Latest Posts

Body and mind are one… with Thich Nhat Hanh

Enjoy this lovely video from our dear friend, Thich Nhat Hanh, recorded at the Body and Mind are One retreat in Colorado in the summer of 2011. There is something about Thich Nhat Hanh’s presence that just allows for an outpouring of mindfulness, love, kindness, and compassion. When we at Sounds True reflect upon mindfulness, we think immediately of our dear friend, Thich Nhat Hanh, and how fortunate we are to have the opportunity to work with him, something we’ve been blessed with over the last 20+ years. In so many ways, he embodies the work we’re doing here: our values, vision, and mission.

The beautiful and inspiring footage we gathered from Body and Mind are One was edited into a seven-hour online course, which you can enjoy from the comfort of your own home, on a schedule that works for you. More than an ordinary training course in mindfulness, Body and Mind Are One is at once a living transmission of insight from this beloved Zen master and a practical teaching series covering fundamental principles for a joyful life.

Love under the surface

One of the things I have been starting to notice is the “secret language of love” that can be felt under the surface of what is happening. I am noticing it with friends, with Sounds True authors, and with co-workers and with all kinds of people. I am calling it “secret” because it is not spoken about or acknowledged; I find myself noticing the feelings of love but not voicing them for fear that I will seem inappropriate or out of context or that there is no basis for me to be having the types of feelings that I am having, so better to just keep it to myself.

I can give a concrete example: Recently, I traveled with two co-workers to California to video record a lecture series. We met at the airport and spent 5 days basically glued together working on this project. One person in our group is a producer who has worked at ST for 13 years. The other is an audio-video technician who has worked at the company for 10+ years (interestingly, before this trip together, I knew both of these people had worked at ST for quite some time, but it was all a blur to me. I only found out their actual longevity at the company during this trip). And during this trip, we all found out a lot about each other, about each other’s personal lives and families and early upbringing. The curious thing to me was at the end of 5 days I felt so connected and bonded with these two men who work at Sounds True. Previously, I had been in short conversations with both of these people, in the hallways, in meetings, at Sounds True parties.  But we had never spent any real time together, let alone three meals a day for 5 days, traveling and working as a closely-knit team.

The experience made me reflect on what it must be like for people who play on sports teams together or even people in the armed forces or other groups of people who work closely with each other in intense, collaborative settings. I felt in my core how “tribal” I am by nature, how instinctively I become part of a group or pod. And most importantly, the huge amount of love that is potentially present right below the surface between me and other people if I am willing to take some time away from the “task orientation” that I usually bring to work and instead simply listen and tune to what could be called “the relational field.”

Holder_Timeless_Change

And what I am finding is that whether it is through dreams (night dreams as well as day dreams) or spontaneous love eruptions that I feel in my being, there is so much love under the surface in so many of my interactions with other people, interactions which on the surface appear fairly tame and functionally-oriented. Underneath, there is a wild, upwelling of heart. It feels risky to say so, but how strange that what so many of us value the most – love—has become something that needs to be whispered or only voiced in socially appropriate ways. I want to sing about it from the rooftops. But since I can’t sing, I am writing this blog post instead.

Why does the love we feel under the surface for so many different kinds of people need to be kept secret and not voiced?  Because we are afraid that someone will think we are being sexually inappropriate or crossing a boundary? What if we could make our sexual boundaries so clear and reliable and trust-worthy that our voicing of the love we feel would not be misunderstood or misconstrued, but instead simply received as the heart’s outpouring of the recognition of how our souls are touching and co-creating. That is the type of wild love I wish to voice.

What is awakening? The Wake Up Festival presenters respond…

Last August, in the beautiful Rocky Mountains, over 800 people gathered together to explore the nature of spiritual awakening, and the mysteries of opening the human heart. Shot on location during our first annual Wake Up Festival, the following video features 16 of our dear presenters and collaborators sharing what awakening means to them.

We invite you to join in the dialogue, as we have come to see that there are seven billion unique perspectives and doorways into awakening – one for each human soul. So, please, let us hear your voice, and your heart. What is spiritual awakening for you?

It’s okay to be broken

In our own ways, each of us hears that most sacred call – to return home, to come to know ourselves at the deepest levels, and to somehow allow this precious life to be organized around love. We have also come to see that to respond to this call requires everything we have (and more); we are asked to step all the way into the unknown, taking the risk that love always requires. We sense that there is no way to make this journey without the breaking open of our tender, vulnerable hearts, in response to this blessed world.

We want so badly to figure this life out, to resolve the sticky, gooey, messiness of the heart, and to control the movement of love. We know we can do it, we can hold it all together, we can remain strong, we can find a way to not completely shatter in response the tenderness of this life as it is. But in one moment out of time, we’re flooded with a certain kind of grace, and it becomes so clear: It’s okay to fall apart, to let love take this life apart, and to reassemble it as the master architect that it is. There is no need to push this back any longer, for you were never together to begin with. What you are is love itself, which can never be contained, limited, resolved or pinned down. Love is never “together,” but is always moving within the unknown, as a raging fire seeding this world with its ever-purifying flames. Fall apart and resist the temptation to put yourself back together again – and see what is forever and into eternity untouched by concepts of “together” and “apart.”

There are lovers content with longing. I'm not one of them. ~ Rumi

It’s okay to be broken, for in your brokenness love can then pour through the cracks of your being by way of the most luminous light. As you open in this way, you watch in awe as that same intelligence and creativity which birthed the stars moves through your body, making use of your entire sensory system to seed this world with its essence. Through all the ways you touch and deeply listen to another, wanting so sweetly to come to know how they organize their experience and how they make meaning of their lives, through the kind words that you speak and presence that you offer them – and even (especially) through all of your broken-open places – this life comes to be revealed as something much different than you originally thought. It is seen, finally, for what it is – a grace-field; and what you are is a unique, alive, unrepeatable expression of this field, a transparent vessel for love to move in this world.

 

Embracing vulnerability… with Brené Brown

Brené Brown

Brené Brown

“You cannot access empathy if you’re not willing to be vulnerable.” What a rich and provocative statement from our friend and Sounds True author Brené Brown. There is such a deeply-rooted pull to move toward those emotional-states that we identify as “positive” or “light” or “spiritual” – along with a counter move away from those “darker” or challenging and exposing emotions such as vulnerability, sadness, and grief. But, as Brené reminds us, vulnerability is the ground of all of the so-called positive emotional states, including those of love, joy, and belonging.

When we can allow ourselves to be naked, exposed, to be profoundly touched by whatever appears, we can meet this life – and the sweet, beautiful heart of another – in the most precious way. It is in this turning into the immediacy of our experience, in a truly embodied way, that we come to discover the many fruits of this sacred world. There are times, of course, when doing so is not easy, when it takes everything we have (and more), and feels completely counter-instinctual. But somehow, by some mysterious grace, we learn to stay with what is there, knowing that it has something very precious to show us about ourselves, and about the true nature of love. 

Enjoy the following video from Brené on the gifts of embracing vulnerability…

>
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap