Happiness Break: Find Calm When You Can't Clear Your Mind, With Lama Rod Owens
The Science of Happiness
PRX and Greater Good Science Center
4.4 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 2 November 2023
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Take a break from ruminating with Lama Rod Owens as he leads you in a meditation to cultivate a sky-like mind.
Link to episode transcript: https://tinyurl.com/5fn7sw7t
How to Do This Practice:
Find a comfortable position to begin this practice.
Turn your attention to the rise and fall of your thoughts and feelings within your mind.
Imagine that your mind is a vast open sky and that your thoughts are like clouds passing through.
Recognize that these thoughts are just experiences that come and go, and that they do not constitute the whole sky or your whole being. Allow yourself to trust the bright openness of your mind, without worrying about it becoming stormy.
When you are ready, reground yourself in the present moment by noticing how your body, and how it is held by your seat.
Today’s Happiness Break host:
Lama Rod Owens is a Buddhist teacher, author and activist passionate about creating engaging and inclusive healing spaces.
Learn about Lama Rod Owens’ work: https://tinyurl.com/wd2huac5
Read Lama Rod Owens’ latest book, The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors: https://tinyurl.com/4pj8wb7x
Follow Lama Rod Owens on Instagram: https://tinyurl.com/527378v9
Follow Lama Rod Owens on Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/mwa2vwrh
Follow Lama Rod Owens on Twitter: https://tinyurl.com/h33pyjye
More resources from The Greater Good Science Center:
Four Ways to Calm Your Mind in Stressful Times: https://tinyurl.com/6apdf52p
How to Gain Freedom from Your Thoughts: https://tinyurl.com/hp8s5wv6
How to Focus a Wandering Mind: https://tinyurl.com/y7jhkewv
How to Enjoy Being Alone with Your Thoughts: https://tinyurl.com/3ej6acx6
We love hearing from you! Have you tried quieting your mind? Email us at [email protected] or use the hashtag #happinesspod.
Find us on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/6s39rzus
Help us share Happiness Break! Rate us and copy and share this link: https://tinyurl.com/6s39rzus
We're living through a mental health crisis. Between the stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, burnout — we all could use a break to feel better. That's where Happiness Break comes in. In each biweekly podcast episode, instructors guide you through research-backed practices and meditations that you can do in real-time. These relaxing and uplifting practices have been shown in a lab to help you cultivate calm, compassion, connection, mindfulness, and more — what the latest science says will directly support your well-being. All in less than ten minutes. A little break in your day.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to happiness break, a series by the Science of Happiness, where we guide you through |
| 0:07.0 | practices supported by science to help you find more happiness, connection, and |
| 0:12.3 | meaning. I'm Dacker Keltner. We all |
| 0:15.1 | ruminate from time to time and the literature shows it's not good for us. In fact |
| 0:20.4 | too much rumination is a pathway to depression and anxiety. |
| 0:24.4 | So today, we're trying to practice to help us create a little bit more distance |
| 0:28.5 | between ourselves and our thoughts. |
| 0:31.1 | So it's easier to let go of the nagging worries and feelings |
| 0:34.0 | that aren't really serving as well. This practice is often called the |
| 0:37.9 | Sky-like mind. It's based in Buddhist teachings and grounded in mindfulness |
| 0:42.1 | principles like non-attachment which study after in We'll be led today by Lama Rod Owens, a Buddhist minister, author, and activist. |
| 0:56.0 | Here's Lama Rod. Hi, I am living and teaching on the ancestral lands of the Creek Cherokee and Muskogee people here in the city we now call Atlanta. |
| 1:18.2 | So to begin with, I invite you to return back to your bodies, allowing your bodies to come into a position that feels |
| 1:29.1 | appropriate for you. Comfortable for me, a position that helps me to balance both the experiences of |
| 1:38.1 | comfort as well as discomfort which in itself is a basic meditation practice. |
| 1:47.0 | And so when you're ready, I invite you to shift your attention into the expression of your mind, |
| 2:00.0 | beginning to notice thoughts and emotions, rising and falling, coming and going. Slowly begin to imagine that your mind is like the sky. |
| 2:30.0 | Vast, clear, wide open, boundless. Oh, Can we just be in this moment allowing our minds to be wide open and bright, letting the clouds of thoughts and emotions just casually |
| 3:08.8 | flow through it. Oh, I wonder if you can just say to yourself, oh, this cloud of thought and emotion is just an experience passing through the sky-like |
| 3:47.2 | nature of my mind. And like any experience that comes and goes. |
| 4:05.4 | And no experience is inherently who I am, just expressions of my own mind. And I wonder what it feels like for you to think of your mind or to imagine your mind as a boundless skylike experience. |
| 4:40.4 | With clouds of thoughts passing through, |
... |
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