2018: Our Wabi-Sabi Year

The beauty of a shrinking world lies in our ability to draw wisdom from a vast array of cultures and traditions.  Last year, we leaned into the Greek idea of eudaimonia, the happiness or flourishing whose source lies within us, not outside of us.  This year, the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi calls us.  Wabi-sabi celebrates beauty that is imperfect, impermanent and incomplete.  Put another way, it is a state of acceptance of the imperfections in life, and even more so, an appreciation of the flow of life.  We see it the Japanese pottery that is used for tea ceremonies:  the cups that lack perfect symmetry, the cracked glaze, the slightly unfinished appearance.  In 2018, we welcome the cracks in our glaze, the shifting sands beneath our feet, the fact that we are all works in progress.  We hope that you will join us as we practice accepting and appreciating the flow of life moment by moment.

What are we reading?  Dan Harris’s “10% Happier”.  Despite the self-helpy title, it’s one of the best books about meditation we’ve ever read and, believe it or not, it’s a bit of a page-turner.  Harris conveys his personal journey from skeptic to avid meditation practitioner in a very engaging fashion, skillfully explaining meditation and putting it into much needed context.  The true test of how useful a text it is?  The sheer number of dog-eared pages!  Thanks to our meditation practice, we were able to notice the envy arising for how well Harris can write about meditation and just sit with that feeling without judging ourselves :  )  

You can check it out at your local library (we love our libraries!!), buy it at your local book store or, if you buy it on Amazon, you can designate Community Mindfulness Project to be your Amazon Smile Charity.  

As a reminder, CMP survives on donations. All of our weekly sessions are free and open to the public, but donations are essential to our sustainability. Checks, cash and credit cards are accepted and donations are tax deductible.