One of the many texts we can look to for ancient meditation teachings is The Yoga Sutra by Patanjali. Written 2200 years ago, the great sage Patanjali gathered the essence of yoga philosophy and practice and distilled it into 196 concise sentences - called sutras. For many of us, one of the ultimate sutras is 3.34: “By meditating on the heart, one gains complete knowledge of one’s mind.” Today’s meditation practice is one of the guideposts that points us on our way to gaining complete knowledge ...
May 24, 2021•14 min
The final step in our journey to the magic of meditation lies within The Way. Many of you have been practicing with me for quite awhile and know my teaching methods well. I most often offer my teachings through the lens of mindfulness meditation, but the truth is that mindfulness is really a distilled {and brilliant} version of the ancient meditation teachings. Teachings from lineages of Tantra Sri Vidya Buddhism Kashmir Shaivism So I thought, if we are going to talk about the way today, we migh...
May 20, 2021•38 min
This is a special, bonus episode of The Mindful Minute to introduce my 2021 Clear Mind, Awakened Heart Meditation Teacher Training. I wanted to be able to talk to you about my hopes, thoughts and plans for this training; the ideas behind it; and why I am so beyond proud of this offering. In my 10+ years of teaching meditation, the #1 piece of feedback I receive from students is that I make meditation feel accessible. Some of the comments that make my heart sing: "I FINALLY get it." "I thought I ...
May 17, 2021•11 min
This meditation series is loosely inspired by Alix E. Harrow’s beautiful novel, The Once & Future Witches. Within this magical novel, she writes of 3 things needed to perform a spell - The Words. The Will. & The Way. We will look at these same elements as tools for our meditation practice. Today’s episode is dedicated to the very peculiar kind of will needed for meditation practice. In the book, this will was a “you’ve got to want it enough” kind of feeling. An inner strength. This same ...
May 13, 2021•36 min
Today’s mini meditation is a practice to help you listen and hear your own highest truth. To hear your Sankalpa. ‘Kalpa’ means vow or more literally, “the rule that follows”, and ‘San’ means truth. So, Sankalpa can be translated to be “the rule that follows truth” or a vow that supports your highest truth. This practice helps us discover the magical words we need to remind ourselves of to reach our own highest potential. These mini meditations are meant to support a daily home practice. Tune in ...
May 10, 2021•14 min
It is May, and with the new month comes a new meditation series! This series was loosely inspired by Alix E. Harrow’s beautiful novel, The Once & Future Witches. This book, according to the NPR.org book review: Once upon a time, Alix Harrow wrote about three sisters. Also, suffragists, witching, folklore, flawed alliances, an alternate America, and women's work. She gave this second novel many gifts: charm, grace, and gorgeousness; feral wonder, clear vision, an ardent heart. She gave it his...
May 06, 2021•35 min
How do you judge when your workday is done? When have you done enough, and where does your wiggle room lie? As more and more of us are working from home, we are discovering perhaps more than ever how important it is to have a clear transition from work to home. Some of us have lost the ding of the elevator that marks the end of a work day, for some the car ride home, and for some it is simply the loss of expectation that we won’t respond to emails or hold Zoom calls after hours… However your wor...
May 03, 2021•18 min
With this episode, the Passions & Paychecks series comes to a close; and whew, y’all… this episode…. In the live class, the comments in the chat were coming in fast and furious - it is VERY clear that we are missing the transitions between home and work, that our boundaries have vanished, and that for most of us, we have no idea what “enough” feels like when it comes to work. All month, we’ve been talking through our work lives as a function of relating - of being in relationship with oursel...
Apr 29, 2021•40 min
This meditation practice is an opportunity to cultivate non-judgment as we begin to express ourselves more authentically. It can be easy to second guess these truer parts of ourselves, to feel embarrassed, wrong or uncomfortable after putting yourself out there in a vulnerable and real way. Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts reminds us that, “The freedom to be average is also the grace granted for imperfect works-in-progress." Shall we be average together for a bit? My colleague Tiffany Johnson leads this...
Apr 26, 2021•23 min
This week, Tiffany Johnson and I continue to explore authenticity as a journey thanks to the research of Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts. Roberts also writes - “The spotlight is brighter , employment insecurity and economic insecurity looms larger , and the demands of working, caregiving, and merely surviving have grown exponentially. Who has the wiggle room under these circumstances to drop the ball, to deliver less-than-their-best, to express a bit less patience and a bit more frustration? {....} The...
Apr 22, 2021•40 min
Today’s mini meditation invites us to experience authenticity not as a static endpoint but as a journey. A perpetually evolving place that invites us to take the next best step even when we can’t see the full picture. Join me for today’s practice. These mini meditations are meant to support a daily home practice. Tune in every Monday to find your practice for the week! Full episodes are released every Thursday for a longer, deeper practice. You can learn more about my: *Shoreline: my new meditat...
Apr 19, 2021
You guys!!! I finally get to see the magic words… my new app, Shoreline, is LIVE and ready to be downloaded! You can find Shoreline by visiting merylarnett.com. It is available in the App store for iPhone users. The android version will be released a bit later. You’ve heard me talk a ton about the app in earlier episodes so all I will say here is please. Go check it out. Download it. Try the free offerings. And please please please, will you leave me a review in the app store? Reviews are everyt...
Apr 15, 2021•41 min
Join my friend and colleague, Tiffany Johnson, as she guides us through a meditation designed to wake us up to our true Self and how we relate to ourselves both on the cushion and at work. This meditation is an excerpt from our April Meditation Series: Passion & Paychecks. The full class airs each Thursday on this podcast. These mini meditations are meant to support a daily home practice. Tune in every Monday to find your practice for the week! Full episodes are released every Thursday for a...
Apr 12, 2021•24 min
Whew, y’all…. This meditation series is ALL THINGS WORK RELATED! This series developed out of a conversation with my regular Monday night crew - we were talking about some of the everyday struggles that come up at work, the tug to do something different, even feeling creatively stifled... And so, this series was born... Even more exciting, I’m co-teaching this series alongside a friend/student/colleague - Tiffany Johnson. Tiffany, aside from being a brilliant meditation teacher {and regular M...
Apr 08, 2021•39 min
Today’s mini meditation is the Elemental Purification practice we did throughout last month’s meditation series: Our Elemental Nature. You can do this practice anytime you want to feel more connected to Earth, Nature and her elements. It is especially potent to do this practice outside, if you have the opportunity. Enjoy! These mini meditations are meant to support a daily home practice. Tune in every Monday to find your practice for the week! Full episodes are released every Thursday for a long...
Apr 05, 2021•23 min
Y’all... I have been waiting for almost a full year to share this episode with you! It has felt like the biggest, most exciting secret, and now I can finally share this joy with you! As you know by now, I have been working tirelessly on a new meditation app called Shoreline, and one of my creative partners in this endeavour is acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton. For months now, Gordon and I have had weekly virtual conversations to sit together and listen and discuss the sounds of the natural worl...
Mar 29, 2021•31 min
There is a trail near my house; it cuts through the woods, follows along a creek, and makes its way back to an old textile mill from the 1800s. The mill changed hands a few times and ultimately ended up being run by a woman. This woman also worked to create the first settlement for Eastern European Jewish immigrants in this area. My ancestors are Eastern European Jews. Even before that, before mills and immigrants, the indigenous people first on this land were here. There are carvings in the roc...
Mar 25, 2021•32 min
Today’s mini meditation is another sneak peak of the upcoming meditation app Shoreline. Today’s practice works with one of my favorite Zen koans from John Tarrant Roshi: The coin that is lost in the river is found in the river. Curious? Join me for today’s 10 minute meditation; the river soundscape you hear in the background was recorded by acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton. You’ll be able to access more meditations and soundscapes like this in my new app Shoreline; click the link below to find ...
Mar 22, 2021•12 min
Water. An essential ingredient of life; we know it in many forms - rivers and oceans, rainfall and mist, trickles, streams and tears. Water is perpetually seeking a goal it will never achieve: to reach the center of the earth. Instead of achievement, water teaches us the importance of the journey. Water is always moving, concerned with nothing other than its own flow and following a path of least resistance. Each of us was held in water for roughly 9 months; perhaps it is even correct to say thi...
Mar 18, 2021•37 min
Happy Monday y’all! Today’s mini meditation is another sneak peek within my soon-to-be-released meditation app: Shoreline! I’ll be releasing a longer episode later this month with all the details and background stories of this app, but in the meantime... This meditation practice is drawing on an innately meditative experience - that of staring at a campfire. Any camper will tell you that something quiet and reflective occurs as the sun sets and the campfire burns. Perhaps it is the yellow orange...
Mar 15, 2021•9 min
Fire is perhaps the most often referenced element within sacred practices from around the world. In cultures near and far, the belly is seen as the home of our life force, our passion, our drive, our digestion {of food, thought and feeling}. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote of the “fire in the belly” to describe a person’s drive back in 1882, and today, science continues to prove the deep relationship between our gut and our brain. When we work with the element of fire in our meditation practice, it...
Mar 11, 2021•39 min
Y’all! I am so thrilled to share with you a sneak peek into my labor of love: a new meditation app called Shoreline. I'm delighted to offer my listeners and students something straight from my heart. You likely know how much I love meditating in nature, and now, I am able to bring you my very favorite meditative experiences combined with stunning soundscapes created by Emmy-award winning acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton. Together, we will use the elements, unique geographical locations and the ...
Mar 08, 2021•12 min
When we pull up a map, we do it because we are trying to figure out how to get somewhere we want to be. We see developed land represented as one color and forest as another. We see water represented in blue and roads in a myriad of colors indicating the type of road. What we see are symbols that can help guide us on a journey. The ancient meditation practitioners also left us maps. They left us markers from their journey to help us on ours… The map of the interior journey is often described via ...
Mar 04, 2021•40 min
In my experience on the meditation cushion, the web of indebtedness is exactly what we innately become aware of as our meditation practice moves into deeper cycles. It begins as we enter into a reciprocal relationship with our meditation practice. We give our time, energy and attention to our practice, and it responds to us with greater awareness, insight and warmth… The practice becomes sweeter because we give ourselves to it. And eventually, this spills over into our everyday actions. Join me ...
Mar 01, 2021
This month, we have been exploring the cycle of awakening in this 4 part series - ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It?’ And, with today’s episode, we reach the pinnacle of this cycle. Reciprocity. This cycle moves from paying attention, to noticing the gifts, to an outpouring of gratitude, and finally to reciprocity. Reciprocity is the literal answer to “what does love have to do with it?” Reciprocity is the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit; cultural anthropologists suppor...
Feb 25, 2021•36 min
Today’s mini meditation is a practice inspired by the words of Maya Angelou - “This is a wonderful day. I’ve never seen this one before.” A practice of gratefulness and wakefulness without the requisite “3 things you are grateful for…” cliche. These mini meditations are meant to support a daily home practice. Tune in every Monday to find your practice for the week! Full episodes are released every Thursday for a longer, deeper practice. You can practice with me live each Monday as I record this ...
Feb 22, 2021•14 min
I can imagine many of you, like me, feel something between a yawn and an eye roll when you hear the word 'gratitude' these days - it has become such an overused, misunderstood word... I must have taught a dozen different gratitude classes over the years, but I've noticed a significant shift in my practice and understanding of gratefulness in the time of COVID. This shift got me thinking… when excess is stripped away, is it possible we feel more abundant? In the past, if I practiced gratitude, I...
Feb 18, 2021•35 min
Today’s mini meditation practice is a practice in recognizing the gifts that your time and attention bestow on you. Every breath, every thought, every feeling is a gift from your soul to your ego-self. Will you waste these gifts obsessing about your next to-do, or will you witness that obsessive thought with a smile and a “thank you” as you honor the gift of wisdom that just landed in your lap? And because this is a practice in receiving gifts, we will bring in a few extra elements meant to infu...
Feb 15, 2021•14 min
