TEACHER: James Maskalyk
THEME: For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you
MEDITATION: Sitting cool and composed before a million universes
INTERACTIVE:Clear and sweet is my soul, clear and sweet is all that is not my soul
James: As anticipated, the backlash against mindfulness is nigh. Books and articles challenge its popularity, some claiming its emergent truths as conceits, that practitioners are being told to believe there is no such thing as a self rather than discovering this on their own. It’s worse than these anthropocentric critics fear, though, for there’s no body either. Nothing stays. The broccoli they ate was broken down step by step until it sifted through their inner skin, was carted to their cornea, and lost again in the wind. Save a few atoms welded in the calcium of our teeth, everything moves through. And yet, between these two places, some and none, zero and one, our heart beats blood, it truly does, like all hearts everywhere and forevermore. For the meditation, we’re pretty much going to keep our hand there, on our heart, feel connected to that living river of things that ties us to past and future, and in the interactive practice, see how much we can forgive ourselves for all our holding back, for it is this and truth that sets us free.