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| visualizing ourselves as trees as a way to teach about dealing with strong emotions |
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| ater walking meditation, we sing songs before listening to brother Joaquin sharing about mindful eating |
Friday, the 3th of October
We spend a whole day of mindfulness with 150 people -mostly educators and students, at Politecnica, a very prestigious university. We introduce mindful breathing by picking up a rose as an example : "We, just like the rose, need fresh air to be nourished, to grow and to offer our freshness to the world." After the guided sitting meditation, Sister Su Nghiem teaches about the use of the bell in our tradition : "We train ourselves to wake up at every breath. We wake up to the present moment, we wake up to life. The bell is a tool that helps us to do so." Then we share about the practice of flower watering : "We have the tendency to be over-critical towards ourselves and others. If we learn how to recognize and talk about others' good qualities, we can help them grow more confident as a young man or woman." We then stand up and visualize ourselves as trees, first in peaceful weather, then meeting wind, our head and arms swaying and finally amidst the storm, our upper body getting more and more agitated.
In this exercise, the wind represents a strong emotion, where we tend to stay "up-in-our-head" and get easily disturbed. We are therefore invited to practice conscious belly breathing, with our feet well rooted in the earth, so as to take refuge in the zone of stability and solidity within.
During Dharma sharing, almost everyone shares his or her happiness for having the chance to meet with simple but at the same time deep methods to improve one's quality of life. To conclude the day together, Brother Phap Luu explains how to build communities of educators and young people. As a parting gift, the choir from the University offers all participants four wonderful songs conveying the great poetry of Ecuadorian culture as well as its warm, swinging rythms.
