Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Arrival | Bonus Meditation with Kaira Jewel Lingo

Episode Date: July 14, 2024

Learn to connect with the true home of strength, wisdom, and clarity inside of yourself, a place of safety that no one can take away.About Kaira Jewel Lingo:At the age of twenty-five, Kaira Jewel Lingo entered a Buddhist monastery in the Plum Village tradition and spent fifteen years living as a nun under the guidance of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. Now based in New York, she sees her work as a continuation of Engaged Buddhism as well as the work of her parents, inspired by their stories and her dad’s work with Martin Luther King Jr. on desegregating the South. The author of We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons on Moving through Change, Loss and Disruption, Kaira Jewel especially feels called to share mindfulness and meditation with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, as well as activists, educators, youth, artists, and families.To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Deeply Accepting Yourself.”See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to 10% happier early and ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Happy Sunday everybody, time for a bonus meditation. There's a great line from a Henry James novel. I think it's Henry James. Anyway, there's a line in there that my meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein likes to quote in which the author describes one of the characters thusly, Mr. Duffy lived at a short distance from his body. I love that line and it really speaks to the way many of us live.

Today we're going to do a meditation to try to connect us with the wisdom that lives south of the neckline. Our teacher du jour is Kyra Juolingo who trained in the Plum Village tradition with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. She now lives in New York. Her newest book, co-written with Valerie Brown and Marisela Gomez, is called Healing Our Way Home, Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy and Liberation. Here we go now with Kyra Jewell Lingo.

Hey, this is Kyra Jewell. My teacher Thich Nhat Hanh sums up his whole lifetime of teachings with one sentence, I have arrived, I am home. This is one way of speaking about mindfulness or being present, coming home to ourselves. When we bring our mind back to our body, we come home. No matter what happens around you, if you can find this home inside of you, you are always safe. So to begin, I invite you to connect with your present moment experience. Sit, lie, or stand in a comfortable position that supports you to be alert and also relaxed. You are welcome to have your eyes open or closed. Begin by feeling the contact between your body

and whatever surface is supporting you. Allow yourself to land right here in your body, to occupy as fully as you can the space you are in. Set the intention to stay with yourself, to be present for yourself, to come home to yourself, to tend to what is alive in you just now. You deserve this care, this time to rest and simply be. You are precious and unique. In all the world there is no one else who brings the precise combination of gifts that you bring. Allow yourself to arrive here as fully as you can so you can savor the gift of yourself. Give yourself permission to be just as you are in this moment. If you notice resistance, doubt, or some habit of pushing away your goodness, welcome that too,

and let it be here, meeting it with friendliness. This is so important because we can live much of our lives estranged from parts of ourselves. Now we have the opportunity to reconcile, to welcome back the parts of ourselves that may have been exiled, that we have ignored or pushed away. If it's helpful, you can repeat inwardly, I have arrived, I am home, or any other language that works for you. Remembering that the address of your true home is right here and now, wherever you are. Allow your eyes to gently open if they were closed.

Take a moment to look around you and reconnect with your space. Thanks for your practice. See you next time. You can find more meditations like this one over on the 10% Happier app. Just download the app wherever you get your apps to get started. If you like 10% Happier, and I hope you do, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.