Quest-- so the questions come up around bowing.

Um, what, what are you doing? How do I bow if I want to? Uh, so while we're waiting for the rest of the Sangha to arrive, I thought I could just address this briefly.

Um, so traditionally, when one bows, uh, we're offering respect and gratitude to what's known as the Triple Gem, the Three Refuges, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.

Yong spoke about this on opening night.

So often as you see people bow three times, like Akim bows three times, or if some of us when we actually get down on the floor and bow, often do it three times.

It's one for each of the refuges.

[laughs]

Some point.

[clears throat] Just wanna check the sound while the rest of our friends are coming in.

Can you hear me okay? Yeah? Okay.

[coughs] [sniffs] [clears throat] [sighs] I'm feeling really happy for you, that you're still here.

[laughs] It's not easy, huh? End of the first full day, how many people felt, uh, sleepy today? How many people felt really antsy or restless today? How many people felt anxious? How many people felt glad you were here? How many people wondered what you were doing here? [laughs] Like, "Why am I here?" [laughs] Yeah.

A lot going on in there, huh? It's one of the first things we notice in this practice and on retreat is kinda how out of control it is [laughs] inside.

It's hard to be with our own minds all day.

Sounds good.

Yeah.

So, uh, everyone who's listening, um, I just invite you to, to sit comfortably or stand comfortably.

It's, so it's often helpful to sit or even if you can recline, uh, to lie down.

And first, just take a couple deep breaths.

So breathe in through your nose.

[breathes] And breathe out through your mouth long and slow.

And so Oren, pr- uh, you were gonna add something, but, uh, practically, would you say, as we're going through these times, how often might someone practice this?

Mm-hmm

... because I already had some awareness of my body and my thoughts and my emotions.

Um, but what was interesting was it also went in the other direction, that starting to learn more about how my thought patterns and my conversations were unfolding helped me to understand myself more clearly.

So what is non-violent communication? It's much deeper than a communication technique, and this is one of the reasons why I've devoted the last 20 years of my life to learning and, and teaching it.

It's really, uh, a practice of awareness and understanding ourselves, understanding our relationships and how we relate to the world, and it uses language, how we think, how we speak, how we listen, as the terrain, as the doorway for understanding ourselves and our relationships.

And it's a way of, um, you know, Marshall Rosenberg grew up, uh, in Detroit during the first wave of uprisings in the '40s.

Um, he was Jewish.

Mm.

Hi, this is Oren.

If you find these teachings useful and you'd like to learn more about my work, you can visit me online at orenjsopher.com or on social media at orenjsopher.

Thanks so much.

It's, uh, traditional before offering a Dharma talk sometimes to, uh, to chant the homage to the Buddha.

It's a way of recollecting the lineage, um, and really expressing gratitude to where these teachings come from.

So I'd like to start this afternoon, uh, with the homage to the Buddha.

Hi, this is Oren.

If you find these teachings useful and you'd like to learn more about my work, you can visit me online at orenjsopher.com or on social media at orenjsopher.

Thanks so much.

So before we, uh, start the loving-kindness session, just one announcement, um, which is that in order to have the recordings for folks who can't make it, after any sessions where we are teaching, like this session, morning instructions, Dharma talk, we will need to just temporarily close the Zoom room, and that triggers the recording to process, and then we'll open it right back up again.

So for example, tonight, if you wanna keep practicing after the sit, the room's actually gonna close, and then it'll be open again.

You'll just have to join, join again.

So before we, uh, start the loving kindness session, just one announcement, um, which is that in order to have the recordings for folks who can't make it, after any sessions where we are teaching, like this session, morning instructions, Dharma talk, we will need to just temporarily close the Zoom room, and that triggers the recording to process, and then we'll open it right back up again.

So for example, tonight, if you wanna keep practicing after the sit, the room's actually gonna close, and then it'll be open again.

You'll just have to join, join again.

Hmm.

So let's do some metta practice together, Metta Bhavana, abiding in kindness, cultivating kindness.

So the invitation here is to find a, a position for the body that's comfortable, where you can really feel at ease.

Hi, this is Oren.

If you find these teachings useful and you'd like to learn more about my work, you can visit me online at orenjsopher.com or on social media at Oren J. Sofer.

Thanks so much.

So maybe just stepping back, last couple weeks, we've been looking at metta as an ordinary, accessible capacity, as something that's needed in our lives and also as a skill.

As a skill we can develop, not just a feeling that comes and goes.

And we started talking about how metta, kindness, warmth can shift the inner atmosphere of our lives.