Ric Chollar

[Ric Chollar]

First to say, like others here, I’m finding the “Mindfulness Not Enough” podcast extremely rich, deep, helpful. It’s doing for me the very thing its content is suggesting – providing further context for my spiritual practice. (Culture, history, animus, ritual, interdependence, the mind needing a point, population, etc, etc).

Long story kinda short, for years, I’ve had resistance to the proliferation of mindfulness programs, trainings, apps, not only for me as a meditation practitioner, but as a potential teacher as well. I was around when a couple of my teachers including Tara Brach first started up the Mindfulness Meditation Teaching Training Program, and from that time on, I’ve never signed up, for it felt like it’s focus on “secular” (without Buddhism at the core) approach was missing something important for me. That was over a decade ago, and many thousands of mindfulness teachers have come through that training, and thousands more from many other mindfulness teacher training programs. I have definitely felt FOMO as so many of my friends and colleagues have committed to and grown from these programs.

But when I participated in Susan’s/Open Heart Project’s teacher training over a year ago, that experience provided the Buddhist & personal contexts that I’d been missing and longing for.

Re- shrines, offerings and blessings. I’m hoping to attach 4 of the areas in my home that I’m practicing with as shrines. Susan’s description of the 3 components of a practice time including offerings, blessings and dedicating merit was super helpful to me. I’m still pondering steps of “making offerings” (so far for me, lighting candles, adding flowers).
What has especially hit home was requesting blessings (other terms like “invoking,’ ‘seeking.’ ‘inviting,’ calling in’…) I’ve read and re-read Lama Rod Owens’ book Love & Rage, in which he expands on seeking refuge in the traditional 3 Jewels to “7 Homecomings,” by adding guides, community, ancestors/lineages, wisdom texts, the earth, silence and ourselves as sources of refuge to call on.

In my own home over the years, I’ve been drawn to gathering & displaying photos of people though my life who’ve impacted me, including teachers (spiritual, work, cultural, political), students I’ve worked with, family, friends, romantic loves. And I’ve found myself often invoking them with the feeling of deep gratitude – and just as Susan talked about these being aspects of ourselves, I’ve often felt how all of these people are part of me.

So, I’m attaching photos of shrines, including one of my hutch filled with photos and symbols of my lineage. That shrine may not fit Susan’s suggestion of “clean,” for there are many shapes and colors and ages and objects – my life has been pretty messy, and this area reflects that.

[Well, not sure how to share the photos – something was said about emailing or some other means, not sure what to do…]

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