How do we find peace when the world feels like it's burning around us? In this deeply moving conversation, psychotherapist Claudia Catarucci welcomes her longtime friend and Buddhist meditation teacher Luisa Montero-Diaz to explore one of life's essential paradoxes: maintaining inner calm while engaging meaningfully with a turbulent world.

Drawing from over 35 years of meditation practice, Montero-Diaz offers a perspective both ancient and radical - that life's path has always been uneven, but we can learn to walk it evenly. This isn't about spiritual bypassing or ignoring suffering, but rather developing the capacity to respond with wisdom rather than reaction. The conversation takes us through the concept of the "sacred pause" - that vital moment of awareness before action that transforms how we engage with everything from personal triggers to global crises.

The friends explore powerful metaphors including Wendell Berry's poem about planting seeds while the world burns, and the lotus flower whose roots grow in mud yet blossoms beautifully above water. Through personal stories, practical guidance, and the warmth of authentic friendship, they illuminate how sustained spiritual practice gradually raises our baseline wellbeing and shortens our recovery time from emotional difficulties.

Perhaps most powerfully, they reveal that at the bottom of all our emotional layers - beneath shame, fear, and anger - lies love itself. Heaven on Earth isn't about escaping life's challenges but bringing a quality of loving presence to them. As Montero-Diaz beautifully summarizes: heaven on earth is "relating heavenly to earthly things."

Ready to find more stability in chaotic times? Listen now, and discover how your spiritual practice can become an anchor not just for yourself, but for our world in need of healing.

Luisa Montero Diaz is a pioneer of the Washington Insight Meditation Community and a lead mentor in Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield’s two-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program.

LUISA’S FREE MINDFULNESS PROGRAM (IN SPANISH)

✨ Atención Plena para Reducir el Estrés
A Free 6-Week Virtual Mindfulness Series in Spanish
🗓 Wednesdays at 6PM EST | June 4 – July 9
🌐 On Zoom | Open to Spanish-speaking migrants
No experience needed—just bring your breath.

📌 Zoom Registration:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/An65PlmNTyyaccVw819DcA#/registration
📅 Full details available on the CML calendar
https://tockify.com/cmldc/agenda?tags=Espanol&search=espanol
📧 Questions?Contact Luisa Montero at luisa.montero55@gmail.com

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