Week 1 (1/12/26)
Aging with Wisdom and Compassion Week 1 (1/12/26) Home Practices
****Reminder: Although the class starts at 10:30 (ET), I will come to class at 10:20 to answer questions each week. ***
Next Class: 1/26/26
Click here for a PDF of the Home Practices
- Sitting: For a minimum of 10-20 minutes per day. Do your best! Keep your meditation simple (no apps or if you use them only a couple of times a week).
- Practice Gratitude: Text or e-mail your buddies, 3 things you are grateful for every day. They can be anything. Helps to lighten the heart!
- Contemplate the following:
- “Aging sickness and death are treasures for those who understand them. They’re noble truths, noble treasures. If they were people, I’d bow down to their feet everyday” –Ajaan Lee
- “I am of the nature to age. I am subject to aging. Aging is unavoidable” –Buddha
- “All conditioned phenomena are impermanent. Their nature is to arise and pass away. Living in accordance with this truth brings the highest happiness.” –Buddha
- Continue to reflect: What are some of the joys and challenges you have faced with aging. How are you relating to the joys and challenges of aging?
- Four simple practices that may help us cultivate a more thoughtful, aware attitude toward aging and life. See if any of these touch you, then bring them into this unfolding New Year. Have FUN!
- Honoring your inner life: Practice can help to hold life’s complexities and challenges. A practice of mindful meditation shows us that something beyond our limited self- you can also consider prayer, Tai Chi, Yoga. Setting time for even for 5 minutes — for some form of contemplation, brings inner balance and more resilience to our days.
- The Practice of Pausing: Stop & breathe, inhabit the body. Stop to look at the sky. Stop & see or listen to a bird outside. Stop & look into the open face of a child or pet. Simple acts. How often do we truly slow down, stop, listen or look? Or Breathe & recognize that these precious moments can be moments of nourishing calm, mindfulness, don’t know mind or not knowing. Throughout your day, pause, take a break from your usual thoughts and wake up to the vastness of the world around you. Look outside! This easy, spacious type of mindfulness practice is an important practice during this time.
- The Practice of Mindfulness in Daily Life: This is a reminder to bring your attention to daily activities that can transform the littlest moments of a day (brushing teeth, washing dishes). This is about doing one thing at a time with a full, loving attention. It’s amazing how wonderful the simplest things are! Be aware of your hands or feet in action and appreciate all they do for you.
- Cultivating lightness and humor: When we choose a light-hearted response to a challenging or tense situation. In that split-second between reacting and responding, see if you can open to the possible lightness or humor in what’s unfolding. Notice how the body softens, the breath deepens, and a sense of release & relief floods over you.
Appreciating you & am grateful for your Practice!
Week 2 (1/26/26)
Aging with Wisdom and Compassion Week 2 (1/26/26) Home Practices
****Reminder: Although the class starts at 10:30 (ET), I will come to class at 10:20 to answer questions each week. ***
Click here for a PDF of the Home Practices
- Sitting: For a minimum of 10-20 minutes per day. Do your best! Keep your meditation simple (no apps or if you use them only a couple of times a week)
- Practice Gratitude: Text or e-mail your buddies, 3 things you are grateful for every day. They can be anything. Helps to lighten the heart!
- Continue to Contemplate the following:
- I am of the nature to age. I am subject to aging. Aging is unavoidable- Buddha.
- All conditioned phenomena are impermanent. Their nature is to arise and pass away. Living in accordance with this truth brings the highest happiness.- Buddha
- Reflect: Our culture that glorifies youth-we are exploring if it’s possible to get to know aging in a different way. That is not to say that aging is easy. But to see if we can use our practice to cultivate inspiring attitudes to see the beauty as well as the challenges of aging.
- An Elder is a person who is still growing, still a learner, still with potential and whose life continues to have within it promise for, and connection to the future. An Elder is still in pursuit of happiness, joy and pleasure, and her, his, theirbirthright to these remains intact. More over, an Elder is a person who deserves respect and honor and whose work it is to synthesize wisdom and compassion from a long life experience and formulate this into a legacy for future generations. – Barry Barkin
- Olivia Hoblitzelle: invites us to explore new ways of being. Try some of these this week!
- Can you see the need to slow down as a gift, for those whose lives are squeezed by hurry?
- Can you see that acceptance of being in the present moment is as precious as doing in a society that measures according to how productive a person is?
- Can you appreciate a sense of time that allows us to stop and enjoy a small delight like a cloud in the sky, a snowflake, or a dewdrop on a branch?
- Can you accept the gift of time- time to be-to watch the wind in the trees outside the window instead of rushing to the next task?
- Is it possible that we are being invited to live in a new dimension, one that is teaching us to let go of the way we have always done things? Ultimately, we are moving toward the final letting go, whether we are conscious of it or not. Death may be years off and every time we let go of an old pattern, we open to a more spacious, allowing and loving way of being. Can we live more in alignment accepting the unknown, more open to the great mystery in which we live and die into?
- Reflect on Conscious or Mindful Aging and the following:
- How do we accept the natural process of diminishment? Of our own diminishment? Finding grace in diminishment is an invitation to affirm what is positive. We are on a scared journey. This week, Pay Attention, find meaning in what sustains you,inspires you, uplifts you?
- Can you accept things as they are? Accept help from others? Can your heart hold whatever is happening with a sense that you are a part of something far more spacious than the limitations of the body?
- Can you cultivate don’t know mind, openness to the new and unknown, an attitude of letting go, letting be toward how we are living? Can you honor nature, the life force with in us, honor the life cycle- attune to the rhythms of your years in balance with the natural order of things and align with your life’s purpose- with presence, deep listening, respecting your changing needs, and honoring what is most important to you?
Appreciating you & am grateful for your Practice!