For the freedom you deserve .. for the world we long for
Meditations is simply
an intelligent way
to enjoy your life.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Meditations from
Manzanita Village
Morning Meditations 2021
New Year Prayer – The Inevitability Process *
Caitriona Reed 01/02/2021
The Five Precepts
1 Non-Harming
Michele Benzamin-Miki 01/04/2021
2 Not Taking – Just Enough
Caitriona Reed 01/07/2021
3 Eros
Michele Benzamin-Miki 01/09/2021
4 Speech
Caitriona Reed 01/11/2021
5 The Intoxication of Consumption
Michele Benzamin-Miki 01/14/2021
How can we sustain deep awareness of the suffering of the world, without being utterly overwhelmed? How can we live with that awareness, and be informed by it, even nourished by it, and allow it to bring us to ever deeper balance and joy, to self-actualization—rather than being devastated, or reduced to neurosis, rage, anxiety, fear, or numbness? How can we hold great the fear and sorrow, without turning into another expression of the problems we are facing?
Sila . Samadhi . Prajna
(integrity – focus – wisdom)
Caitriona Reed 01/16/2021
Anger . Fear . Love
Michele Benzamin-Miki 01/18/2021
Internal Congruity and Visioning
Caitriona Reed 01/21/2021
Gratitude and Trust
Michele Benzamin-Miki 01/23/2021
Breathing Through
Caitriona Reed 01/25/2021
Walking Meditation *
Michele Benzamin-Miki 01/28/2021
Eating as Meditation *
Caitriona Reed 01/30/2021
Five Skandas – Heart Sutra
Caitriona Reed 02/04/2021
Resilience. Inner Resources
Michele Benzamin-Miki 02/06/2021
Awareness of Feelings (Vedana)
Caitriona Reed 02/08/2021
Awareness of Perception
Michele Benzamin-Miki 02/11/2021
Loving Kindness Meditation
Michele Benzamin-Miki 02/14/2021
Four Boundless States – Brahma Viharas
Caitriona Reed 02/16/2021
Five Elements
Michele Benzamin-Miki 02/20/2021
Four Directions
Caitriona Reed 02/22/2021
Foundations of Mindfulness
Michele Benzamin-Miki 02/25/2021
Anchoring the Four Boundless States
Caitriona Reed 02/27/2021
Deep Relaxation
Michele Benzamin-Miki 03/01/2021
Gratitude for all things
Caitriona Reed 03/04/2021
Meditation as Poetry
Michele Benzamin-Miki 03/06/2021
Just Sitting
Caitriona Reed 03/08/2021
Renewal
Michele Benzamin-Miki 03/11/2021
The River – No Separation
Caitriona Reed 03/13/2021
Earth – No Separate Self
Michele Benzamin-Miki 03/15/2021
Fire – Bodhicitta
Caitriona Reed 03/18/2021
Air – Breath – Consciousness
Michele Benzamin-Miki 03/20/2021
Only “Don’t Know”
Caitriona Reed 03/22/2021
Everyday Loving Kindness
Michele Benzamin-Miki 03/25/2021
The Three Times
Caitriona Reed 03/29/2021
The Practice of Gratitude
Michele Benzamin-Miki 04/01/2021
Meditation on Touch
Caitriona Reed 04/03/2021
Walking Meditation
Michele Benzamin-Miki 04/05/2021
Healing Mind, Healing Body
Caitriona Reed 04/08/2021
Loving Kindness – Ancestors and Future Generations
Michele Benzamin-Miki 04/15/2021
Tara Meditation
Michele Benzamin-Miki 04/22/2021
Dance of Tara
Caitriona Reed 04/24/2021
Manjushri – Heart of Wisdom and Compassion
Michele Benzamin-Miki 04/26/2021
You Are Pachamama
Caitriona Reed 04/29/2021
Suffering, Sickness, Old-Age, and Death
Caitriona Reed 05/06/2021
Cause of Suffering
Michele Benzamin-Miki 05/10/2021
Choose Freedom
Caitriona Reed 05/13/2021
Mindfulness
Michele Benzamin-Miki 05/15/2021
Right View
Caitriona Reed 05/17/2021
Right Speech
Michele Benzamin-Miki 05/20/2021
Right Thought – Right Intention
Caitriona Reed 05/22/2021
Right Action – Right Livelihood
Michele Benzamin-Miki 05/24/2021
Right Effort – Energy
Caitriona Reed 05/27/2021
Right Mindfulness – Right Concentration
Michele Benzamin-Miki 05/29/2021
Inter Being *
Caitriona Reed 05/31/2021
The Four Boundless States
Michele Benzamin-Miki 06/03/2021
No Safety
Caitriona Reed 06/05/2021
There is no safety, ever. Once you have chosen to love, to have longing, to follow an art or devotion, you automatically accept your death as payment for being blessed with a mortal life to live out your longing.– Martin Prechtel
Taking Refuge in the Sacred (Three Jewels)
Caitriona Reed 06/10/2021
Meditation on Time *
Michele Benzamin-Miki 06/12/2021
Unconditional Love for Yourself *
Caitriona Reed 06/14/2021
Pachamama – Expansion
Michele Benzamin-Miki 06/21/2021
Stories
Caitriona Reed 06/24/2021
Health and Healing
Michele Benzamin-Miki 06/26/2021
Prayer for the Seven Directions *
Caitriona Reed 06/28/2021
April 19, 2020 @ 7:57 am
I am deeply grateful to be able to participate in this practice with Michele, Caitriona, and all of the other participants. The guided meditations have helped me reconnect with my sense of the divine, the beauty of life, and brought me great joy amidst this challenging period when so many suffer. I am honored by the trust and insight shared by the group, and look forward to continuing to practice in this way and learn from one another.
April 19, 2020 @ 8:18 am
During this time of disconnect in the world, and prior to our engaging in these daily meditations, I often felt anxious and fearful. I am so grateful to Michele and Caitriona for bringing this meditation practice to us in this time of uncertainty. Indeed, the daily meditations–and the accompanying support from and connection with the group–have given me a way, have given me permission, both to accept with lovingkindness and to lean into my own fear and anxiety. The result has been quite healing. I feel deeply connected and grateful to Caitriona, Michele, and the group for helping me to discover joy and a sense of inner calm in the midst of, and perhaps even sometimes because of, the pervading sense of anxiety, fear, and uncertainty that otherwise could overwhelm me.
April 19, 2020 @ 9:26 am
This meditation series has changed my life! and the lives of my family! for the positive! Seriously!
These daily morning sessions during the 2020 stay home pandemic have transformed me from claustrophobic, snarling grouch to a much more peaceful, loving member of my household. They can tell something’s different, and they are grateful and respond in kind and kindnesses.
For me, each morning I follow the calm, guiding voice of Michele or Caitriona, exploring different breathing exercises or visualizations to feel more relaxed, more positive and better connected. Though many times I did not feel much happen during the session, sometimes due to intense chaos of family, by the time of my bedtime journal writing, I could see clearly the meditation had influenced my day in a positive, thematic way. I also, during this session, gained the strength to say, “This can wait, I’m going to meditate,” and go put on my noise cancelling headphones and escape the drama for a blessed time. I return to the fray much less frayed.
Also, during this zoom session, I enjoyed sharing the screen with a wonderful and generous community connected to Manzanita Village, to spend the morning with a group of wise, thoughtful, joyous people has really helped to expand my world and my heart during this constrained time.
Plus, with an additional nudge of some of their constellation work, I’m been successful in clearing out enough working space in my cluttered studio to start making art again! It started with removing some parental stuff, literally and energetically. Yay for powerful magic with common objects!
To you dear reader, I recommend you take the leap! You’re stay-cationing anyway. Travel by sound across the internet to a beautiful place inside yourself!
April 19, 2020 @ 10:56 am
We are so grateful to Michele and Caitriona for making this meditation series available. Every meditation offers up something different, a different aspect of thoughts, feelings, and spirituality to examine, take in, change perspective, let go of or embrace. It has been profound for us, the meditation and discussion stays with us all day, sometimes for days, it has brought up some wonderful conversations and further examination, it is life changing. I (Penny) find I am less reactionary, less angry, less sad. I have new skills and a new outlook. There is a calmness and acceptance of the moment and an understanding that I am ok and I can trust this. So simple and yet so profound.
April 20, 2020 @ 8:23 am
This series of meditations has been deeply nourishing, grounding and uplifting, with so many rich and varied resources to deeply care for ourselves and our world at this tender moment in human history.
April 21, 2020 @ 7:43 am
I consider myself a spiritual practicalist… one foot in each world, and these two weeks of meditation “got me” in both! Thank you for the time, energy, loving kindness and flat out brilliance that you shared. I want more!
April 22, 2020 @ 8:41 am
Caitriona and Michele offer such beautiful presence and deep teachings in a time when we need support in this way. Traversing these practices together in community has been deeply supportive to me and those I serve in this time.
April 22, 2020 @ 6:02 pm
Thank you Caitriona and Michele for an amazing meditation series and for recording them. I am able to review the ones I missed and am continuing a daily meditation by going through the series. I do not do well on my own, so the continued use of your teachings is highly of value to me, especially as another tool for dealing with this pandemic crisis we’re in. I also want to thank Rodney and Bethany Sanchez, leaders of our Tender Shoot of Joy Sangha in Milwaukee, WI to you and your offerings!
April 22, 2020 @ 6:20 pm
I was honored and blessed to be a part of the 2 week daily meditation series. Highly impactful, life-changing, thought-provoking, and so much more. The fellowship time of meditation, chant, songs, and sharing have been the highlight of my days and I’m so excited that this will be continuing. As someone that has practiced meditation for several years now, I’ve learned new ways to meditate through this process and look forward to more time to evolve and grow. Thank you Caitriona Reed and Michele Benzamin-Miki for sharing your expertise and vision.
August 8, 2020 @ 3:56 pm
I anticipate each meditation, knowing it will give me a fresh way to look inward, to look around me, and to seek peace. The effects of this practice (and the NLP training) have been immediate as well as surprisingly far reaching. I have suddenly found a way to forgiveness in relationships that seemed impossible. I attribute this to the meditation and the return to my first teachers, Caitriona and Michelle.