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Attentive awareness is the first solid skill that you can learn and sharpen to help ease your mind when you are feeling restless, stressed, or upset.  Use this meditation again and again to help you to practice short periods of focused attention where ease is the outcome.  The more you do it the easier it becomes.  Breath, relax, center, and smile this is your time to be.  

Explore this Meditation to help ease your mind when you are experiencing difficulty.  Supporting your mental well-being through this mindful practice.  

Feelings of being overwhelmed, nervous, anxious, dread, resentment, and anger are all indicators that our Mental Well-Being is off the tracks.  Through meditation I have been able to find the common threads for supporting my own well-being.  Meditation may not be a cure-all but it is a damn good start.  

In this short meditation with Ronn Pawo McLane we focus on noticing the breath to help retrain our attention to be here in the present moment.  Practice this a often as needed grounding yourself in this present moment, no matter what is happening around you.  

I am back and excited to share with you a new season of The Backyard Buddhist Podcast.  In this episode let's talk about enlightenment.  What is it and how do we get there?  Make it simple and cut to the chase!  It is your innate right and ability.  Go For it!     If you'd like to be on the new season of the BYB to talk about your practice email me directly at urgyenpawo@gmail.com

In this episode of the Backyard Buddhist Podcast we are taking about the root of all suffering and most importantly how to spot it.  Once you spot it you can eliminate or at least reduce it's thrall.  We often miss the forest for the trees with reactive and repetitive conditioned responses.  Don't overlook the key to understanding and eliminating your suffering.  

What makes a great singer, songwriter, author, poet, actor or teacher?  Is there a gene that causes greatness?  Oprah says that luck is opportunity meeting preparation. So is greatness the preparation or is it the opportunity?  Join Ronn Pawo McLane for his 40th Podcast Episode and this enlightening conversation about the accessibility of greatness.

We all have experience situations that feel terrible and you wish them to be gone. We have also all had experiences when we felt that someone or something stood in our way of achieving something or getting somewhere. For me, obstacle removing was the first practice that I learned how to surrender. In this episode explore the secret of obstacle removal and path clearing.  Welcome our new contributor Millie, our new Mini Piebald Doxie. 

In the non-dual teachings of the Buddha we find ourselves faced with "The Two Witnesses", those being relative and absolute viewpoints.  In this episode of the Backyard Buddhist we seek to understand both relative and absolute while accessing the pervasive and ever-present unbiased consciousness that illuminates our truest nature.  

Cultivating awakened heart mind or Bodhichitta can be tricky and challenging.  It is more important than ever to find understanding in the challenges of our life experiences and how to navigate those rough waters.  When we endeavor to share the merits of our awakening with and for all begins what do we do about those who have treated us poorly and have wronged us?  It's kickoff time for the Super Bowl of Bodhichitta meet me on the 50 yard line.  As always, please email if I can be of help or assistance Urgyenpawo@gmail.com If you would like to participate in the 28-Day Meditation Program go to www.Cultivatemeditation.academy and use the promo code STARTNOW to get started for just $19 (one time fee)

Everyone of us has been experiencing a divisive time of unrest and discourse.  But what is causing the conditions that seem to breed anger, rage and violence?  How are we unwittingly participating in the perpetuation of these conditions and how do we make a solid change for ourselves and each other?  This week's Backyard Buddhist Podcast has answers and antidotes.  Remember this moment that change happens.   

We know that change comes from within but we tend to only go looking for the understanding that brings calm and peace when we are struggling the most.  Like a neglected garden we show up looking for a harvest when we are the hungriest.  My Dad taught me that to have a good garden you remove the obstacles on and in the ground and work the soil, providing moisture and nourishment and planting the seeds.  The garden needs tended daily if even just for a few minutes. Then and only then will you have a harvest enough for yourself and to share with others.  Cultivating a practice of peaceful and calm abiding needs your attention to bear the fruit and wealth of understanding that reaps the rewards of compassion and wisdom.  In this episode Pawo talks about cultivating the change that matters.      To check out Pawo's 28 Day Meditation Series on Teachable go to www.cultivatemeditation.academy and enter the code; STARTNOW for $20 off.  

In this episode Pawo is talking specifically about your daily meditation practice.  It is the first month of the new year have you set any priorities or resolutions?  What are your goals for shaking off what has been holding your down?  What is getting in your way?  What is it going to take to relieve this daily condition?  Let's talk about it.   Check out Pawo's new 28-Day Meditation Transformation at https://www.cultivatemeditation.academy It's only $39 and you can do it over and over as many times as you want.  

In this episode of the Backyard Buddhist Podcast Pawo talks about bringing ourselves to a constant state of awareness as we begin this new year.  Altars and offerings are a common practice but what about offering everything in our experience up to our awakened awareness?  There is Dharma when others show us exactly where we are stuck.  By doing or saying something that provokes us to get "hooked" into a habitual way of reacting with anger, greed and dissatisfaction.  We receive the living, breathing gift of the chance to work directly, honestly and compassionately with our own patterns.  Remember that without being provoked by others you may remain ignorant to painful habits and reactions and cannot train to transform them into the path of awakening.  Happiest New Year!

Our gift to the world is a robust practice of altruistic generosity, ethical self-discipline, compassionate patience, joyous effort, concentrated awareness and the wise and loving actions that result.  Tis the season for giving and what better gift than one of kindness and inclusion for all beings.  Cultivating a practice of insight, awareness and compassion each and every day is shared with everyone everyday not just for the holidays.  The greatest gift to give are the wings of wisdom and compassion.  May the efforts of your practiced awareness in this very important moment benefit countless beings in every direction and without prejudice.  

Welcome back after a short break.  Look at all the things that have changed in the world around us in just a few weeks.  In today's podcast I am answering some great questions from listeners and talking about my own Game Changers.  It is important to take a look back from time to time to see the beauty of how our karma ripened to bring us into a new phase and understanding within our individual experiences.  So happy to be back!  

On this episode of The Backyard Buddhist my guest Christopher Bayne and I talk about being part of the LGBTQIA and Buddhist communities.  How does being gay fit into our practice and how do we use that practice to overcome stresses and fears?  You get to hear it first from two Big Gay Buddhists. 

I have often been asked why Buddhism seems to focus on suffering.  My answer to that is that none of us showed up here to find relief from our overwhelming and ever present, persistent joy.  So, we focus on finding the relief from our suffering, discomfort, and dissatisfaction not to replace suffering with joy but to find a state of ease and perpetual Okay-ness.  Truth number one is that suffering, discomfort & dissatisfaction exist in our experience even though we find a myriad of ways to distract ourselves from it.  Truth number two is that there is a cause for this experience of discomfort and the cause for that very discomfort is our attachment (human attachment). Truth number three is that there is a possibility of relieving that state of dissatisfaction.  Truth number four is that by opening our minds and hearts to awakened awareness we can and will see the attachment as a human reaction and let go of our strangle hold on the reactive fear that is the nature of attachment. There is no suffering, discomfort or dissatisfaction that cannot be relieved by this methodology.  Turning directly toward our discomfort is simply to identify that we are experiencing a state of unrest regarding our individual experience.  Once we have identified the discomfort, we can seek the cause of it through insight and patient inquiry.  Then and only then can you effectively utilize the wisdom and compassion achieved through that exploration to relieve the tight grip of attachment causing this struggle. There is not simply one issue to be relieved.  Each of us has a lifetime of conditioning that has compounded our unrest and developed in despair, anxiety, and depression.  The good news is that once you have released your grasp on your attachment mindfully and attentively then the path is paved for continued relief. 

I am Ronn Pawo McLane and this is the Backyard Buddhist Podcast where we continually seek everyday enlightenment for the benefit of ourselves and all other beings.  I have invited my friend Brooke Beets to join us today in the backyard.  Welcome Brooke!   We often find ourselves in a state of dissatisfaction because our wants do not seem to add up to our haves.  I, like many of you, did my time attempting to manifest the life and the material things that I wanted only to find myself disappointed with the results.  So why does this happen? 

We all feel separate sometimes.  Sometimes we believe we have been forgotten in the middle of no-where.  In this episode of the Backyard Buddhist Ronn Pawo talks about the contemplation of self and other.   What is relative and what is ultimate?  Why does it feel like a vast ocean of separateness?   Are we separate?