How to Protect Your Mind and Your Vitality

Hello, dear friends,

As we move toward the start of Building a Mindful New Year, I want to offer a short preview of one of the teachings we’ll explore together: the fourth paramita, exertion. We’ve spent recent weeks looking at generosity, discipline, and patience—three qualities that can bring tremendous clarity and kindness into our lives. But without exertion, their energy fades. Exertion is the quality that keeps us engaged and awake.

In the Buddhist tradition, exertion doesn’t mean pushing harder. It means staying diligent, connected to your own life force, and willing to return again and again to what matters. One essential expression of exertion is protecting the mind. Not by forcing positivity, but by maintaining clear, compassionate boundaries around your attention so it isn’t consumed by distraction or anxiety. Meditation gives us a way to practice this: noticing when we’ve drifted and learning how to come back.

During the program we’ll also look at the classical obstacles to exertion—the three forms of laziness, including the most challenging one right now: becoming disheartened. It’s easy to lose heart in these times, but exertion asks us to stay present, even with difficulty, so we can remain connected to our own wisdom and capacity to be of benefit.

I’m very happy that Maho Kawachi will be teaching the session on exertion. Maho is a longtime practitioner and the founder of the Inner Peace Meditation Project, which brings meditation to communities impacted by trauma, displacement, and structural inequality. Her teaching is warm, grounded, and deeply practical.

If you’re looking for renewed steadiness and inspiration as the new year begins, I hope you’ll join us.

Building a Mindful New Year 2025 begins soon.
Details and registration are available here.

I hope to see you there.

Love,
Susan