{"id":246,"date":"2011-02-25T19:02:30","date_gmt":"2011-02-25T19:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/2011\/02\/art-of-the-gentle-return.html"},"modified":"2011-02-25T19:02:30","modified_gmt":"2011-02-25T19:02:30","slug":"art-of-the-gentle-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2011\/02\/art-of-the-gentle-return.html","title":{"rendered":"Art of the Gentle Return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/Ari.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Ari.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/96\/import\/assets_c\/2011\/03\/Ari-thumb-350x468-21708.jpg\" width=\"350\" height=\"468\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 0 20px 20px 0\" \/><\/a><\/span>The other day, my former UVM student Ari led the meditation at the Exquisite Mind Psychotherapy and Meditation Studio in Burlington, Vermont. He gave us a lovely little reminder of how to practice. He invited a view of practice as the &#8220;gentle return&#8221; and quoted Pema Chodron as saying this return should be regarded as &#8220;No Big Deal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That is, return to now from wherever without recrimination, condemnation, or even disappointment. Just pick up the breath and body wherever it is and continue. &#8220;No big deal.&#8221; And this, of course, is a choice. We can make a big deal of it or not. <\/p>\n<p>Gentleness can prevail whether we have to come back once or a thousand times. After all, what else do you have to do? You&#8217;re already on the cushion, so why not come back with gentleness?<\/p>\n<p>Of course, &#8220;no big deal&#8221; applies to off the cushion as well. When you find yourself caught up in some story that&#8217;s making you feel bad, just come back to something happening now like your breath and body sensations.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks Ari and go gentle!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The other day, my former UVM student Ari led the meditation at the Exquisite Mind Psychotherapy and Meditation Studio in Burlington, Vermont. He gave us a lovely little reminder of how to practice. He invited a view of practice as the &#8220;gentle return&#8221; and quoted Pema Chodron as saying this return should be regarded as&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddha-101","category-mindful-living","category-mindfulnesss"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Art of the Gentle Return - Mindfulness Matters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2011\/02\/art-of-the-gentle-return.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Art of the Gentle Return - Mindfulness Matters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The other day, my former UVM student Ari led the meditation at the Exquisite Mind Psychotherapy and Meditation Studio in Burlington, Vermont. He gave us a lovely little reminder of how to practice. He invited a view of practice as the &#8220;gentle return&#8221; and quoted Pema Chodron as saying this return should be regarded as&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2011\/02\/art-of-the-gentle-return.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mindfulness Matters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-02-25T19:02:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2011\/03\/Ari-thumb-350x468-21708.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dr. Arnie Kozak\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Art of the Gentle Return - Mindfulness Matters","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2011\/02\/art-of-the-gentle-return.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Art of the Gentle Return - Mindfulness Matters","og_description":"The other day, my former UVM student Ari led the meditation at the Exquisite Mind Psychotherapy and Meditation Studio in Burlington, Vermont. 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Dr. Kozak's ability to translate ancient healing traditions into pragmatic applications suitable for modern lifestyles through the use of metaphors have made him a strong voice in healthcare and business. Beginning with a journey to India in the 80\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where he took the Bodhisattva vows from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Arnie Dr. Kozak began his lifelong practice in mindfulness meditation. Intent on finding a way to bring the practical healing attributes of mindfulness he began incorporating these techniques in his private practice. In 2002 Dr. Kozak created Exquisite Mind in Burlington, Vermont as a vehicle that could expand his wisdom to larger audiences beyond individual psychotherapy to professionals and corporations, health care providers, public groups and, most recently with Exquisite Mind Golf, amateur and professional golfers. His award-winning new book, Wild Chickens and Petty Tyrants: 108 Metaphors for Mindfulness (Wisdom Publications, 2009) is a thoughtful, funny, and inspiring translation of mindfulness practice through the inventive use of metaphor applicable to our daily lives. In addition to his work with Exquisite Mind, Arnie Kozak, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist\u00e2\u20ac\u201dDoctorate has been a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Vermont and is a Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry and Medicine, University of Vermont College of Medicine. He has studied and practiced clinical psychology, meditation, and yoga for more than 25 years. He has studied with several meditation masters, including S. N. Goenka, Larry Rosenberg, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. After receiving his bachelors degree with honors from Tufts University, he was awarded a Presidential Fellowship to get his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University at Buffalo. He completed his training as a Psychological Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. Prior to founding the Exquisite Mind in 2002, Arnie worked ten years in the private sector for the PKC Corporation consulting on mental health content for this revolutionary software company.","sameAs":["http:\/\/exquisitemind.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/author\/akozak"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}