signed up for the class, I noticed a shift in my own practice. I started to notice that I would be thinking about how I would teach the instruction as I sat. At first, I worried this was “bad.” I should be meditating, not thinking about how I would offer instruction! Then, toward the start of the class as we got going, I tried thinking about this urge to give instruction as “thinking” during my own practice. Then, I experimented with actually using time at the start of my own sit to go through the instruction in my head. And then here we were on Saturday, finally getting to practice giving the instruction ourselves, out loud, to another human being!
Besides in my own head, and even though I have been practicing this same meditation technique since 2015, I had never given the instruction out loud. For me, it was freeing and wonderful to finally experiment with giving the instruction in my own voice. I really enjoyed the opportunity to finally “practice” in a different way, and I’m excited to keep going!
However, I’m still unsure and uncertain about how I’m going to weave this into my own practice. I still struggle with feeling like practicing giving the instruction and my own time to sit are at odds. Like, I’m distracted by thinking about giving the instruction while I’m sitting on my own. But this also feels akin to the growing pains of any transition – figuring out how to “be” with both the old and the new. I’m also wondering if, as we end up sitting for longer and longer, it will make more sense and even start to feel good to give the instruction out loud to myself as part of my sit. I will be excited to read and hear how others are finding this interplay being meditating and giving the instruction as we continue on this journey.Lauren! I love love love that you keep a list, and gave us the great pleasure of getting to read your list! How wonderful and inspiring.
Melanie, Thank you so much for sharing that you include a picture of your 3-year-old self on your shrine! I love this idea and the joy it sparked in me. I have only recently begun connecting with my younger self on a cosmic level, as a way to remember the pure joy of being a kid. I think it has especially come closer as I have begun my journey as an aunt to 2 young nieces (2.5 years and 6 months), and they have been absolutely wonderful reminders of the joy of childhood. Thank you for inspiring me to think about the possibility of adding my own picture, whether of me or perhaps me with my nieces – something for some reason I hadn’t thought of at all! Cheers.
I so enjoyed reading your reflections on lineage, Virginia! I love the images they sparked in me. First, as someone who is child-free by choice, but who has two young nieces and who feels lately like I was born to be an aunt – it is my new favorite part of life! But what your essay brought up more for me was the absolute beauty and sense of awe I have felt by watching both my sister-in-law (who I’ve known since she was 18 and has always felt like a little sister to me) become a mom, and my mom becoming a grandmother. Words really cannot express how all our lives have changed and how messy and beautiful it all is, and I love thinking about it now in terms of lineage, so thank you for that.
And secondly, your stewardship of wild things! What a beautiful image you portrayed, and one that I feel completely connected to but never really thought about in terms of lineage, but of course! We are all connected (and maybe especially with the birds and wild things). Thank you, thank you for your words.Thank you so much for sharing your experiences, Stina, and for opening up my mind to both that I hadn’t given much thought to. As someone who has actively chosen not to bring a child of my own womb into being, I very much appreciate hearing the perspective of a lineage of mothers and your experience with that lineage. In addition, I am myself not an only child, but am married to one, and I am so often blown away or brought to tears in him sharing an experience or something I had never considered as a person with a sibling. I feel I’ve only gotten a small glimpse into what it must have been like to be an only child from my husband, and will never been able to fully know, but I so appreciate your reminder of this and of sharing your experience with this as lineage. Thank you!
Having meditated “with” Susan and been connected to the Open Heart Project since 2015, I’m sure I’ve heard Susan talk about lineage many times. But it is something I hadn’t given a whole lot of thought to until somewhat recently. More on my mind in the past was the idea of a shrine, and it’s something I thought about and built upon for years. Over the course of many years, my shrine has evolved slowly over time into something more close to my vision, starting from simply a corner of my guest room where I would meditate, to a custom table built by my husband with many cherished items adorning the top. I was close to feeling like it was “final” (to the degree where anything can be final), with the exception of one thing. Behind the table was a big, blank, empty wall. Not just anything could go there, I felt. I spent years thinking about what might best fit the space, but until last year, it continued to sit empty. In November 2024, I decided to attend a party honoring the 10-year anniversary of my aunt’s passing. I wasn’t all that close to this aunt while she was alive, but she was my mom’s eldest sister, and my favorite cousin’s mother, so I felt close to her nonetheless and like I HAD to go to this party. I hadn’t been able to attend her funeral 10 years earlier, and my 2 cousins whom I adored had dreamed up what they called “The Paige Party” to honor her. I decided to go to support them, as well as my mom, and it was here I had my first real experience with lineage. My aunt had been an artist, and the first part of the party was a social where we all just hung out and got to mingle around and view her artwork that had sat boxed away since her passing. When I came across one of her wall hangings, I was so moved by it I unexpectedly (and embarrassingly) burst into tears. I couldn’t stop thinking about the piece throughout the entire party (which included many performances and was quite long), and afterward, my uncle completely unprompted said he had seen me connecting with the art and wanted me to have it. That whole weekend, I felt more connected to my aunt than I ever had before. At the time, I almost didn’t take my uncle up on his generous offer because I couldn’t think where I would even put it, but before the weekend was over, it hit me like a wave. I would put it on the wall behind my shrine. A few months later, while attending a retreat with Susan at Kripalu and hearing her talk about lineage in the sense of requesting blessings, it all came together for me. That began my new relationship with lineage. Because around the same time I had a very random but powerful experience with a medium and my dead grandmother, when I now sit to meditate and make offerings and request blessings, I am mainly picturing my aunt and my grandmother, but they also represent this deep connection I now feel to the entire spirit world, which I am blessed to feel. This whole experience has deepened my relationship to my meditation practice, and I finally feel like I have a sense of my heart’s lineage as Susan so beautifully wrote in our reading for this week.
Hi Melanie! I was enthralled with your essay. First, in a kindred way with your similar Christian upbringing (candlelit Christmas Eve services, choir singing, etc). Then, with your father. Interestingly, my dad is also a Vietnam vet who still deals with PTSD to this day, but with a totally different religious outlook to your dad. In fact, I would say he is one of the most religious persons I know. It turned me off for a long time as I navigated my own relationship with religion, but now, as a 38-year-old, I love talking to him about religion as, in his old age, he has really branched out. He loves reading Thich Nhat Hanh books and he’s currently on his 3rd read of the Tao. So all of a sudden I find myself having these lovely conversations with him that I never in a million years would have expected. Anyway, thank you very much for sharing your personal experiences in your essay. I very much enjoyed reading it, and I look forward to continuing to be in class together.
Rosie, I resonated with so much of what you wrote. Thank you so much for your essay! For me, with a deeply religious background, the “something else” has been a bit more of a recent part of my life. But it is something that feels so close to home and that I love to continue to explore every day (part of why I’m here in this class!). And thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on labyrinths in this context! I feel a similar way, and yet it is something I hadn’t even considered when I was thinking about eternalism and nihilism, so thank you for giving me something to mull over!
I guess my first issue with my experience with eternalism and nihilism is that I have given neither much thought in my lifetime. However, my recent experience with nihilism has been a bit of frustration, mostly because I have felt like I don’t understand it much. I listen to a lot of personal finance podcasts, one of which has a host I don’t much like (so why, you might ask, do I continue listening to the podcast? Who knows). And in this particular podcast, the host brings up nihilism a lot. And it kind of always rubs me the wrong way. Maybe because I don’t much like the host. Maybe because even though he brings it up a lot, I still don’t feel like I have a good grasp on what nihilism really means.
I’m not sure I understand it anymore after our reading (I look forward to continuing to re-read this particular reading, as well as the Week 1 reading, often, because there is SO MUCH in both). But, after the reading and after our class last week and after doing a little more research into nihilism after class, I do understand better why it rubs me the wrong way. I think it’s because, for me, nihilism is just so counter to what I believe and who I feel I am. I actually think I would really enjoy talking to someone who considers themselves a nihilist just so I could ask some curiosity questions, because I deeply want to understand how one can believe that life is pointless. But I want to know more! I wish I could talk to the author of our reading…I can’t get the opening line out of my head (The nihilist point of view is one of the biggest problems for all beings). And maybe by understanding more, I can better reflect on how nihilism has shown up for me in my life. I guess I can say at this point that nihilism may have shown up for me during times of immense hardship (going through a house fire, battling depression, etc.). But even then, they were just small flickers, as even in times of trouble I’ve really always held on to my belief that life still matters. Perhaps this is because of my religious beliefs…
On the other hand, eternalism also makes me feel uneasy. Again, I have never really thought much about this until recently, but now what I do know makes me realize that this is the closest thing to how I was brought up religiously, and religion has played a huge part in my life and continues to be an immense journey for me as I navigate adulthood. I grew up going to a very progressive Protestant, Congregational, UCC (United Church of Christ) church in a small town in New England, and I also grew up in a family with parents who very much portrayed the motto “everything happens for a reason” and “God will take care of us no matter what”. I was led to believe that if I followed all the rules of my religion and was essentially a “good Christian girl” that I would go to heaven and be loved by God and Jesus forever. Now, as a 38-year-old, I still go to a very similar (if not even more liberal) church, but I have a very different relationship with religion than I did as a kid. And in fact, this relationship is ever evolving as I continually grapple with “what do I believe” and “how can I mix my personal beliefs and church”. I guess, now that I think about it, I do wrestle with eternalism more than I thought I did!
I am really looking forward to thinking even more about eternalism and nihilism as I continue on my life path as well as my meditation teacher path.Thank you, Kat, for your image of the sherpa guiding someone through the Himalayas. It made me think of my experiences as an outings leader for outdoors groups, and how those experiences may relate to teaching meditation. Something I had never really thought about before! I love thinking about how, as an outings leader, I aim to provide a safe, comfortable space for others to also enjoy the outdoors. And how each attendant comes with different backgrounds and expectations, and my job is simply to provide the container for them to have their own hike experience. I never thought about supporting discovery in my fellow hikers, but I believe on some level that is exactly what I’m doing when I lead a hike. Thank you for sharing your essay!
Thank you, Octavio, for bringing up the concept of humility here and that it’s ok not to know. It immediately reminded me of when I first started teaching anatomy at a medical school, and I began to be ok with the not knowing. I could get so bogged down and overwhelmed by all I had to teach (and thus, know) every day. When I finally realized it was ok for me to say “I don’t know”, everything changed. My confidence changed, the way I carried myself changed, the way students responded to me changed. Being comfortable saying “That is a great question, and I actually don’t know the answer either. Let’s look it up together” was transformational for me and for my relationship with my students. Thank you for bringing this up and causing me to think about it and how it might relate along the lines of teaching meditation. I’m looking forward to continuing to ponder this as we go through this training journey together.