Week 1 (1/22/26)
Gratitude, Generosity and Grace: Week 1 (1/22/26)
Daily Life Homework
Click Here for a PDF copy of the Home Practices
- Sit every day
- Try sitting for a minimum of 10-20 minutes per day (more if you are able). Please practice your meditation in silence. (If you use an app…Try to use it only a couple of times during the week. Explore silence J)
- Do your best while sitting too: pay attention, welcome & open to whatever is arising. Is it possible to include it all?
- Gratitude Practices
- Text or –e-mail “your buddies”: 3 things you are grateful for each day. Can be anything.
- Thank someone every day.
- Generosity Practices
- For 15 minutes to a 1/2 hour each day, try offering respectful attention to everyone you meet or talk to. Take the other person’s point of view. Let the person on the bus, T, desk next to you, your neighbor, child, partner- be the most important person around.
- Give your full attention to them physically. Put your device(s) away. Look at the person. Listen carefully. Open your heart. Be there without pushing an agenda. Simply Listening.
- Grace Practices
- Start to be aware of the heart space that can hold your life with tenderness & kindness. Even for a few minutes a day.
- Open to offering presence, mindfulness, loving awareness to the circumstances that arise and pass away- with a sense of grace or graciousness. In a way, it’s welcoming or bowing to whatever comes—a sacred attention.
- Do your best to notice any moments when you know and experience the spacious presence that includes the ever-changing flow of life with a sense of wholeness or compassion or connection or balance or ease.
HAVE FUN!
Week 2 (1/29/26)
Gratitude, Generosity and Grace: Week 2 (1/29/26)
Daily Life Homework
Click Here for a PDF copy of the Home Practices
- Sit every day
- Try sitting for a minimum of 10-20 minutes per day (more if you are able). Please practice your meditation in silence. (If you use an app…Try to use it only a couple of times during the week. Explore silence)
- Do your best while sitting to: pay attention, welcome & open to whatever is arising. Is it possible to include it all?
- Gratitude Practices
- Let gratitude be like a flashlight – lighting up what is already there & remember to count your blessings daily.
- Text or –e-mail “your buddies”: 3 things you are grateful for each day. Can be anything.
- Thank someone every day.
- Generosity Practices
- Each day ask yourself: What allows me to give? What stops me from letting go?
- Continue the practice of offering respectful attention to everyone you meet, talk to, or zoom with, for 15 minutes to a 1/2 hour each day. Let the person on the bus, T, desk next to you, your neighbor, child, partner- be the most important person around.
- Give your full attention to them physically. Put your device(s) away. Look at the person. Listen carefully. Open your heart. Be there without pushing an agenda. Simply Listening.
- Grace Practices
- Grace is the recognition that everything is connected and sacred. You are sacred! Please consider a lasting truce with yourself.
- Begin to notice that everything you do is Sacred.
- It’s the state of grace to be able to make room for things as they are.
- Continue to be aware of the heart space that can hold your life with tenderness & kindness. Do your best to notice any moments when you know the spacious presence that includes the ever-changing flow of life with a sense of wholeness, compassion, connection, balance or ease.
HAVE FUN!
Love & Heart Wheels to All!
Week 3 (2/5/26)
Gratitude, Generosity and Grace: Week 3 (2/5/26)
Daily Life Homework
(will arrive at 6:20 for Q&A)
Click Here for a PDF copy of the Home Practices
- Sit every day.
- Try sitting for a minimum of 10-20 minutes per day (more if you are able).
Please practice your meditation in silence. (If you use an app…Try to use it only a couple of times during the week. Explore silence J) - Do your best while sitting to pay attention, welcome & open to whatever is arising.
Is it possible to include it all?
- Try sitting for a minimum of 10-20 minutes per day (more if you are able).
- Gratitude Practices
- Remembering our blessings so we can hold whatever is happening in a larger perspective.
- Consider: changing I have to, to I get to & when in a complaining jag-finish the sentence with “my life rests on the lives of so many and I am grateful”
- Thank someone every day!
- Thank yourself every day! Is it possible to do this while looking in the mirror?
- Generosity Practices
- Reflect on all the ways you can find opportunities for practice giving & offering generosity in your daily life. (tentative, one-handed, friendly, kingly or queenly)
Reflect on all the ways you hold back from practicing giving or offering generosity. Reflect on practicing generosity with yourself.
Reflect on letting go of “burdens” (comparing, anger, despair, craving) What can you give to yourself in these moments? - Practice Kindness.
- Be aware of any acts of generosity or giving this week (in you or others). Some examples: attention, appreciation, time, money, food, material gifts, skills, knowledge, picking up something someone has dropped.
- Is there joy in giving? If not, why not? What is your attitude while giving? How does acting with generosity affect your heart- mind?
- Notice any stinginess. How does that affect your heart- mind?
- Reflect on all the ways you can find opportunities for practice giving & offering generosity in your daily life. (tentative, one-handed, friendly, kingly or queenly)
- Grace Practices
- Grace provides a framework in which a meaningful life is fully lived. Love is the essence of it day to day. It’s a matter of living and having a practice that enables you to open to, return to again & again life’s unfolding blessings.
- Grace is one key to happiness. When wonderful or not so wonderful things happen, if we have confidence in our practice, then we can remain grounded & not be over-whelmed by the dramas of life. This is where the grace unfolds. (more dharma less drama) a couple of hints:
a) Appreciate whatever comes and make the absolute most of it.
b) Allow feelings, emotions, thoughts, events to come & go. Get to know contentment. - Continue to be aware of the heart space that can hold your life with tenderness & kindness. Do your best to notice any moments when you know the spacious presence that includes the ever-changing flow of life with a sense of wholeness, compassion, connection, balance or ease. It’s the state of grace to be able to make room for things as they are.
HAVE FUN! Love & Heart Wheels to All!
The Poem: A Blessing for Beauty –John O’Donohue
Week 4 (2/12/26)
Gratitude, Generosity and Grace: Week 4 (2/12/26)
Daily Life Homework
I will arrive at 6:20 for Q&A
Click Here for a PDF copy of the Home Practices
I will arrive at 6:20 for Q&A
- Sit every day.
- Try sitting for a minimum of 10-20 minutes per day (more if you are able). Practice in silence. (If you use an app… Try to use it only a few of times in the week. Explore silence 🙂)
- Do your best while sitting to pay attention, welcome & open to whatever is arising. Is it possible to include it all?
- Gratitude Practices
- Text or e-mail “your buddies” 3 things you are grateful for each day.
- Remember to count your blessings daily.
- Look at life with the spirit of Dayenu- “it would have been enough”
- Check out the connection between expressing Gratitude and Mindful pausing- breathing
- Consider: changing I have to, to I get to & when in a complaining jag-finish the sentence with “my life rests on the lives of so many and I am grateful”
- Thank someone every day! Thank yourself every day- while looking in the mirror.
- Generosity Practices
- One day this week, perform 5 acts of kindness & generosity—all 5 in one day. It doesn’t matter if the acts are big or small. It is skillful to perform a variety of actions.
- The kind & generous acts do not need to be for the same person—the person doesn’t even have to be aware of them. Examples: feeding a stranger’s parking meter, donating blood, helping a friend with a chore (shoveling), opening a door for someone, listening to someone, offering goods/money, time, service, caring, allowing someone to be just as they are, practicing non-harming, sharing food, or appreciating others.
- After each kind-generous action, write down what you did in a few words & how you felt.
- Find one occasion where you can give something anonymously to a person you have some direct contact with. Be mindful of what you are feeling as you are considering doing this act, while you are doing it & after it is done.
- Generosity is letting go! It’s an antidote to clinging & craving! It’s FUN! Please let go of shoulds in giving & see if there is joy in giving. If not joy, reflect on what is going on.
- Reflect on how generosity affects your feelings toward others. Do you feel warmth or love towards those who are generous with you? These feelings occur without force or expectation. It’s a law of the universe: as we give, we receive. There is an openness that one feels. Notice it
- Be aware of acts of kindness- generosity offered or given to you. Can you receive with kindness? When receiving see if you can receive the generosity/kindness that was offered. Then pause. See what arises in the next moment (joy, warmth, love, happiness, wonder, fear, anxiety, unpleasant thoughts or emotions, identification, story, strings, obligation, habit?).
- One day this week, perform 5 acts of kindness & generosity—all 5 in one day. It doesn’t matter if the acts are big or small. It is skillful to perform a variety of actions.
- Grace In Daily Life Practices: Remember to read these every day-
- Look for moments of grace within you and throughout your day. Look for moments of grace in others and in nature! Remember them, write them down, bring them to class.
- Grace- In life means receiving each arising moment with a generous attitude and meeting it with patience that is based in your practice. When interacting with friends, strangers, loved ones, give them your full attention. Holding for each person life’s greatest possibility in the moment. Can you see that as grace? It nourishes the very essence of the other’s being. In cultivating our sense of self-worth and well-being, we are just as dependent on the kindness of others. Knowing this is Grace. Practicing this is Grace!
- Grace provides a framework in which a meaningful life is fully lived. Love is the essence of it day to day. It’s a matter of living and having a practice that enables you to open to return to again & again life’s unfolding blessings.
- Grace is one key to happiness. When wonderful or not so wonderful things happen, if we have confidence in our practice, then we can remain grounded & not be over-whelmed by the dramas of life. This is where the grace unfolds. (more dharma less drama) a couple of hints:
- Appreciate whatever comes and make the absolute most of it.
- Allow feelings, emotions, thoughts, events to come & go. Get to know contentment.
- Continue to be aware of the heart space that can hold your life with tenderness & kindness. Do your best to notice any moments when you know the spacious presence that includes the ever-changing flow of life with a sense of wholeness, compassion, connection, balance or ease. It’s the state of grace to be able to make room for things as they are.
HAVE FUN! Love & Heart Wheels to All!
Week 5 (2/19/26)
Gratitude, Generosity and Grace: Week 4 (2/12/26)
Daily Life Homework
I will arrive at 6:20 for Q&A
Click Here for a PDF copy of the Home Practices
- Sit every day.
- Try sitting for a minimum of 10-20 minutes per day. (more if you are able) Practice in silence. (If you use an app…Try to use it only a few of times in the week. Explore silence J)
- Do your best while sitting to: pay attention, welcome & open to whatever is arising.
Is it possible to include it all?
- Gratitude Practices
- Text or e-mail “your buddies” 3 gratitude’s each day.
- Identify 3 things that you feel grateful for and appreciate about your life. Identify 3 things that you take for granted but are actually very thankful for. Identify 3 things that you appreciate about yourself. Identify 3 things that you feel grateful for about your present–right now–experience.
- Realize you can look at life with the spirit of dayenu- Practice it.
- Remember to count your blessings daily. Thank someone & yourself every day!
- Reflect on how Gratitude is interconnected with Generosity and Grace
- Generosity Practices
- Reflect on whether you aspire to develop generosity internally as well. Imagine what you might give to a friend burdened with painful feelings such as jealousy, anger, despair or craving—what you might offer to help them be free of these states. Reflect on how difficult it is for you to let such burdens go, even though you know holding on to them causes pain. What can you give to yourself in such situations?
- Practice kindness & generosity. Be aware of the joy of giving & the wisdom of non-clinging.
- Be aware of acts of kindness and generosity offered or given to you. Can you receive with thankfulness & kindness. When receiving see if you can receive the generosity that was offered. Pause. See what arises in the next moment. joy, warmth, love, happiness, wonder, fear, anxiety, unpleasant thoughts or emotions, identification, story, strings, obligation, habit?
- Can you get to know the radical understanding of non-separateness, interconnection, and interdependency? No giving without receiving & no givers without receivers. Giving & receiving arise together. They are one.
- Reflect on how Generosity is interconnected with Generosity and Grace
- Grace In Daily Life Practices: (Remember to read these every day-)
- Look for moments of grace within you and throughout your day. Look for moments of grace in others and in nature! Remember them. Grace is the recognition that everything is connected and sacred. You are Sacred! Notice that everything you do is Sacred.
- Reflect on how Grace is interconnected with Gratitude and Generosity.
- Grace-In life means receiving each arising moment with a generous attitude and meeting it with patience that is based in your practice. When interacting with friends, strangers, loved ones, give them your full attention. Holding for each person life’s greatest possibility in the moment. Can you see that as grace? It nourishes the very essence of the other’s being. In cultivating our sense of self-worth and well-being, we are just as dependent on the kindness of others. Knowing this is Grace. Practicing this is Grace!
- Get to know the deep fundamental truths of what brings us from the suffering, the clinging, the fear, the hatred, the confusion into the ease, the peace of the heart that can be a gracious offering of kindness into the flow of life —Learn this practice. This not just a set of ideas or ideals. Begin simply by being present for life: the mysteries, the joys, the tears and offer yourself into life with a sense of grace, compassion and understanding.
- There is something about being in the present & not knowing and showing up with a compassionate heart with a tenderness, an easiness, a willingness to not know, with the capacity to stay within yourself in the midst of where you are that allows you to move through this world as a Buddha. This is what we learn in practice: presence compassion, grace-
We learn to trust mindfulness.
- Grace provides a framework in which a meaningful life is fully lived. Love is the essence of it day to day. It’s a matter of living and having a practice that enables you to open to, return to again and again life’s unfolding blessings.
- Grace is one key to happiness. When wonderful or not so wonderful things happen, if we have confidence in our practice, then we can remain grounded & not be over-whelmed by the dramas of life. This is where the grace unfolds. (moredharma less drama) a couple of hints:
a) Appreciate whatever comes and make the absolute most of it.
b) Allow feelings, emotions, thoughts, events to come & go. Get to know contentment.
- Continue to be aware of the heart space that can hold your life with tenderness & kindness. Do your best to notice any moments when you know the spacious presence that includes the ever-changing flow of life with a sense of wholeness, compassion, connection, balance or ease. It’s the state of grace to be able to make room for things as they are.