Open Awareness is the practice of stabilizing attention with a broad, wide-open focus that allows mental objects, sensations, and sensory experiences to come and go. All mindfulness-based practices are oriented towards stabilizing attention. Sometimes a stable...
THE BUDDHIST ROOTS OF COMPASSION 2023 In August 2023, Mindfulness Northwest Executive Director and Guiding Teacher Tim Burnett co-led a 5-day retreat on the Buddhist teachings on being in deep and harmonious service with others. A teaching poem by the 13th century...
by Tim Burnett, September 2023 In September 2023, Mindfulness Northwest Executive Director and Guiding Teacher Tim Burnett led a weekend retreat at the Samish Island Retreat Center focussed on the ways that mindfulness supports surprising personal changes in a way...
I have to admit that I didn’t like loving kindness meditation at first. I took to silent meditation pretty readily. I found it challenging at times, but generally calming and refreshing, and I treasured the simplicity and silence of it. Loving kindness just...
I invite you to become like a bee, moving from flower to flower. In this case, the “flower” being anything beautiful or interesting that draws your attention. Engage your senses to connect with delight: the sun on your cheek, the grass on your feet, honeysuckle in...
A student in one of the meditation groups I have the pleasure of supporting told the group a story. Her mood seemed unhappy as she started – there was that feeling of, “I want to share something bad that happened to me in the hope that I’ll feel...
by Tim Burnett & Beth Glosten, May 2023 THE DEPTH OF PERCEPTION In May 2023, Mindfulness Northwest Executive Director and Guiding Teacher Tim Burnett returned to Costa Rica with Teacher Beth Glosten to explore perception, ecology and personal transformation at the...
I remember the first time I took a Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) course. I had just finished Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and wanted to keep learning all I could about the subject. MSC was described to me as taking a bit of a turn from MBSR: I would...
In this video practice, Catherine walks us through the Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) Gestures, which are positions and movements that can help us sense and physically embody the different qualities of Mindful Self-Compassion. The first three gestures correspond with...
My partner and I were on a bike ride. She’s fairly new to town and I had the idea to pass through the university campus to check it out. I remembered a trail that skirts the bottom of the arboretum which would be pretty, so we rode up a neighborhood street and...
Roses are red, Violets are blue, Happy National Poetry month To you! If you’ve been in our classes or attended our retreats, you know that we celebrate poetry every month of the year. As Lucille Clifton says, “Poetry is a matter of life, not just a matter of...
Karen shares about the importance of this Self-Acceptance practice, which she learned from her mentor Pam Erdman: “Most of us have a tendency to be hard on ourselves. This practice is a way to counter that, to tame it, to help that harsh inner critic to relax...
