Dear Friends,
We pray you are safe and well.
Today is the Lunar New Year--an important feast in China and Southeast Asia in general.
It is the beginning of the Year of the Ox. Today's Meditation begins with a "Metta/Loving Kindness Meditation" in which one directs healing energy to oneself, loved ones, people one does not know and enemies in concentric circles of "May I be safe. May I be healthy. May I be happy. May I live with ease. Then May you be safe. May you be healthy. May you be happy. May you live with ease."
It is followed by "4 Ways to Heal yourself with Love" by Pawan Bareja who details how loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity can heal us from all the things that burden us. At the very end is a description of the Year of the Ox and its celebrations.
We invite you to join us as we commit ourselves to working tirelessly to end systemic and structural racism in our society, in healthcare, in the workplace, in the Church--wherever it shows up so that everyone may come to have more abundant life. May this meditation nourish our contemplative-active hearts and sustain all of us in action.
In the spirit of our philosophy of co-creating community and our awareness that the Spirit speaks through each of us, we invite you to share your meditations with us as well. We truly believe that in God’s economy of abundance, when we share our blessings, our thoughts, our feelings, we are all made richer.
We hope and pray that you and your loved ones experience genuine peace of mind and heart, and remain in good health during this challenging time.
In this time of Covid surge and new beginnings for our country, may you find peace, healing, hope, and the infusion of joy in your life!
With our love and care,
Jean & Ron
MEDITATION 278: Celebration of the Lunar New Year: "Metta/Loving Kindness Meditation" and "4 Ways to Heal Yourself with Love"
Written by Laura Walton, LMFT
A Loving-Kindness meditation is a meditation on unconditional love without any expectations of receiving anything in return. A Loving-Kindness meditation is a direction of thoughts of care, concern, and love towards oneself and others.
Begin by finding a comfortable position – you can sit comfortably or lie down. You can even practice this meditation when driving, sitting in a meeting, waiting in the hospital, or in any other potentially stressful situation.
First bring your attention to yourself. Silently repeat the following words, with the intention of loving-kindness being sent to yourself:
May I be safe
May I be healthy
May I be happy
May I live with ease
Next bring your attention to someone you deeply love. Silently repeat the following words, with the intention of loving-kindness being sent to the person you love:
May I be safe
May I be healthy
May I be happy
May I live with ease
Next bring your attention to someone to whom you feel neutral – you neither particularly like or dislike this person. Silently repeat the following words, with the intention of loving-kindness being sent to this neutral person:
May I be safe
May I be healthy
May I be happy
May I live with ease
Finally bring your attention to someone with whom you have a lot of conflict, or to someone who you do not like. Silently repeat the following words, with the intention of loving-kindness being sent to this difficult person:
May you be safe
May you be healthy
May you be happy
May you live with ease
Take a breath. Inhale, and exhale.
Now mindfully notice your reactions to this meditation. Try not to judge or change anything you are noticing. Just simply notice your thoughts and emotions as they are. Notice any reactions that you may have had to this meditation in general, or to various people to whom you may have directed your meditation. This is the practice of mindfulness.
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Loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity—these four loving qualities, says Pawan Bareja, are powerful ways to heal our trauma.
Photo by Eduard Militaru
The work of healing trauma makes us tender and vulnerable as we touch our history of wounds, sometimes from childhood and sometimes from our ancestors.
But those who do Buddhist practice come from a tradition that does not shy away from our pain, anxiety, and despair. The Buddha, in his first noble truth, acknowledges the pervasive reality of suffering in this realm. This suffering can show up as small hurts or large, life-changing wounds, which we sometimes call trauma. For wounds small and large, the Buddha’s advice is the same: to be present to them and release them, so we can fully live our birthright of being in the moment, happy and free. Even 2,600 years ago, he did not pathologize our woundedness, but rather normalized it. In this way, we don’t fall into feeling that we’re bad or that we’ve been broken by our trauma.
In my trauma resolution practice, I have found that a powerful way to heal our trauma is to cultivate the four mind states known in Buddhism as the brahmaviharas, or “heavenly abodes.” These are loving-kindness, compassion, joy in the joy of others, and equanimity. We can consciously practice these mind states as part of our meditation practice, and use them to help heal trauma.
- 1. Loving-Kindness
The first brahmavihara, metta or loving-kindness, opens our heart to others and ourselves. This is the beginning of our healing process. To break the grip of trauma and restore our trust in relationships and in the people around us, loving-kindness is an essential medicine.
Our traumatic wounds may invoke the fight, flight, or freeze response, and close our heart. It is difficult to be openhearted when you’re raging with anger or trembling in fear. You may find the practices of loving-kindness unrealistic or unavailable if you are facing homelessness due to the current pandemic, or if you are an immigrant at risk of deportation, or if you’re a BIPOC facing microaggressions in our current socio-political environment. In these sorts of intense situations, Buddhism suggests that we come gently into the neighborhood of loving-kindness until it is more easily accessible to us.
In metta practice, we first invoke loving-kindness in our heart for our benefactor, our beloved, and a neutral person. Then we practice loving-kindness for an enemy or someone who has harmed us. If this is too traumatizing, it’s suggested we start with someone who has caused us only a minor harm as we build our loving-kindness muscle. Usually, after offering loving-kindness to an enemy, I offer good wishes to trees, animals, insects, and fishes, because my heart naturally cares for these beings. The suttas also offer instructions so we can radiate loving-kindness to people who have harmed us without specifically naming them.
The benefit of this practice is the sense of safety that love brings us. Then we can experience more moments of contentment and satisfaction. These moments, which interrupt our normal trauma response, are sufficient for the nervous system to relax and for our brain to rewire as it releases its traumatic knot.
- 2. Compassion
The second brahmavihara is compassion. When trauma is severe, freezing or dissociation are normal. In these moments, compassion for ourselves for having suffered such extreme loss is the appropriate response. Once our heart is open with loving-kindness, our heart quivers with compassion when we meet our own suffering or the suffering of others.
For some people it is easy to feel compassion for others, but not for themselves. A client recently came to me to work with her angry wrists. A few months earlier, she’d woken up and her arms were hurting and since then she’d not been able to use her hands. She was alternating hot and ice treatments with little benefit, and her physical therapist was unable to determine the source of her pain.
I asked her about her relationship with her hands, and she said she had “angry wrists.” I gently asked how she would treat someone, maybe a little girl, who had injured her arms. In response, she gently stroked and kissed her wrists and forearms. Her heart melted with self-compassion and her body started to relax. She was then able to explore more options for movement. She hasn’t healed fully, but she now has a new and spacious relationship with her “angry wrists.”
- 3. Sympathetic Joy
The next brahmavihara is mudita or sympathetic joy. Finding joy in the good fortune of others is yet another healing mind state. When we are caught in the midst of the fight, flight, or freeze response, joy is the furthest feeling from our mind-heart. But even in the midst of our own pain, it is possible to find joy by celebrating the good fortune of others. The Dalai Lama speaks of mudita as a kind of “enlightened self-interest.” He says that if you can be happy when good things happen to other people, your opportunities for delight are increased by eight billion!
- 4. Equanimity
The fourth brahmavihara is equanimity. This is the balance between feeling your feelings and not getting carried away by them. This is essential when working with your trauma. The practice of balance helps you determine when to do some additional work on your trauma resolution and when to pull back and give it a rest.
Equanimity also helps us break out of identifying as a victim, which is not helpful. With equanimity, we don’t take our story personally and we see ourselves as bigger than our history. The wider perspective puts things in balance and allows us to rest in the coming and going of life events.
Boundless heart energy becomes available to us when we are released from our trauma. We saw this when an international team of trauma healers, led by Somatic Experiencing teacher Raja Selvam, went to southern India to work with people affected by the tsunami that devastated villages there in 2004. Though the team did not understand the language of the locals, their hearts were well versed in responding to the universal language of pain and suffering.
They worked with a small baby whose heart palpitations would not calm down despite the mother’s best attempts to soothe her child. With a fisherman who was now so afraid of water that he had panic attacks when he went close to the ocean and was unable to provide for his hungry family. With a grieving grandmother who lost all her children and was now caring for her grandchild. The team worked long hours in the heat of makeshift tents, and their hearts broke over and over again as they heard stories of grief, loss, and despair from the survivors. At the end of the day, they supported each other by offering healing sessions to each other.
When the team returned six months later, the baby with heart palpitations had normalized, the fishermen could fish again, and their wives didn’t have panic attacks while looking out at the ocean. While the team’s trauma resolution techniques had been helpful, all spoke about how resolution was mostly brought about by the community coming together with love and compassion. The neighbors supported and celebrated each other’s healing.
As you release trauma and more lifeforce and heart energy become available, you too may feel motivated to support others in small and large ways. The avenues for expressing an open heart are endless!!
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Friday, 12 February, 2021 is “Chinese New Year,” one of the globe’s biggest annual celebrations as a fifth of humanity celebrate with rice cakes and dumplings despite it being a mostly virtual event this year.
However, as well as also being called “Spring Festival” it’s also referred to as “Lunar New Year.”
Why? What has this occasion go to do with the Moon? How is Chinese New Year calculated and why is Chinese New Year always on a different date? What Chinese New Year animal are you? And what is a “lunar year” anyway?
Here’s everything you need to know about the “Year of the Metal Ox,” which Chinese animal you are, and how astronomy dictates one of the planet’s biggest celebrations.
When is Chinese New Year in 2021?
The Chinese New Year 2021 date is Friday, February 12. What determines its date? Chinese New Year 2021 starts on the day after the first New Moon that falls between January 21 and February 20 each year—which this year occurred on Thursday, February 11, 2021—and ends on the first full Moon of the lunar calendar two weeks later. This new year begins on February 12, 2021 and ends on January 31, 2022.
What is the Chinese New Year animal for 2021?
The Chinese New Year 2021 animal is the Ox. Each year has an animal sign in the Chinese Zodiac (literally “circle of animals”), which is based on the Moon and has a 12 year cycle. Interestingly, so does the planet Jupiter, which takes about 12 years to orbit the Sun. However, there is also a cycle of five elements—wood, fire, earth, metal and water—which together creates a 60 year cycle. So in 2021 it’s the “Year of the Metal Ox,” which hasn’t happened for 60 years.
The Ox represents the first year of the 12-year zodiacal cycle, with 2020 being the “Year of the Metal Rat.”
Chinese Welcome Lunar New Year
People enjoy festive lanterns at a tourist attraction ahead of the Chinese New Year, the Year of the ... [+]
VCG VIA GETTY IMAGES
Here’s a great guide to help you calculate what Chinese New Year animal you are.
What determines the date of Chinese New Year?
Chinese New Year is a lunar festival, so if you want to understand how Chinese New Year is calculated you need to look at what the Moon is doing. There was a New Moon on Thursday, February 11, 2021, which explains why New Year is being celebrated the following day, but more important is the length of a “lunar year.” A lunar year is a cycle of 12 orbits of the Moon around the Earth, with each taking 29 days and, in total, 354 days long. So every 354 days there’s a Chinese New Year.
When will Chinese New Year Festival end?
Chinese New Year will end with the rise of the Full “Snow Moon,” which will occur on Saturday, February 27, 2021. It’s the final full Moon of the astronomical season of winter in the northern hemisphere. In China the celebrations close with a Lantern Festival.
The full moon is seen behind a red lantern on Mid-Autumn Festival on October 1, 2020 in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province of China. (Photo by Jia Minjie/VCG via Getty Images)
The full moon is seen behind a red lantern on Mid-Autumn Festival on October 1, 2020 in ... [+]
VCG VIA GETTY IMAGES
‘Chinese New Year’ vs ‘Lunar New Year’
“Chinese New Year” or “Lunar New Year?” While the former refers to the event in China, the latter—and another term, “Spring festival”—is used to recognize the fact that the event is celebrated all over Asia, not just in China. Lunar New Year is celebrated in Vietnam as Tết, as Losar in Tibet and as Solnal in Korea.
What is the Mid-Autumn Festival?
Chinese New Year isn’t the only celebration in Asia decided by the Moon. Tuesday, 21 September, 2021 will see Mid-Autumn Festival, a celebration of the Moon and of the harvest it was said—in ancient times—to bring. Held on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese calendar, Mid-Autumn Festival involves lanterns, moon-gazing and the eating of pastries called mooncakes. So much so that it’s sometimes known as “Mooncake Festival.” However, it’s celebrated all over Asia, where it’s known as tsukimi (Moon-viewing) in Japan and as chuseaok in Korea. The Moon’s roundness is associated with union, family and harmony.
When is the next Chinese New Year?
In 2022 Chinese New Year will be celebrated on Tuesday, February 1, 2022 when it will mark the beginning of the “Year of the Water Tiger.”
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.