You’ve heard something like this before—without death, we could never know the preciousness of life. When a loved one falls ill, suddenly our relationship with them is imbued with an entirely new quality. But what happens when the loved one who falls ill isn’t human? What if it’s a lake whose life we mourn? In this season finale, Thomas shares about a close friend of his who initiated him in death, and Great Salt Lake, who is now in dangerous decline. He invites us all to reconsider what personhood is, and what it might mean to open our hearts to the lands that sustain us.

Confusion gets a bad rap. When we feel clear, when we know who we are and where our life is headed, we often suppose that this is a desirable way to be. On the other hand, when we feel confused, it’s as if we can’t quite relax. There’s a queasiness in our body that we long to get rid of. But what if clarity and confusion are just two facets of a single gem? What if we need confusion to truly be clear, and clarity to unlock the power of “divine confusion?” Have a listen to this episode and see if your relationship to confusion doesn’t start to shift straight away.

A colleague of mine recently asked me, “How do we be love?” As soon as he asked, I felt any intellectual response buckle under the weight of his question. There were no words. But I walked around with the question, and let it in deep. The following meditation arose out of that inquiry, which I’m honored to share with you here.

Love and Blessings on your day. -Thomas

What is Metalineage? Gloria Pak returns to the studios for part II of this lively conversation.

How can we take the best from all our influences without sacrificing what we take to be essential? How can the  lineages and traditions that speak to us individually bring one another to a greater fullness? The conversation culminates with a question for all of us: how is metalineage living through you? How will you express your highest values in this life, leaving nothing good behind?

This is a special episode. Gloria Pak visits the Mindfulness+ studio in Cambridge, Massachusetts to engage Thomas in a conversation about his recent book, At-One-Ment: Embodying the Fullness of Human Divinity. What does it mean to belong to a tradition? What does it mean to leave a tradition? If we’ve left, are there meaningful ways to continue to embody and bring forth the best of the lineages that form us? How do we engage in our “local-ness” while also making way for the universal wonder of Spirit? Listen in to this soulful exploration of a new kind of spirituality that is showing up on our planet.

If meditation practice hinged solely on the effort we put into it, the hours and minutes we logged each day, we’d be in trouble. Sooner or later, we would exhaust ourselves from all our diligent efforting. But the deeper we move into this practice, the more we become aware of effortless practice—the free ride that Nature provides, if we know how to catch that updraft.

In an immature contemplative practice, we tend to assume that the whole point is to learn to draw as much pleasure from each meditation session as we possibly can. As we become more experienced, however, we learn that it is natural to traverse many “realms” throughout the day and throughout our lives. The question becomes, can we remain as fully awake in the realm of the gods as we can in the depths of hell.

It is no secret that the Millennial and Gen Z cohort are losing their religion and seeking new ways to feel wonder and awe. But what is it about traditional religion that repels some? In a word, it may be certitude. What would it look like to honor all that our ancestors knew and realized, while being more open than ever to the Mystery and Unknowing of human life? The upcoming generations seem to be asking these questions intuitively, embodying new forms of wisdom on our planet.

Listen to Little Moon’s moving anthem to an emergent spirituality: 

https://open.spotify.com/track/37N7VOw3uyycrCbiB8cDIa?si=d068dfcd57434c25

Sooner or later, if we get at all serious about integrating contemplation into our day to day life, we start to wonder what it would look like to have a bona fide teacher to guide us on the path. In this episode, Thomas articulates some of the principles that he has found most helpful in working with teachers of his own, as well as offering students guidance in calling in the right teacher at the right time. 

Also, join Thomas for a 3-day workshop in Salt Lake City, Utah, January 5-7, 2024. For registration and details, click here.

Waiting is something we end up doing just about everyday of our lives. And what makes waiting so difficult? Perhaps it’s the belief that if we could only be done waiting, then we would finally feel better. Given the situation, it would be wise to cultivate the art of waiting. That is, when we learn to bring our highest awareness to the experience of waiting, we discover that we will never need to wait again!

“Mindfulness” is a word. And words have their power. When we call this practice “mindfulness”, it sets us up to have a particular kind of experience which in some ways, can be limiting. In this extended meditation, Thomas uses the word “heartfulness” to turn the tables and open up a new dimension of experience that perhaps you wouldn’t have expected—the boundless Reality and Intelligence of the Heart.

Also, check out Thomas’s new book! https://www.amazon.com/At-One-Ment-Human-Divinity-Thomas-Wirthlin-McConkie/dp/1953677169/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1XK028CQKCUQV&keywords=atonement+mcconkie&qid=1698159281&sprefix=atonement+mcconki%2Caps%2C73&sr=8-1 

One of the great joys of contemplative life is that it teaches us to be who we actually are. By holding our attention inwardly, rather than being scattered about by a million different things, we nourish the best, most unique parts of ourselves. As the unique self comes into being, it becomes a gloriously original expression of Creation through which we can offer our fullest gifts to everyone and everything.

When we are children, we get upset countless times a day. If we don’t get to play with the toy we want, if we don’t get to have a sugary snack on demand, we cry, we protest, we pout, we mope. In these moments, we need soothing from our caregivers to help our bodies reset. It turns out, we’re not so different as adults. We also get upset many times a day. The difference is that as adults, we often disconnect from the body through various avoidance strategies rather than just hold our “inner-toddler” through the pain. But we can change! We can learn to hold ourselves, to soothe ourselves during these emotional storms. And when the storm breaks, which it always does, we find a new degree of mastery over ourselves and all of life.

When we think about getting to know somebody, our minds often go to spending time with them, asking them questions about their life, about what they value, what they love. But the beloved Sufi poet, Rumi, offers us a surprising nugget of wisdom in this regard: you truly get to know another by what you are able to say in their presence. Check out the show and start to put this timeless wisdom into practice today. 

Every few episodes, Thomas likes to take a break from the content and storytelling and get right into practice. Here he explores the way we can access a fundamental sense of freedom and joy by shifting attention in a slightly new direction. It’s so easy to do you almost won’t believe it.

Busyness is the fashion in our modern world—the default mode of being. No matter how much we’re doing, we can always do more. At least, that’s what many of us are taught to think. But what happens when we become willing to sit and do nothing? What if we don’t assume that doing something all the time is inherently productive or good? More radically, what if doing nothing is at the very heart of actually doing something real with your life? Start cultivating the courage to do nothing right now, and discover what beautiful places it will take you!

Do we transform through consistent, effortful practice, or are we transformed by something more mysterious that we can’t control and can’t even properly understand at the end of the day? Even framing this question in terms of either/or causes us to miss the mark. Thomas shares in this episode an unexpected transformation he recently experienced in the kitchen, seemingly in spite of his years of meditation practice. Listen in and start to appreciate how profoundly things are already working out at the deepest level.

Have you ever noticed how many ideas you have about, well, everything? We can hardly help but form opinions, beliefs, even dogmas about virtually every aspect of life. In this episode, Thomas recounts meeting his first teacher, and the freedom he felt when his teacher nonchalantly declared that any thought he has about anything is fundamentally inaccurate. What role do thoughts and beliefs have in life if they’re all just “inaccurate?” Listen in to get a taste of this delightfully fertile polarity.

Often when we’re faced with a challenging decision, we have the experience of feeling stuck, or frozen, because we just can’t decide which direction is right for us. Thomas suggests in this episode that a powerful remedy for the feeling of stuckness in life is to more fully open up to the experience of loss. When we are willing to experience the inevitable loss that any given decision entails, we simultaneously open ourselves to the inevitable gain that comes from living the life we’ve chosen to live.

It is a common misunderstanding in our society that meditation is primarily a practice of learning to relax. While relaxation is very much one of the fruits of this practice, it is just the beginning of the profound gifts that flow from open mind and open heart. In this episode, Thomas leads a longer meditation and points out one of the qualities that naturally arises in awake awareness—the feeling of Life itself.