An engaging way to teach a course in beginning mindfulness is to hand each new yogi a tangerine when they arrive. They’ll sit down & gingerly hold the fruit as if it’s too hot, occasionally taking discreet glances at it to make sure it really is a tangerine, wondering what it’s for. They soon learn: It’s the object of a guided 30-minute mindfulness meditation. Even experienced yogis graced with Beginner’s Mind find this meditation unexpectedly intriguing. Briefly, this is the guidance:
*Hear & follow the meditation instructions.
*Lightly juggle the tangerine so your fingers can sense its firmness & weight.
*Look at the colors to see which are clear orange or mottled.
*Run your fingers over all of the fruit to feel where it is smooth or bumpy or creased.
*Smell the outside of the tangerine. Does this bring up memories such as the “smell of Christmas” or fruit in a holiday stocking?
*Bite the tangerine, smell & taste the inside & outside of the skin. Is either one pleasant or unpleasant? Do you want more tastes or none at all? Peel the tangerine.
*Break off a fruit section & put it in your mouth but don’t chew it. How do your taste buds react to the taste? Do you want more?
*Chew, swallow, and slowly finish eating the tangerine mindfully.
When the meditation is over, new students usually make comments like “Where did you find these tangerines?” or “This is the best tangerine I’ve ever tasted.” Their remarks are the perfect opening for the teacher to say, “Every aspect of your life can be just as delicious if you live it as mindfully as you ate this tangerine.” These students have just taken advantage of their amazing sense doors, sense discriminations of pleasant or unpleasant, and desire or aversion to eating more. They’ve probably also had short memories of holidays or picnics.
Unbeknownst to them, they have also had a short, guided tour of the Satipatthana Sutta, perhaps the Buddha’s most studied discourse
because of its comprehensiveness in teaching the objects that are the best for cultivating mindfulness through meditation: the body, feeling tones of pleasant-impermanent-unpleasant, the mind, and Dhammas (teachings of the Buddha).
Why start new yogis here or invite experienced meditators to immerse themselves in the experience? Because every step of this meditation opens us to the absolutely amazing body we inhabit. After hundreds of millions of years, we beings have evolved exceptional color vision, hearing ability that would challenge the finest sound studios, tenderness of touch. We can perceive & identify through our senses most elements of the world around us, and usually know if we like or don’t like what we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. And we can think about & experience emotional responses to this perceived world.
With the intention to cultivate mindfulness, we’re not merely setting off on a path of touchy-feely pleasures. As we meditate mindfully, we are directly & in the present moment exposed to the shifts of physical & mental sensations. These experiences condition our mind to wisdom: the ability to discern what is real. Even in the smallest increments, we are moving toward a wiser, kinder, more contented life.
To learn more about the Satipatthana Sutta, CLICK HERE
to read Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s description & excellent translation.
Jean Smith practiced Buddhist meditation in the Vipassana-Insight Meditation tradition starting in 1986 & led sanghas in New York City, the Adirondack Mountains & online from Taos NM. She published nine books on Buddhism, including The Beginner’s Guide to Insight Meditation (with Arinna Weisman) & Life is Spiritual Practice (the Paramis). She served from the very beginning on the board of The Mountain Hermitage.
Jean Smith passed away on January 3rd. There will be a Memorial/Celebration Gathering this coming Spring in Taos for Jean & her life – date, place & time to be announced.
As we enter into this ‘
As we begin to learn & allow ourselves to rest in this stillness more often, a great healing begins to take place… an unbinding, an unwinding of all the conditioning we’ve taken on as 
I used to be a big music fan & listened to it all the time. Now that I don’t deliberately listen to it, I find that when I do happen to hear music, it’s as if I’m hearing it for the first time. Music used to be such a constant presence in my life that it had lost its power. If I hear it now, it has an astonishing quality of freshness. I am with every note, every phrase.
feel that we must own & accumulate things in order to be complete, and not just material objects but people & relationships as well. It is hard for us to understand that letting go is not a loss, not a bereavement. Of course, when we lose something that is beautiful or dear to us, there is a shadow that crosses the heart. But we enlighten that shadow with the understanding that the feeling of loss is just the karmic result of assuming that we owned anything in the first place. The renunciate life is based on the realization that we can never really possess anything.
The Buddha lived in a deeply troubled world. Kings ruled through violence, armies decimated villages, and slavery threaded daily life. Even those close to the Buddha suffered: his supporter 
hostile to one another
The blessings of Autumn are unfolding here in northern New Mexico as is currently happening in many places around the planet. This time of year, the natural world all around us offers abundant Dharma practice opportunities in ordinary & profound ways.
animal and plant, are rooted in the processes of Anicca/change/impermanence. Our bodies, our ideas, likes & dislikes, our emotions… our very life is basically grounded in these same processes that underlie how the natural world shows up & expresses itself. Can you even imagine what it would be like if there were no change? In truth, without Anicca/change/impermanence there would be no life.
We have received an inestimable gift. To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe—to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it—is a wonder beyond words. It is an extraordinary privilege to be accorded a human life, with self-reflexive consciousness that brings awareness of our own actions & the ability to make choices. It lets us choose to take part in the healing of our world.
choose to turn to the breath, the body, the senses—for they help us to relax & open to wider currents of knowing & feeling.
Some time before the Buddha was about to die, he gave his disciples a word of encouragement and advice. He said this – and I’m putting it into my own words: “Freedom from suffering is available to you if you practice by the proper means of mindfulness, but not without having the aspiration to learn, and 
with the dharma or that we “should” be doing something else to realize our aspiration. Right here we can remind ourselves that our job is to do what the teachings require of us, working with mindfulness in this moment. Anything more than sincerely doing the practice is a hindrance to it’s unfolding. The wondering when, if, how soon and what else we can do to speed up the process – this is all worry and agitation.
In a world facing deep unrest, the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths offer both clarity and compassion. As taught in the discourse on “
How can we move out of what might be our usual way of doing things & into new territory? Not to escape what may seem or feel like a catastrophe looming around us… looming around the world… but to more fully & clearly meet what is occurring. 
metta, begin to connect with a ‘true’ sense of 
When fifth-century monk-scholars shaped a list of the heart-mind characteristics of the Bodhisattva’s path to buddhahood, these Paramis, or “Perfections,” began with generosity. The sequence was a reflection of the way the Buddha offered his teachings: the Buddha’s first talk in a new community was usually about generosity. Probably the Buddha began with generosity partly because he recognized that it is and has been so widely accepted as one of the most basic human virtues by so many cultures. But there was a more important reason: Generosity is a foundational building block of spiritual development and his most important teachings.