STARTING ON OCTOBER 14, 2025:

A MEDITATION THEME FOR EACH WEEK
Posted here every Tuesday

Suggestions for meditation:
* First, read the Post for the week.
* Then start your meditation by listening to the Guided Meditation video above—it is less than 5 minutes long, and it is the gateway to the Meditation Space.
* Then, bring to mind the Post you just read, and continue sitting.
This combines the advantages of Guided Meditation and Meditating with a Theme.
You can do this whenever and wherever you wish.

POST 10, DECEMBER 16, 2025: NEW YEAY, NEW STORY…

Merry Christmas to all!
Here’s an excerpt from the experiences of Meg Worden, a young woman who got into using ecstasy. Then she started selling it. She was caught and imprisoned for 2 years.

Here are some of her reflections:
Everything I know about freedom, I learned in prison.
People on the outside, who are supposedly free, are busy creating prisons for themselves.

In accepting that I was here to stay for two years, I saw that I had the option to decide whether to do that time angry and afraid, or to relax, and even allow myself to laugh or be appreciative for the things that were still good. This is a freedom nobody can take away.
We are always free to choose the best versions of our experiences, to live while we are here.

Meg was not free before her imprisonment. Addiction is not freedom. Not only addiction to a substance, but also addiction to victim stories, or to a certain mindset that does not bring happiness. We are made of stories.

What is your story?
Can you rethink it now?


POST 9, DECEMBER 9, 2025: NATURE’S WAY

We do not often think of negativity as the source of sleep problems.
We do not think of it as a root cause of stress and anxiety.
We do not suspect that it plays a role in many relationship issues.
We do not realize that it sometimes sabotages our work life.
Yet, my own personal experience as well as the stories I hear confirm the poisonous effect negativity has in many areas of life. There’s even a condition named ‘Negativity Blindness.’ It refers to how strong negative emotions such as fear and anxiety can make us miss important, neutral or positive things.

In contrast, positivity is not just another personality trait among others.
It is the way of nature, the source of happiness, and the way to success.

Traditional cultures have emphasized positivity—they called it faith.
We usually associate faith with being religious. If we are not religious, we think that faith is not for us. Let us revise that. If we are not religious, faith in God or in religion is not for us, not faith itself. We need faith just as much—we need faith in life, in nature, in others, and above all in ourselves. Give up faith in life after death if you like, but do not give up faith in the world of here and now.

Here is a poem that that sees ‘applied positivity’ in a smile:

NATURE’S WAY
Smiles are everywhere: they float on water, they fly in the air,
They grow on flowers, they grow on trees, like bird songs and honey from bees.
Find them in your heart, sing them in your song.

When walking, take one along; when working, keep one around,
See a smile in the sun, and another one in the moon,
See a smile through the clouds. The smile is nature’s way.

This poem is also a meditation theme, thus, meditate with a smile…
There will be a song version coming soon!


POST 8, BECEMBER 2, 2025: Awareness and Mindfulness

We are aware of many things through the day. Most of the objects of our awareness are out there—like clouds, rain, and the ring of the timer on the oven. Our focus is usually on sensations; so, we will also be aware of stomach pain, if we have it.
Mindfulness adds 3 things to awareness:

  1. It includes awareness of thoughts, emotions, and mental states.
  2. It includes awareness of judgments. Thus, if a jam jar is resisting our attempts to open it, we are aware of our negative thoughts about it. We can separate judgment from awareness. That makes nonjudgmental awareness possible.
  3. It includes intentional remembering, and keeping in mind. Thus, if we are mindful of climate change, we resist the urge to buy unnecessary stuff.

    Many of our actions are stimulated by the unconscious mind.
    Freud called the unconscious side of our mind the Id, and visualized it as a horse ridden by the conscious Ego as the horseman.
    A horseman may look like he is in charge, but the reality is sometimes otherwise. My own experience with riding horses has not been very encouraging. The first horse I ever got on decided to lie down and roll on the ground to scratch its back—with me on the saddle!
    The second one went in the water to cool down as we were passing by a lake.
    A Zen story recounted by Thich Nhat Hanh confirms that the rational mind is not always in charge. In the story, a man standing in the village square sees his good friend pass by on a galloping horse.
    “Where are you going?” he yells at him.
    “I don’t know, ask the horse,” his friend yells back, as he disappears in a cloud of dust…

    Being human is paradoxical.
    Here is an example: Einstein was a pipe smoker. Despite all his intelligence, he thought that smoking is good, as it helps one to keep calm. He died of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm related to smoking.
    Despite the plasticity of our brain, our long-term habits resist change.
    Norman Doidge calls this the Plastic Paradox.

    Suggestion for Practice: Meditate with a smile, and consider some of your longstanding habits…

POST 7, NOVEMBER 25, 2025: THE IMPORTANCE OF REGULAR PRACTICE

About 90% of beginning guitar players quit after a short while; mostly because they do not have the persistence and dedication required for practice.
My guess is that a similar number of people also stop meditating.
Why am I comparing guitar playing to meditation?
Because both are examples of the mind changing the brain.
It looks like magic when you watch an accomplished guitar player; but in fact, that guitarist has changed their brain through consistent practice. Now, that magical stuff they are doing feels normal to them.
Recent research confirms that the same is true of meditation—that regular practice changes certain brain regions. A lot of the acknowledged benefits of meditation is due to that change, which only happens through regular practice.

Why don’t people practice meditation regularly, even though they want the benefits? Here are some possible reasons:

  • The good effects are not always as immediate as having a chocolate bar.
  • Other activities, such as watching TV, or reading a book feel more enjoyable.
  • Meditation does not bring material benefits such as increasing your income.
  • You don’t know how to get better at it.
  • There are other activities that compete for the available time.
  • Meditation is often hyped up in the media. Your experience may not measure up.
  • You forget to do it.

Take a few seconds to consider if any of the above reasons apply to you.
Then, see if you can figure out ways to get around them.
Here are a few suggestions:

  • Try meditating in the morning when you wake up, or at night before you go to sleep.
  • A short period of meditation is better than no meditation.
  • Sit with a meditation song; there are some on YouTube, on my channel.
  •  Busy family life? Hide somewhere for 10 minutes with one of these posts, and ‘The Meditation Space’ playing on your phone…

Bonne chance! 

POST 6, NOVEMBER 18, 2025: 3 LESSONS FROM THE ZEN TRADITION

*  Who says, “Ouch”?
The body speaks in sensations. The mind interprets and judges these sensations as good, bad, comfortable, or painful.
It is not the body that says, “Ouch.” It is the mind. The body does not know words. As we leave behind the stories and the drama coming from the brain and surrender to the breath, the mind begins to calm down. Try it, and you will see—just the simple exercise of following the breath soon calms the mind.

*  Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

Easy to say, but on the spur of the moment, small stuff can look pretty big! Try this experiment: bring your little finger very close to your eye so it almost touches your eyelashes. Notice how that little finger now looks bigger than the house across the street!
We can lose perspective when we surrender to thoughts. That is one reason why we want to surrender to breath instead.

*  “A coin lost in the river is found in the river,” goes a Zen saying.

If you’ve lost your peace of mind in everyday life, that’s where you need to find it!
How?
Stay in, or at least close, to the Meditation Space. That makes it possible to respond to things rather than react to them.
Periods of meditation practice are helpful, but you need to remember what peace feels like, and also practice it in everyday life…

POST 5, NOVEMBER 11, 2025: INSPIRATION FROM RUMI, THE SUFI POET

You are like a pearl
on the deep bottom wondering inside the shell,
‘Where’s the ocean?’

The pearl is part of the ocean! There’s no pearl without the ocean!

The ego tends to see itself as separate from the whole. The ego does have a point.
The non-dualistic view of Zen sees that point without getting all excited about it:
‘Separate’, and ‘One With’ are not opposites. They are complementary. That kind of complementariness defines intimate relationships, among other things.
Do you see UP and DOWN as opposites?
Consider that there’s no UP without DOWN!
Same with MEN and WOMEN!
When there are thoughts arising in meditation, see the words and the notions they represent in this non-dualistic light.

You’ve heard it said there’s a window
that opens from one mind to another
but if there’s no wall, there’s no need
for fitting the window, or the latch.

See the connection between this quatrain and the verse above:
It’s the feeling of separateness that creates walls.

Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear thinking. Live in silence.

Here RUMI is referring to our attitudes and thoughts that imprison us. The last phrase, ‘Live in silence’ points to the inner silence of meditation.

I need a mouth as wide as the sky
to say the nature of a True Person, language
as large as longing.

Songwriters, painters and sculptors manage this, despite not having a mouth as large as the sky!
Consider that the sculptor who made a Siren out of marble was saying something about women.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know.

Beloved is Rumi’s word for Nature, Earth, Reality, or God (your choice). It is not scientific, but emotional and connective.
The two worlds are the duality that is everywhere. See their oneness.

Suggestions for practice:
If you are touched by any of these verses, copy them,
and put the copy where you can see it often.
I did this with the two following quotes:

Let the beauty you love be what you do.
Don’t ask what love can make or do,
Look at the colors of the world.

Here is the result:

POST 4, November 4, 2025: EMBRACE TIGER, RETURN TO MOUNTAIN

This is a metaphor from my days of Tai-chi practice. ‘Embrace tiger, return to mountain’ is the name of a sequence at the beginning of the second stage of the Yang form. The moves mimic that phrase as the arms cross over the chest in imitation of an embrace, and then open up, one hand high the other low, to draw a picture of a mountain.

Metaphorically ‘mountain’ symbolizes an abode of peace and serenity. In old China, Taoist monks lived in monasteries built on hard-to-reach mountaintops. There, they were at peace, unaffected by the comings and goings below.

‘Tiger’ represents the busy marketplace in the village with its pickpockets, dishonest as well as honest merchants, and the long ‘commute’ on foot through forests and swollen rivers. The Taoists went to the marketplace to buy necessities. Then, they went back home to a peaceful life on the mountain. To bring the metaphor to life, you can see the tiger as all the stressful things in your life such as driving through traffic, dealing with finances, and the demands of your workplace; even as stress itself.

‘Embrace all that?’ you might protest!

Here ‘embrace’ means ‘get to know intimately, to accept.’ I haven’t encountered any tigers, but I did come across a similar beast, a leopard, and I know from first-hand experience that a leopard you know well is much safer than one you are not familiar with. When we lived in the Eastern Townships in Québec, I knew a woman who had a pet leopard. She literally embraced it. After some familiarity with it, one day I felt confident enough to drive with the leopard in the back seat—with an eye on the rear-view mirror of course!

The tiger of stress can hurt. It has sharp claws. Some people are not intimately familiar with this animal. They do not know why joy seems to have gone out of their life. Many do not know what hit them even when they suffer a breakdown. Get to know the tiger of stress well. Get to recognize its footprints and know what it feels like when it climbs on your knees.

Then return to peace and serenity through meditation. Peace is available. Help yourself. Neutralize the day’s stress with periods of meditation.

Make ‘mountain’ your home. This entails forming new habits. Habits take time and repetition to form. Consider how long it took you to skate or to drive.
Some embrace the tiger and then complain about the stressful nature of modern life. Not recommended. Instead of complaining, do what needs to be done. Meditate. Return to mountain.

POST 3, October 28, 2025: BREATHE, SMILE

Imagine a person who is calm and peaceful… for only 20 minutes a day, while they are on the meditation cushion. Would you be impressed?
At Plum Village, we watched as Thich Nhat Hanh walked, stood, and sat. He was giving a Dharma talk with his presence. His talks were full of information as well as wisdom: he was like Wikipedia on two legs; writing on the blackboard Chinese, Sanskrit, Vietnamese, English, and French versions of important terms and sayings. One day after a talk, I snuck up to the platform to see what was on the lectern. I expected to see all kinds of notes in different languages. Instead, there was only one word there, written in large letters: BREATHE.

BREATHE, and SMILE express the essence of Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings. These words were everywhere in Plum Village—in the kitchens, the dining rooms, and in the washrooms: There were similar reminders at the entrances of the shower stalls, and above the urinals.
“Meditation can be practiced almost anywhere—while sitting, walking, lying down, standing, even while working, drinking, and eating.” wrote Thich Nhat Hanh.

ENTERING THE MEDITATION SPACE is presented here as the way to begin a meditation session.
But consider that the real challenge is not only entering that space, but staying in it. Being calm, peaceful and open is good not only while meditating; it is also useful when you are late to somewhere, with misbehaving children, or facing challenges at work. Otherwise, you might do or say things that make a problem worse rather than solving it. It is also what I do at night as I go to sleep
Here, BREATHE means LET THE BODY BREATHE, or BE ONE WITH THE BREATH.
Go beyond the ego. Be yourself.
SMILE refers to a relaxed face. “The face is the mirror of the mind,” goes a saying. A relaxed face is the mirror of a relaxed mind. Awareness of tension in face muscles, and worry lines in the forehead, are important parts of a body scan.

“BREATHE, SMILE” summarises awareness and transformation: breathe slowly from the belly, and relax your muscles, including the face muscles. When relaxed, the whole body smiles together with the face. Practice this during red lights on the road; while your supper is heating on the stove; and during challenging moments. Practice it all day long.

POST 2, October 21, 2025: LANGUAGE LEADS US ASTRAY!

We tend to say things like ‘my eyes’, ‘my heart’ and ‘my body’. This makes those body parts appear like accessories, like a handbag. In fact, we do not have a body, we are a body. We are made up of eyes, a heart, sexual organs, and the rest. Take them all away, and what is left? Where has the ‘I’ gone?
We use the same possessive language for our children, parents, and intimate partners.
‘My wife’ is a common expression; however, one cannot own another person any more than one can own a cloud! Even more problematic is the fact that this wife who is ‘yours’ is also thinking of you as ‘hers’! This sense of double ownership often creates problems; in the worst case, it fuels the 50, 000 or so femicides each year in the world. It is also behind much of the stress we create.

Who is that person who owns body parts, and other humans?

In Zen, we acknowledge that basically, that ‘I’ is a mental construct.

Yes, it is useful; it helps us navigate this life. But don’t take it too seriously. Consider that children make a big deal of this ME and MY business. They cry, and throw tantrums over ownership of things like toys.
Let’s grow up!
And let’s watch our language…

During the many years I spent my summers in Plum Village, I haven’t heard Thich Nhat Hanh refer to himself as “me”. His teachings emphasize a lack of a separate, individual self. Instead of using “me,” he frequently used “we,” “our,” and phrases that emphasize interconnectedness.
One exception is his famous poem, “Call Me by My True Names”. Here, he uses ‘me’ purposefully in order to enlarge that notion: our sense of identity is plural rather than singular.
Think of the many identities a person may have simultaneously, such as Mommy, Daddy, Manager, Son, Daughter, Teacher, Neighbour, Soldier, Police officer, Nurse, Dentist, or Patient… More importantly, those identities are sometimes the result of the society we live in and its outlook. Russian soldiers who are fighting in Ukraine, bombing cities, and killing women and children have socially conferred identities. Can we feel empathy for them?
In his poem Thich Nhat Hanh said YES.

To come back to possessive words such as Me and Mine: Purposefully avoiding their use has practical benefits. It helps us to keep in mind the dream-like existence of our sense of self.
This, in turn improves our relationships and parenting. It also reduces stress.
John Lennon was on the same wavelength in his song, Imagine:

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man.
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world.

POST 1, October 14, 2025: STAY GROUNDED, AND DO YOUR THING

Do you get upset at people?
At your manager at work, at other drivers on the road, or at politicians?
Here is another way to way to see those people:
‘Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus’ is a helpful metaphor for making sense of the incredible diversity of character and mindset of people. Let us widen that metaphor; in fact, our diversity is not limited to expats from just those planets.
Among us, there are also people from the five other planets: From Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
And there are also people who are from the Earth.
Buddha is one of those. His iconic sitting posture while touching the Earth with his hand bears witness to this: He is grounded and earthy. He stays in touch with this wonderful planet.
Let us be like him. Let us be grounded and calm as we encounter mercurial people, saturnians, and those who are from Neptune. And most importantly, those who are from Ur-anus!
And also, from Jupiter—Jupiter is the Latin name of Zeus, the king of gods. He knows everything.
Don’t try to argue with people from Jupiter!
And don’t depend on people from Mercury. Mercury is the Latin name for the Greek god Hermes, who is a trickster. And also, on people from Neptune who, like the Roman god of the sea, are unpredictable, and sometimes ill-tempered.
And mythology tells us that Saturn was a terrible father—he ate his own children!
In metaphorical terms, our beautiful planet attracts many such extraterrestrials!
Yet, that is life—that’s the world we live in.

“Make your mind like the Earth that receives all things steadily,” said Buddha to himself as he touched the Earth. Indeed, for the Earth, rain is okay, hail is okay, snow is okay. Sunshine is okay, and cloudy days are okay. Butterflies are okay, and wasps are okay.
We do not get upset when the temperature outside plummets; we turn on the thermostat.
Let us turn to our inner wisdom instead of getting upset. Let us smile at the extraterrestrials who are around us. They are doing their thing.
Let us also do our thing. Let us stay cool, grounded, and in touch with our own values as we work, play, parent, and have relationships.
While sitting with this theme, touch the Earth with the fingertips of one hand like the Buddha. See yourself as the Buddha.
Find equanimity in your heart.
Don’t give others the power to determine your state of mind.
And, stay grounded with each breath.

PAST PROGRAM:

THE BUDDHA IN US…
(guided by Joseph Emet)

“Buddha means the Buddha in us” wrote Thich Nhat Hanh in The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching.
To many of us, the first Buddha in this sentence is the historical Buddha, the Buddha that we recognize in his images, sitting upright in the lotus pose.
What does the second Buddha, the Buddha in us mean? And how do we achieve the oneness of these two Buddhas that Thich Nhat Hanh affirms?
This is important, as there lies the difference between a religious practice where one follows the teachings of a historical person, and the Zen practice where one cultivates the state of mind of the person who created the teachings. One issue with following teachings that originated long ago is that they may contain elements of an old worldview such as patriarchy or puritanism.
Zen practice is the key to living with equanimity, a loving heart, and a holistic mindset that sees the interconnected nature of reality.
During the next 4 weeks, we will explore the full meaning of the Zen view.

Please send a message to Joseph at josephemet @ gmail.com if you intend to attend these sessions. (Please remove the spaces around the @ sign)