For most of us, practice can be hard to sustain. The sits can go flat, the same challenges repeat, and what once felt alive starts to feel like work. Punch in, punch out. Usually the problem isn't a lack of discipline. It's that our framing of the task itself is confined: effort, concentration, stillness. What if what's gone stale is our orientation to practice itself, not our capacity to stay true?
One reframe that has helped me: practice as listening. A lens of the heart that progressively opens and widens. Inviting the quiet to speak, we can listen deeply to what's happening within ourselves; to another person past our own rehearsed response; and to the world itself. Our traditions speak of a Bodhisattva characterized by an ability to hear the cries and beauty of the living Earth. Grounded there, she acted on behalf of all beings.
What opens up when we treat listening itself as the throughline of our practice? How might we receive new wisdom through a sit, a conversation, a day, a year asking, "How am I listening and to what?"
In-person: Sunday, 7:00 to 8:30pm @ Yoga District — 1910 14th Street NW, 3rd Floor, Washington, DC (please try to arrive at least 10 min. early)
Online via Zoom: Join here
Yours In Sangha,
Kristin
https://downtowndharmadc.org
https://www.downtowndharmadc.org/
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