Sooner or later, if we get at all serious about integrating contemplation into our day to day life, we start to wonder what it would look like to have a bona fide teacher to guide us on the path. In this episode, Thomas articulates some of the principles that he has found most helpful in working with teachers of his own, as well as offering students guidance in calling in the right teacher at the right time. If you feel fed by the show, please support Mindfulness+ by sharing with a friend, leavi...
Nov 08, 2023•24 min•Season 6Ep. 17
Waiting is something we end up doing just about everyday of our lives. And what makes waiting so difficult? Perhaps it’s the belief that if we could only be done waiting, then we would finally feel better. Given the situation, it would be wise to cultivate the art of waiting. That is, when we learn to bring our highest awareness to the experience of waiting, we discover that we will never need to wait again! If you feel fed by the show, please support Mindfulness+ by sharing with a friend, leavi...
Nov 01, 2023•22 min•Season 6Ep. 16
“Mindfulness” is a word. And words have their power. When we call this practice “mindfulness”, it sets us up to have a particular kind of experience which in some ways, can be limiting. In this extended meditation, Thomas uses the word “heartfulness” to turn the tables and open up a new dimension of experience that perhaps you wouldn’t have expected—the boundless Reality and Intelligence of the Heart. If you feel fed by the show, please support Mindfulness+ by sharing with a friend, leaving a re...
Oct 25, 2023•21 min•Season 6Ep. 15
One of the great joys of contemplative life is that it teaches us to be who we actually are. By holding our attention inwardly, rather than being scattered about by a million different things, we nourish the best, most unique parts of ourselves. As the unique self comes into being, it becomes a gloriously original expression of Creation through which we can offer our fullest gifts to everyone and everything. If you feel fed by the show, please support Mindfulness+ by sharing with a friend, leavi...
Oct 18, 2023•22 min•Season 6Ep. 14
When we are children, we get upset countless times a day. If we don’t get to play with the toy we want, if we don’t get to have a sugary snack on demand, we cry, we protest, we pout, we mope. In these moments, we need soothing from our caregivers to help our bodies reset. It turns out, we’re not so different as adults. We also get upset many times a day. The difference is that as adults, we often disconnect from the body through various avoidance strategies rather than just hold our “inner-toddl...
Oct 11, 2023•23 min•Season 6Ep. 13
When we think about getting to know somebody, our minds often go to spending time with them, asking them questions about their life, about what they value, what they love. But the beloved Sufi poet, Rumi, offers us a surprising nugget of wisdom in this regard: you truly get to know another by what you are able to say in their presence. Check out the show and start to put this timeless wisdom into practice today. If you feel fed by the show, please support Mindfulness+ by sharing with a friend, l...
Oct 04, 2023•21 min•Season 6Ep. 12
Every few episodes, Thomas likes to take a break from the content and storytelling and get right into practice. Here he explores the way we can access a fundamental sense of freedom and joy by shifting attention in a slightly new direction. It’s so easy to do you almost won’t believe it. If you feel fed by the show, please support Mindfulness+ by sharing with a friend, leaving a review or making a tax-deductible donation to Lower Lights School of Wisdom. We’re grateful for your support! Want mor...
Sep 27, 2023•22 min•Season 6Ep. 11
Busyness is the fashion in our modern world—the default mode of being. No matter how much we’re doing, we can always do more. At least, that’s what many of us are taught to think. But what happens when we become willing to sit and do nothing? What if we don’t assume that doing something all the time is inherently productive or good? More radically, what if doing nothing is at the very heart of actually doing something real with your life? Start cultivating the courage to do nothing right now, an...
Sep 20, 2023•21 min•Season 6Ep. 10
Do we transform through consistent, effortful practice, or are we transformed by something more mysterious that we can’t control and can’t even properly understand at the end of the day? Even framing this question in terms of either/or causes us to miss the mark. Thomas shares in this episode an unexpected transformation he recently experienced in the kitchen, seemingly in spite of his years of meditation practice. Listen in and start to appreciate how profoundly things are already working out a...
Sep 13, 2023•25 min•Season 6Ep. 9
Have you ever noticed how many ideas you have about, well, everything? We can hardly help but form opinions, beliefs, even dogmas about virtually every aspect of life. In this episode, Thomas recounts meeting his first teacher, and the freedom he felt when his teacher nonchalantly declared that any thought he has about anything is fundamentally inaccurate. What role do thoughts and beliefs have in life if they’re all just “inaccurate?” Listen in to get a taste of this delightfully fertile polari...
Sep 06, 2023•20 min•Season 6Ep. 8
Often when we’re faced with a challenging decision, we have the experience of feeling stuck, or frozen, because we just can’t decide which direction is right for us. Thomas suggests in this episode that a powerful remedy for the feeling of stuckness in life is to more fully open up to the experience of loss. When we are willing to experience the inevitable loss that any given decision entails, we simultaneously open ourselves to the inevitable gain that comes from living the life we’ve chosen to...
Aug 30, 2023•20 min•Season 6Ep. 7
It is a common misunderstanding in our society that meditation is primarily a practice of learning to relax. While relaxation is very much one of the fruits of this practice, it is just the beginning of the profound gifts that flow from open mind and open heart. In this episode, Thomas leads a longer meditation and points out one of the qualities that naturally arises in awake awareness—the feeling of Life itself. If you feel fed by the show, please support Mindfulness+ by sharing with a friend,...
Aug 23, 2023•23 min•Season 6Ep. 6
Andrew Holecek is an author, speaker, and humanitarian who offers seminars internationally on meditation, lucid dreaming, and the art of dying. Andrew’s books include Dreams of Light, Dream Yoga, and Reverse Meditation. He hosts the popular Edge of Mind podcast and is the founder of the Night Club community, a support platform for nocturnal meditations In this episode, Thomas and Andrew discuss lucid dreaming, dream yoga, pain, neuroscience, all in the context of what Andrew calls “reverse medit...
Aug 16, 2023•40 min•Season 6Ep. 5
Thomas reprises the ever-present theme of vulnerability in this episode. As we mature in life, our capacity to tolerate more disturbing experience tends to mature as well. We start to realize how much energy we’ve spent avoiding certain experiences that have been with us all along. Mindfulness practice reveals to us a deeper capacity we have to stay present and awake to whatever is arising. In this way, we begin to let go of the struggle to not feel. If you feel fed by the show, please support M...
Aug 09, 2023•24 min•Season 6Ep. 4
We all come with a particular disposition—a way we like to be and move in the world. Contemplative practice helps us attune to these subtle, soulful rhythms and move with greater kindness in our journey. Give yourself some space for this episode. Find a place where you can relax and just be. Savor the experience of coming home. If you feel fed by the show, please support Mindfulness+ by sharing with a friend, leaving a review or making a tax-deductible donation to Lower Lights School of Wisdom. ...
Aug 02, 2023•24 min•Season 6Ep. 3
Sometimes in life it can feel like what we need, what we’re searching and striving for is so hard to come by. Mindfulness practice reveals to us exactly the opposite truth: it does not take much at all to relax into a mindset of “more than enough.” Fully embodied, open-hearted and open to life, the contentment and fulfillment we believed was somewhere in the far-off future reveals itself to be always here and now. Want to practice with Thomas? Join on Zoom from anywhere in the world for a monthl...
Jul 26, 2023•21 min•Season 6Ep. 2
In this and every moment, life invites us into a brand new experience at the edge of our knowing and our capacity. Too often we pretend like we know who we are and where we’re going. We then miss out on the precious experience of tenderness, where life reminds us that we have never, in fact, been here before. In this raw, exposed state, the possibilities are infinite. Want to practice with Thomas? Join on Zoom from anywhere in the world for a monthly mini-retreat . Feeling called to a really dee...
Jul 19, 2023•23 min•Season 6Ep. 1
Hello, Mindfulness+ fans! We're excited to let you know that Season 6 is coming next week! In the meantime, if you're looking for other supports to practice, Thomas offers a monthly mini-retreat on Zoom. And if you really want to go deep, join Thomas and Lower Lights for a 7-day retreat in Scholls, Oregon, August 10th-17th. Learn more here ....
Jul 12, 2023•49 sec
How do human beings transform and become what we’re meant to become? Thomas is taking this question to graduate school at Harvard University to ask some of the best minds in the world what practices can support us in living the good life. Drawing from ancient understandings from the Wisdom traditions to modern insights in developmental psychology and neuroscience, Thomas will continue to offer intimate, guided tours of cosmos, soul and psyche from his new headquarters in Boston! Want to practice...
Jun 01, 2022•23 min
Kelly is a mindfulness trainer and author of The Blind Spot Effect: How to Stop Missing What’s Right in Front of You . She has developed mindfulness trainings in diverse places from the United Nations to San Quentin Prison. In this conversation, Kelly exudes dharma from every pore and offers a direct taste of the ancient practice of Yoga Nidra. This one is a special treat. Want to leave a voicemail for the team? Ask Thomas a practice question? Request a special topic for a future episode? Click ...
May 25, 2022•41 min
In our season finale, Thomas pays tribute to the recently deceased dharma master, Dr. Daniel Brown. Brown’s work is a superb example of Eastern practice meeting the psychological sophistication of the West. In this episode, taste what it means to re-parent the self, what it means to become the Mother of all beings.
Apr 27, 2022•33 min•Season 5Ep. 25
It’s common in the modern world to speak of the need to “return to nature.” But from a contemplative perspective, we are Nature. We cannot leave nature, but we can forget who we are. When we remember our nature, we naturally take better care of ourselves, and better care of the planet that sustains us all.
Apr 20, 2022•21 min•Season 5Ep. 24
So often in life, we tell ourselves that fear is a problem—that fear stops us from doing the things we most want to do. What about the wisdom of fear, though? Thomas shares a story of his friend who has made a living of encountering his fear everyday for over 40 years now. The result? Not a lack of fear, but the courage to act with fear fully present. Fearlessness.
Apr 13, 2022•23 min•Season 5Ep. 23
What did the early Buddhists of China mean when they said, “Be the host of every situation?” In this episode, Thomas explores a sutra that likens mindful awareness to a “host” allowing innumerable “guests” to come and go through the inn. The trick: to let the guests who want to stay, stay, and to let the guests who want to go, go.
Apr 06, 2022•23 min•Season 5Ep. 22
The mind prefers to have answers. When we don’t have answers, we feel anything from low-grade anxiety to full-blown panic. If we pay close attention to life, we find that no sooner do we know one thing than we realize there are even more things we don’t know. In short, the experience of “unknowing” is inescapable. What if, instead of spending all our energy avoiding the discomfort of unknowing, we opened up to it? What if unknowing is a gateway leading us to a new way of being human?
Mar 30, 2022•22 min•Season 5Ep. 21
From an ordinary point of view, giving and receiving are opposites. In the “real world,” you give a little in order to get a little. Not so on the path of transformation. From a deeper perspective, giving and receiving are one reality, one movement. Listen to a moving account of citizens of the world giving to Ukraine with no hope of receiving something in return. In the words of Jesus, “if you lend money only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit?”
Mar 23, 2022•23 min•Season 5Ep. 20
“Overwhelm” is a technical term in mindfulness. It refers to the experience of not being able to mindfully process sensory experience moment to moment. When life gets too intense, our suffering multiplies. In this episode you can deepen your learning on the classic practice of “divide and conquer”: notice where the most overwhelm is occurring, make skillful adjustments, and you’re back in the game. For anyone serious about not suffering, this episode is a boon.
Mar 16, 2022•24 min•Season 5Ep. 19
When we open up to the suffering on the planet, we soon realize that we, the “small self”, are not nearly big enough to contain it all. To really hold suffering in our heart and help to relieve it, we must get bigger—a move from the relative to the Absolute. In Buddhism, there is a Bodhisattva, or awakened being, who models just this: Kuan Yin (Chinese translation). Her name means “she who hears the cries of the world.” As a new war wages in Ukraine, it is an especially important moment to learn...
Mar 09, 2022•28 min•Season 5Ep. 18
At a time in the not-so-distant past, you might have been involved in the building of a cathedral that took so long to complete, you would have never seen the finished product of your labors. Nevertheless, your participation was absolutely vital. This is a fascinating metaphor for the new reality humanity is giving rise to moment by moment. Thomas calls it “building heaven.”
Mar 02, 2022•23 min•Season 5Ep. 17
When life throws challenges at us, it tests our capacity to be open, clear and present. Thomas recounts his glory days as a high school swimmer in this episode to point out a helpful technique for practicing when the going gets tough. If we’re clear where our mindful awareness tends to break down, we can “train to remain” in a more intelligent way.
Feb 23, 2022•25 min•Season 5Ep. 16
