WEEK 3 SUMMARY: INVITE THE BELL

INVITE THE BELL

We appreciate receiving feedback. Here’s a reading D.C. shared:

The book “the untethered soul”-Michael A. Singer, describes the storing of energy in the body as Samskara (sanskrit word)(pg.53), meaning a blockage, an impression from the past.  It’s an unfinished energy pattern that ends up running your life. Usually it gets stored in the heart. thus the words heartache, heart broken, cold hearted….

We explored chapter 2 – “Saying Hello.” 

What are we saying hello to? This book is teaching us how to recognize and transform our internal pain. 

 Once again there was challenge and discussion about the very word itself 

**S U F F E R I N G** 

Is it really necessary for humans to suffer in order to experience happiness? 

Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us that 

Suffering and happiness are not two separate things. 

Everything in nature is impermanent, always changing. 

There is something about the word S U F F E R I N G  that feels so visceral and repugnant. We recoil and resist.

We don’t even want to hear it, let alone say it, so we use synonyms that are more palatable. Suffering by any other name is painful, uncomfortable, an internal feeling that blocks our joy. It blocks love.

 What is one to do? 

STOP ~ BREATHE ~ ACKNOWLEDGE

Doing Mindful Breathing reunites your body and mind. Thich Nhat Hanh discusses what “Invite the Bell” means in the last section of this chapter. The bell is the breath. Mindful breathing keeps us sane.

 Did you read his beautiful words?

 “We stop moving, talking, and thinking, and we listen to the voice of the heart.” 

“The bell is a friend, an enlightened friend that helps us wake up and guides us home to ourselves.”  

 “If you want nirvana, it’s right here . . . Breathing in, I know I am breathing in. Breathing out, I smile.” 

We can breathe past our sorrow, our fear and our worry. So this week we are going there – to that blissful place that exists only within. 

 We will have a short discussion about chapter 3, but this session will be devoted to our phenomenal guest, Dawn James as she ‘sound bathes’ our group.