Protect Your Mind
July 14, 2025 | 16 CommentsAudio only version is here
Meditation practice begins at 16:30
Hello, wonderful Open Heart Project. I hope you are well and I send you my love.
A few weeks ago, I shared a few thoughts about the first paramita (transcendent action) which is generosity. This was followed by discipline and patience. Now we move on to paramita #4, exertion, sometimes also known as diligence or life force.
It is very easy in the current climate to lose energy and thus a sense of possibility. Please have a listen to this week’s video for some ideas about how to protect and replenish both.
Stay strong! Stay beautiful!
With love,
Susan
categorized in: dharma, meditation, open heart project
16 Comments
Is your morning chant something you developed or is it a Buddhist chant?
Thank you.
The one mentioned in this video is a Buddhist chant called The Seven-Line Supplication. It is a well-known chant throughout Tibetan Buddhism. Here is the whole thing:
HUM
In the northwest of the land of Uddiyana,
On a blooming lotus flower,
You have attained supreme wondrous siddhi,
You are renowned as Padmakarma,
Surrounded by your retinue of many dakinis,
We practice following your example.
Please approach and grant your blessing.
Guru Padma Siddhi Hum
If you google “seven-line supplication” or “seven-line prayer” you’ll find many references (as well as translations).
<3 S
Thank you!
You are so welcome. <3
Thank you Susan, outstandingly wise and helpful. Such a gift to be connected to this community.
So happy we can practice together, Rachel.
Thank you so much. I am learning so much from your videos. Really appreciate you!
So glad to hear it, JoAnn!
I have been very “lazy.” Doom scrolling is taking over my mornings when I wake up and I am finding that I am not meditating as I should. I am in a state of constant disheartenment. Finding the joy in ordinary daily events and activities is a lost skill for me at the moment, well, really for the last few years. To sit is in part agonizing. The weight of the world issues, my issues, my family issues, crashes in and I weep. I know deep down the remedy is a daily practice and to allow those feelings to wash through me, but why do I avoid doing just that? I am not sure.
You are holding so much, Jen. Please be very gentle with yourself. Don’t sit until you can. There is no obligation beyond caring for yourself. Meditation may or may not be the remedy–right now. Perhaps later.
Feelings don’t necessarily wash through you, at least not in my experience. Rather they mix with…everything. And by this, you see something more deeply. What that “something” is, I don’t know. But you are shepherding your way through something very difficult and powerful. The most important practice is gentleness. Please keep me posted if I can help? All my love, Susan
This was so helpful to me, Susan, thank you. My two big takeaways were, that when I doom-scroll I am actually looking, hoping for something to me make me feel good, and that there is a laziness in constantly seeking hope and looking for my fears that keeps me from focusing on the things that are actually most important to me. I know I knew these things already but your clarification is very helpful for me to increase my awareness of what I’m doing in these moments!
So glad this was helpful, Alison. And I totally relate to every word of your experience. This is a very hard time; no one is prepared. But as a practitioner, you have a head start. Love always, S
As I contemplate exertion, I keep circling back to the first three paramitas. It takes exertion to be generous with intention and awareness of what we have to give. It takes exertion to be disciplined, to maintain the form, to keep sitting. It takes exertion (for me, lots of exertion) to be patient, to live with forbearance, to hold steady. Sometimes it takes exertion just to be in the present moment, to watch our minds stage little dramas of the past and future, painted with all the emotions. And there are times when the feelings of being overwhelmed make it an act of exertion just to take the next breath. Thank you, as always, for your wisdom.
Yes to all of this. Just: YES. xo S
Thank you. I have recently found my way back to the OHP and always find your words to be an invitation and an opening to explore what I truly need. I absolutely fall into the laziness of busy-ness and it is sometimes hard to admit that all of these joyous activities in my life can also keep me from what I probably (definitely) truly need and who I want to be. Also, like many people in the USA right now, we can trick ourselves into thinking that scrolling is actually an act of solidarity, so we can be informed and ready to act – but if our information seeking (in the hopes of finding opportunities to act) is preventing us from acting in our every day lives, then it is counterintuitive after all.
Erin, so glad we’re reconnecting and I appreciate hearing your reflections on laziness and doom scrolling and all the things we are especially prey to right now. We each have to find our own balance and I wish you SO WELL in finding yours! Love, S