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How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners

10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation

What is Meditation?

Mindful LivingSleep
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Cory Muscara

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How to Deepen Empathy

Personalized support for learning how to integrate mindfulness into your life. Delivered fresh everyday by our world renowned experts. Choose meditation duration:

Hi, welcome back to

your Daily Mindfulness.

In today's session I'd like to, to

share a word with you that I recently

learned and that I really like.

It's called sonder.

And sonder is the realization

that each passerby has a life as

vivid and as complex as your own.

And so if we were to use that in a

sentence, it might sound like, 'I was

struck by a moment of sonder while

looking at people, sitting in the park.'

And so I really like this because I

think that recognition, the recognition

that each person has a life that's as

vivid, complex, nuanced as your own,

becomes the foundation for empathy

and for compassion and forgiveness and

acceptance, and, um, asks us to ask

more clarifying questions to people.

I think a lot of times we get caught

up in our own world thinking that we

know best, or if we feel something the

other person must not be feeling that.

Or we attribute all the

good traits to ourselves.

And especially if someone's aggravating

us, we just put bad traits onto them.

This is a human tendency.

And so, uh, you know, as you go about

your day and your week, I think it would

be an interesting practice to, as you're

at the coffee shop or walking around and

you're looking at other people, what would

it be like to try and have a moment of

sonder, to really recognize like, Oh, this

person, you know, they have relationships,

they have work, they might have children.

They're going through life and

they're working through the same

thoughts, emotions, sensations,

fears, insecurities, just as me.

And even though you might not have a

conversation with them, that recognition

might make you feel a little bit more or

connected to your own human experience

and connected to their experience.

And I think if we can move

toward that as a, as a world

and as a species, I mean, wow.

It, it would be profound.

So see how this board creeps into your

day and see if you can be struck by a

moment of sonder, walking in the park,

with your family, at the coffee shop.

Thank you for your practice.

Let's get settled for our meditation.

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