Loving Kindness with Sylvia Boorstein (video)

Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Trent Gilliss (OnBeing.org, May 7, 2011)

Extending love (metta) to all quarters of the universe? The Dark Universe exhibition displays works that use light and sound to explore the boundaries of awareness (Rene Passet/flickr)

Accomplished Buddhist meditation teach Sylvia Boorstein speaks with Krista Tippett

 

Boorstein (Trent Gilliss/onbeing.org)

In February, On Being partnered with WDET to hold a live event in a quaint suburban village outside of Detroit, USA. The topic was "raising children in complex times."

Host Krista Tippett’s conversation with Sylvia Boorstein was rolling along nicely: Stories were being told, approaches to child-rearing were being shared...

 

Then, unexpectedly, Boorstein (a Jewish Buddhist teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center near San Francisco, California) offered to lead a loving-kindness, or metta, meditation for a crowd of more than 300.

 

How would the crowd react, whose members may never have attended a meditation or mindfulness retreat of any kind? What to expect? What resulted was a magical experience in which the audience fully participated in this unannounced moment of reflection.

If readers are game, On Being offers this video to use as a guided meditation. Will this live experience translate into a fruitful online experience?