SPRING NEWSLETTER
Dear Friends,
I hope this letter finds you well as we make our way into Spring. It has been a few months since I last wrote. 2024 has been full on. We got a puppy! My daughter turned 13! Both events equally hard to believe! Here’s a photo I took yesterday at Ocean Beach - my three Honeys together…
My teaching has been very rewarding this winter. I’ve had the opportunity to teach meditation in different venues, both in person and online, and to many different groups of people. A few days ago I realized that I’ve taught more than 500 people meditation in the last two months! This feels really good. Good to be sharing the incredible lineage from my teacher Lama Tsultrim Allione, good to be sharing the brilliance of the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual tradition, good to be doing my part. The Shamata meditation practice itself is simple and profound. In each session, we raise bodhicitta (the awakened heart), we do the practice itself, and, at the end, we dedicate the merit (the goodness and wisdom) of our time together for the benefit of all beings.
Women have written me things like: ; “Jenny, it was heart opening”; “I feel grounded, peaceful and alive”; “This practice helped me be with the most tender parts of myself and release grief I had been trying to override”; “Feeling the bodhicitta is beautiful.”
I am so inspired by this work. I hope I can do it for a long, long time. There’s something deeply moving about witnessing one woman take her seat in meditation, something so powerful about witnessing hundreds.
This is the poster Cassie McGettigan made for our gathering in Bolinas. We had a wonderful group. We practiced in this room—it opened up on the other side to the river that flows through the farm in this little town. Always so powerful to practice together. So much healing happens, so much shared wisdom and understanding. Here are some of us—happy and connecting.
Sharing Wisdom Writing & A Meditation Practice
Writing. I want to share the work of one of my oldest and dearest friends, Jennica Peterson. We met during our first week at Stanford in a freshman writing class and have been the closest of friends ever since. It has been more than 25 years of shared conversation on feminism, women’s work, motherhood, and more. She’s a writer and has been published widely in travel magazines; however, this new piece of hers is closer to home in many ways. I am so proud and happy for her as the Stanford Magazine recently published her latest work about a topic I am also very passionate about. It’s a powerful short essay called “Love’s Labor’s Cost” - it’s about raising her daughter and the value of caregiving. I know you will enjoy it.
And a practice for you! A few weeks ago I guided Feeding Your Demons®, a powerful five-step process developed by my teacher Lama Tsultrim Allione. The premise of Feeding Your Demons® is that we are feeding, rather than fighting, that which assails us—our fears, our anger, our insecurities, our worries. For most of us (and this is also true on the world stage), the instinct is to fight our demons. This fight is a deep pattern in our system and in the over-culture. But, it is not the only way. It is certainly not the skillful method in dealing with our inner and outer conflicts. This skillful method—of feeding and not fighting—is a feminine approach, a paradigm shift in which we turn towards and meet the demon (our own suffering) with compassion. Below is the link for the guided recording from the San Francisco Dharma Collective. If you’re interested, I recommend finding undistracted time for yourself where you can listen and dive in. You’ll be happy you did.
I hope that the new life of Spring is felt within you, especially now, in these heart breaking times. After my practice a few mornings ago, I could hear the birds so clearly out my window. It was still dark outside, almost dawn, and the city seemed so quiet except for their calling back and forth to each other. Their singing was so clear, so loud, so alive. Somehow my whole body relaxed into their singing; it held me. I took refuge in it, and my soul settled.
I realized those sweet birds were giving me a teaching on the promise of spring. It was as if they were reminding me to return, to come back to this life. It did not end the wars or suddenly fix all the broken systems, but it did make me more present and more at ease as I made my children breakfast and drove them to school that morning. It resourced me enough so I could keep doing what I am here to do. And it was so beautiful. I hope the birdsong finds you too, wherever you are.
With love,
Jenny