Morgan Dix, Author at About Meditation: Recent Episodes
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https://aboutmeditation.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2024MeditationChallenge-Day4.mp3The Life-Changing Power of Letting Go[Today, in Day 5 of the 10-Day Meditation Challenge, we explore the practice and principle of letting go with a reading, a short talk, and a guided meditation.]
I spent 14 years, from the age of 25 to 39, living in a spiritual ashram. That’s the Hindu equivalent of a monastery. Day and night, we practiced meditation like it was our job, because for us it was.
And one of the core lessons I learned during my time on the cushion was that letting go was the key to unlocking the power of meditation.
In that context, I came to see and understand how thoroughly hypnotized most of us are by the movement of our own minds. We spend a staggering amount of our days lost in discursive thought and mind-wandering mode.
As some teachers call it, “lost in the daydream.” But here we’re not talking about the innocent child gazing out the school room window.
Nope, we’re talking about highly educated high-functioning adults who are unwittingly moving through life in a dreamworld of their own making. Without being aware of it.
And I’m not saying anyone is at fault here. It’s kind of just the software we came with.
But through meditation training, I came to see our predicament with clarity. And that was empowering.
You see, when we begin to learn how to let go, we start to extricate ourselves from thought. In the beginning, it’s like we do this one thought at a time, by continually directing our distracted mind back to our meditation object.
We do this again and again and again for the duration of our practice. And as we build that muscle of steering the mind back to our meditation object, we begin to realize something strange and remarkable.
We’re not really lost in individual thoughts. We’re lost in a never-ending kaleidoscope of thought. Ever shifting and always new, it’s like a highly tailored movie from which we can’t look away.
But now that we’re practicing meditation, we start to see to see this kaleidoscope as the thought stream itself. An unceasing rive of thought. And the more we let go of that thought stream by steering out mind back to our meditation object, the clearer it is.
You recognize that you’re not actually lost in individual thoughts. Instead you’re lost in the thought stream itself. And at that moment, you gain a new capacity.
You learn that you can put down the entire mind each time we let go. And that experience is liberating. As if a great boulder had been sitting on our chest and we didn’t know it. But suddenly you see it and roll it off of you.
With this dawning awareness, we experience release and relief. And this capacity to let go of the mind becomes a cornerstone of our practice. It enables new capacities of consciousness to come online.
For one thing, this insight increases our ability to rest our attention on our meditation object continuously and, eventually, completely.
As we do this, our mind settles down. That is called calm staying, or Shamatha. As we build our capacity for calm staying, we eventually learn how to become absorbed in our meditation object and open the door to states of flow consciousness.
And that is really just the beginning of this contemplative path of healing and growth. But it all starts here. Through developing our capacity for letting go.
Today, we explore this principle of letting go with a reading, a short talk, and a guided meditation.
The post appeared first on About Meditation.
I don’t like it when the clocks change. It doesn’t feel natural to me.
I do love thinking about that liminal line that spans the turning earth at all times, rolling everything up in the tide of darkness on one end and spilling it back into light on the other.
The progression of that line is constant, so I resist arbitrarily tinkering with the clocks–and our circadian rhythms–every six months.
Embracing ChangeHowever, I do relish this time of year, when the transition from Autumn to Winter brings forth a host of scents and sensations that evoke deep currents of memory.
It’s getting darker and colder. There’s a quickening. Brilliant flashing reds and yellows yield to brown and gray.
It’s a poignant time of year. The world around us is turning inward. Metaphorically and literally we are entering a time of darkness. And with it, the opportunity for reflection.
A Meditation On ImpermanenceAnd that’s why I was so happy to discover this short video from Headspace–the meditation app–highlighting Japan’s 72 micro seasons.
This meditation on impermanence captures that sense of poignant ever-changing connection to the passing of our planet through time. Even as we apprehend the beauty around us, it’s already changing and slipping away.
Buddha taught that one of the three marks of existence is that everything is impermanent and subject to birth, suffering, and decay. Everything is constantly changing, passing away, and emerging in new forms.
In this world of constant change, according to Siddhartha Gautama, holding on and resisting impermanence is the great source of our suffering.
Whether it’s things, people, moments, or the stories we tell ourselves about our own lives, we tend to hold on tight.
Attending To Our WorldOne of the antidotes to this kind of suffering is mindfulness–attending to our world right now, as it is, with the generosity of our full attention.
In this, we find that our uncontrived connection to Life is primary, rich, and healing. Something that we intimately share with every living being on the planet.
And instead of grasping and holding on, we attend to the full range of our inner and outer experience in each moment. The subtle stream of sensation, information, connection, and dare I say love, that is pouring through our sense gates all the time.
Breaking The Spell of DisenchantmentIn this way, mindfulness can both help us loosen our grasp on things that we’ll never be able to hold on to. And at the same time, break the deep spell of alienation, disenchantment, separation, and hyper individuality that afflicts us today.
It can restore our faith in our common heritage as vehicles for Life unfolding through our experience right now and in every moment.
I feel like this video captures that posture of mindfully attending to our world. Loving it as it is and bearing witness to the earthly and cosmological systems that give us life.
Ultimately, I think of mindfulness as an active stand of praise and gratitude.
I’d love to know what you think and if you find this video as enchanting as I do.
Enjoy!
The post Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Japan’s 72 Micro Seasons appeared first on About Meditation.
What Does Self Love Look Like?
I know. The idea of self-love doesn’t sit so well with our Western sensibilities.
But it hits on a topic that I’m eager to explore with you.
Recently, I had an experience around self-compassion and self-love that was kind of a revelation for me.
As a Mindfulness Meditation teacher, a lot of what I teach and share with people has to do with developing and nurturing self-compassion and loving-kindness. The Buddhist term for this is Maitri.
There are different ways that I feather Maitri into the teaching I do.
Self-Compassion Takes WorkBut self-compassion is not a one-and-done type of thing. In my experience, you don’t just “get it” and then you’re good to go.
Self-compassion—or self friendliness as Pema Chodron likes to call it—takes work.
As with all good things, it takes time to realize the fruits.
And just like all our important relationships, it requires an investment. That’s even more true in our relationship with ourselves. Because that relationship is primary. It fundamentally influences all our other friendships.
This came into sharp relief for me recently.
Losing Touch With My HeartThe other day, I had a challenging interaction with a dear friend. Afterwards, I was beset with the whole range of emotions. I felt paranoid. I was angry. I was frustrated. I was at a loss.
But I could see that most of the feelings and inner narratives arising were directed outwards.
And I knew that I needed to stay with all of it because I felt disconnected from my heart and my deeper experience. That sweet spot that was going to help me metabolize the whole thing.
When Self-Compassion Is AbsentAnd then, as I was exercising, the penny dropped.
I saw the whole carousel of troubled feelings and narratives going round and round, and it suddenly occurred to me.
This is what it feels like when self-compassion is missing.
All my attention had been magnetized towards trying to fix something about what I was feeling. And rehashing the exchange in my head.
But then I just said to myself, “I love you. It’s OK, everything is OK. I love you and everything you’re feeling is fine.”
Can We Get A Little Love Over Here?These words came straight from my heart. Instantly there were tears.
But these were tears of insight, release, and relief.
The insight being “Oh, I don’t need to fix or solve a goddamn thing, I just need to give myself a little love here, a little compassion. Everything else is a distraction. Everything else is secondary or not even real. You’re trying to solve something that doesn’t actually exist.”
The whole structure of outward projection suddenly became an object, and it was transparent to me. I was seeing it instead of being it.
What do I mean when I say it was an outward projection? I mean that when things like this happen, it can be hard to really stay with our own experience. The hurt, the pain, the vulnerability.
These are the wounds that, when untended and not attuned to, give rise to those familiar narratives of self-recrimination and blame.
As a result, we often look to our minds for an explanation or a rationale to help us make sense of it all. But more often than not, that means we’re stepping outside of and away from our moment to moment felt experience.
The place where the hurt and confusion actually live inside us…in our bodies and hearts.
The Logic of the HeartAs I’m learning over and over again, we can’t start healing until we start feeling.
So in that moment of self compassion everything became plain and simple in the comprehensive logic of the heart.
I saw it all as a structure. A cultural structure, a familial structure, a personal structure of self recrimination, self criticism, and the predictable result of an achievement-oriented culture focused on perfection and presentation.
What a relief to see through it. To return home to myself.
I don’t know about you, but I can say for myself that these patterns and narratives that obscure self compassion and self-love run deep. We learned them a long long time ago.
Self-Love Takes WorkAnd we have to really work at loving ourselves.
I appreciate that to our Western sensibilities, that sounds self-involved, self-indulgent, and narcissistic. But I’m starting to see how that’s a gross misinterpretation of what we’re talking about.
What I’m talking about is insight and integrity of self and soul.
It means that we’re not divided against ourselves. That our energy, our spirits, our hearts, and our minds are not divided and dis-integrated as we move through the world.
For me, this is opening up a fresh and deeper understanding of self compassion, and I’m grateful for it.
Engaging Heaven And EarthI’ve been meditating for 29 years and a lot of that was spent in the singular pursuit of transcendent experiences. I had a lot of those, and they were amazing.
But it’s clear to me that no amount of sitting in the blissful lap of God will help us deal with the reality of our earthly selves.
In my experience, those experiences don’t actually help us compost our deeply ingrained cultural patterns of perfectionism and all the untended wounds we shelter within the shadows of our soul.
And they won’t help us bring a tender touch to our own hearts and help us attune to what we really need in any given moment.
In an ideal world, we are engaging both Heaven AND Earth in our meditation practice. Why? Because we’re made from a bit of both.
As I understand it, one key function of our daily practice is that it serves as an engine and a container to help us metabolize pain, heartbreak, and frustration.
In the process, we not only get to know ourselves more deeply. We also make deep healing contact with our own wounded hearts.
But that’s not all.
Meditation is also the place where we can finally let go of everything—all our desires, worries, cares, concerns, neuroses, and obsessions—and discover that we can fly.
And by the way, yes, I did resolve things with my dear friend. I just had to resolve things with myself first.
The post What Does Self Love Actually Look Like? appeared first on About Meditation.
One of the first things we learn on the path of meditation is that desire is an obstacle to our progress. And its inverse, avoidance (aversion), is an equal barrier to our evolution.
But today, I want to talk about desire in a different way. Because, we can actually harness desire to deepen and ripen our mindfulness meditation. That’s right, desire can help us live in the rich fullness of this very moment, undistracted and at ease.
But first, let’s quickly review why the Buddha taught that desire is such a powerful hindrance to realizing our basic nature as unlimited, whole, and fundamentally free.
The Problem With DesirePioneering Vipassana meditation teacher Jack Kornfield describes the sticky net of desire like this:
The first hindrance is desire for sense pleasure: pleasant sights, sounds, smells, tastes, bodily sensations, and mind states. What’s the problem with desire—what’s wrong with it? Nothing, really. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying pleasant experiences. Given the difficulties we face in life, they are nice to have.
But they fool us.
They trick us into adopting the ‘‘if only’’ mentality: ‘‘If only I could have this,’’ or ‘‘If only I had the right job,’’ or ‘‘If only I could find the right relationship,’’ or ‘‘If only I had the right clothes,’’ or ‘‘If only I had the right personality, then I would be happy.’’
We are taught that if we can get enough pleasurable experiences, pasting them together quickly one after another, our life will be happy…
Again, the problem is not the object of desire, but the energy in the mind. The energy of desire keeps us moving, looking for that thing that is really going to do it for us. The wanting mind is itself painful. It’s a self-perpetuating habit that does not allow us to be where we are because we are grasping for something somewhere else.
Even when we get what we want, we then want something more or different because the habit of wanting is so strong. It is a sense that being here and now is not enough, that we are somehow incomplete, and it keeps us cut off from the joy of our own natural completeness. We are never content.
It is the same force in the world at large that creates the havoc of people wanting and consuming, hoarding, and fighting wars to have more and more, for pleasure and for security that are never fulfilled.
Maybe you can relate to some of this?
When you look closely, you notice that much of our culture is structured to stoke our desire for beautiful things, people, experiences, etc. We’re swimming in it.
But if desire is such a problem, how can it help us in our meditation? And how can we harness it to grow and nurture our humanity?
Understanding Our DistractionWhen we meditate, we quickly recognize that it’s challenging to keep our attention focused on our meditation object.
We bring our attention to the breath. And before we even realize it, we’re drifting away, lost in a pleasant fantasy. We’re thinking about plans for the weekend and what we’re going to have for dinner.
Or maybe we’re ruminating and regretting something that happened yesterday. A grudge that we keep feeding with negative thoughts like a dragon chasing its own tail.
The more we attempt to steer our attention back to our meditation object, the more we notice our distracted condition.
This is one of the first steps in developing self-awareness. We see that we’re chronically distracted and lost in mind-wandering mode. Our attentional system is frayed and fractured.
And most of the time, that condition is not apparent to us as we move from one experience to the next. And we don’t notice because most of our peers and companions are equally distracted.
We live in a field of distraction.
The problem is that we’re never satisfied in this state. We’re restless and haunted. Dimly aware that inner wholeness and fundamental contentment is always just out of reach and we’re at a loss for how to attain it.
Harnessing the Healing Power of DesireBut here is where we can begin to harness the positive and healing power of desire. As we start to become aware of our predicament, we get little glimpses into what it feels like to be fully immersed in the present moment.
We notice that the longer we rest our attention on our meditation object, the calmer we become. The mind begins to settle. Our body relaxes, and our senses open up, and we start to hear and feel the music of life again.
Just like we did when we were small children.
When this happens, we quickly realize the pristine nature of the present moment. And then we can start to notice that we have a small margin of choice.
We can actually choose to stay in the present moment or we can choose to remain lost in the carousel daydream of desire.
It’s here that we can pose a simple but powerful question to ourselves.
Which do I want more? To remain in this restless unsatisfied half-asleep state? Or to bring the mind home to my deeper self? To unify and cohere at the deepest levels of my being?
Of course, I want the latter.
But now I see that I need to nurture and feed my desire for that presence and wholeness because my desire for distraction–a deep culturally reinforced habit–is stronger than my desire for wholeness and unity of mind and purpose.
Feeding and Fueling Your Desire For PresenceIndeed, the Buddha’s teachings tell us that the antidote to this painful condition of deep distraction is the inner unity of attention and equanimity that we cultivate in meditation.
As you feed and fuel your desire to attune to the present moment, the result is wholeness, coherence, and healing.
That painful bone-deep feeling that something is missing dissolves in the cool calming waters of your equanimous mind.
And one of the essential keys to all of this is fueling your desire to live in the present moment. To attune, moment to moment, to the ever-unfolding here and now.
The more you do this, the more your desire for presence grows until it becomes so strong that you will protect it like a fierce mama bear protecting her child.
If you’d like to learn more about how to grow and nurture this desire, then I encourage you to join me for the Coming Home Mindfulness Meditation Training Program.
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Break The Cycle of Self-Criticism
In mindfulness circles, there’s a popular story about an encounter with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
It goes something like this.
HH the Dalai Lama is taking questions at a conference and a Western meditation teacher asks him about how to help people who suffer from self-hatred.
There ensues a protracted and vigorous exchange between HH and his translator. The Dalai Lama looks confused and keeps asking questions.
After some time, the translator reveals that there is no such word or concept in the Tibetan language, so he was having trouble explaining the idea of self-loathing to HH. It was a completely new idea and phenomenon to the revered monk.
The story is a compelling example of how a concept that we take for granted here in the West is completely foreign elsewhere. It’s a uniquely Western affliction.
The Epidemic of Self-CriticismAnd the scourge of self-loathing is no mere concept or curiosity.
As I’ve previously shared with you, one of my former teachers, the late Harvard psychologist and Buddhist teacher Dr. Daniel P. Brown, called self-criticism a cultural epidemic.
That’s one reason why we spend so much time focusing on self-compassion during the Coming Home Mindfulness Meditation Training Program.
When I left the ashram after 14 years of intensive monastic training, I was mostly oblivious to the need for self-compassion. As a seasoned meditation practitioner, it seemed like a frivolous if not indulgent concept to me
But now, I can’t imagine my life without it.
Here’s the problem. The inner critic is a common and pervasive tyrant. Yet, most of us don’t see it. At least, that was the case for me.
It’s so common that it’s hidden in plain sight.
What are some common manifestations? Our culture valorizes perfection and endless achievement. As a result, many of us feel–in our work, in our relationships, in our family life–that we are not enough just as we are.
Many of us internalize that cultural narrative and it becomes our own story.
Mindfulness Shows Us We Are Already EnoughBut mindfulness meditation shows us that the opposite is true. We are whole and enough just as we are.
As we develop in our practice, we come to experience a space of inherent wholeness. That space is untouched and unbowed by that punitive taskmaster in our head.
At the same time, we become familiar with that unforgiving self-critical narrative. And when we see it, we can actively offer ourselves compassion in response. We begin to create a different narrative.
Research shows that the more we practice being kind and compassionate with ourselves using formal meditation practices, the more we’ll increase the habit of self-compassion.
Dr. Kristin Neff
Increasing The Habit of Self-CompassionSimply seeing and identifying that self-critical voice in our head is half the battle. Remember, if you can name it, you can tame it.
These days, if I’m unsettled or upset, I often inquire into whether the source of my discontent is that relentless inner taskmaster who is never satisfied.
More times than I can count, I have found that the missing ingredient of the moment is self-compassion and self-friendliness.
Breaking the cycle of self-criticism takes time and persistent interest. Building a consistent meditation practice is a beautiful start to that process and a proven method.
According to self-compassion researcher Dr. Kristin Neff:
Research shows that the more we practice being kind and compassionate with ourselves using formal meditation practices, the more we’ll increase the habit of self-compassion.
If you are suffering from self-criticism, I encourage you to join me for one of the upcoming Mindfulness Meditation Training Programs.
The post How To Break The Cycle of Self Criticism appeared first on About Meditation.
The Life-Changing Magic of a Morning Meditation RitualImagine this for a moment. You wake up and the first thing that comes to mind is not your to-do list for the day.
Instead, you find yourself eagerly anticipating your morning ritual. After getting your tea or coffee you sit down on your meditation cushion with a selected reading.
Occasionally your mind drifts, but you bring it back to the quiet atmosphere all around you. Undistracted, the words carry you deeper and deeper.
You finish the reading and listen to the early morning silence.
And just as if you were swimming in a cool blue pool, you feel that silence holding you. Gently permeating your whole being. You feel a wave of calm expansion carry you out across the soundscape beyond your windows.
The bird songs fill your being, like they’re singing inside of you.
You haven’t even started meditating, but the mood is upon you.
Next you hit play on your music player and sing quietly along with the incantatory vocals. The warm vibration of the song harmonizing with your own voice moves outward from your heart center until your whole body is humming.
As the song trails off into silence, you seamlessly enter into meditation. Now your heart is wide open.
Building A Ritual ContainerYou only started a few weeks ago, but already there’s a strong momentum to your meditation. And each morning, your body, mind, and spirit anticipate it.
This is the experience of building a daily meditation ritual. And more importantly, a container. What is a container in this context and why is it so important? Let me explain.
To my mind, it’s one of the most important parts of developing a consistent meditation practice that delivers results. It’s something we explore in depth in the Coming Home Meditation training program.
Here’s the general idea with a container.
What Is A Ritual ContainerThink about those times when you enter a therapist’s office or attend a church service or maybe you’ve worked with a shaman before.
In those situations, when you cross the threshold into the healing space, something changes. The light is different. Often there’s music. There is artwork and ornaments. Maybe there’s an open flame – candles and incense might be burning.
These markers send subtle and overt signals to your nervous system – you’re entering a space outside of your daily norms.
These are often healing or holy spaces. And the idea is that the routine and the outer accouterments create a space that is conducive to healing, meditation, prayer, or journeying.
It’s a sacred ritual space.
This kind of ritual space helps you begin to cultivate an inner ambience of silence. A space of calm focus within that supports your intention.
And I can’t emphasize enough how helpful it is to have a container for your meditation practice. A place where you can do your daily practice. And that container is as much an inner as an outer space.
Creating Your Own Sacred ContainerDuring the Coming Home Mindfulness Meditation Training Program, we spend 4 weeks helping you to build your ritual container every day. That kind of momentum is priceless, especially when it’s amplified by the collective nature of the activity.
Together, over the course of 4 weeks, we will build a container together that you will carry into your life through daily practice. It’s like a candle flame that you can hold in your heart and carry with you everywhere you go.
You will have your own inner sanctuary to steady you when the ground feels unstable.
If this resonates with you, then join me for the next Coming Home Mindfulness Meditation Training.
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Guided Focused Awareness Meditation
Guided Meditation AudioGuided Meditation Video[I’m offering these free guided meditation in the lead up to the Coming Home Mindfulness Meditation Training Course starting Oct, 9th. More about that soon!]
In this free guided meditation, we spend the hour doing a blend of mindfulness practices to ground ourselves in the body and connect to the heart before I lead you through 20 minutes of basic mindfulness meditation practice.
In the last two community meditations, we’ve practiced a more blended technique of focused and open awareness mindfulness meditation. In this meditation, we approach the practice a little differently with a more focused frame of attention.
The BodyAs we engage with the embodiment practices, we slowly start to feel into our entire breathing body. This is incredibly important for meditation.
Why?
Because many of us just meditate from the shoulders up – in our heads. But meditation is a whole body activity.
The more you can ground your attention fully in your body, the richer and more productive your meditation practice will become. We also include music in the practice because it’s such an extraordinary tool for opening your mind and heart.
Focused MeditationDuring this focused awareness practice, just like basic mindfulness we work on two essential meditation skills: steering and staying. Steering the attention back to your meditation object and then staying on your meditation object–the breath.
Steering and staying are foundational skills for all meditators—two essential pillars upon which we build our inner temple.
But today, we pay closer attention to the different contours and character of the breath, approaching it with one-pointed interest and attention. The goal here is to become deeply intimate with and close to the breath so the mind can experience calm abiding.
Enjoy!
ScheduleIntroduction
Chanting (Humming)
Pranayama (Breathing)
Guided Meditation – Basic Mindfulness
Music
Coming Home Mindfulness Meditation Training CourseFinally, if you enjoy these guided meditations, then look for information later this week about the Coming Home Mindfulness Meditation Training Course. If you’re interested in starting a daily meditation practice, or rekindling your daily practice, we’ll spend 4 weeks sitting together every weekday morning live and over Zoom. I love this course and the deep community bonds it engenders. If you enjoy these guided meditations, you’ll love this course. I hope you’ll consider joining me.
The post September Community Meditation Recording appeared first on About Meditation.
About 10 years ago, my whole world turned upside down. All the stable ground under my feet disappeared overnight. Like that magician deftly whipping a sheet out from under the china set. But this time, imagine instead that the table itself disappears.
Freefall…
The contemporary spiritual ashram and community where I worked, lived, and practiced fell apart. I was a full time resident at that ashram for 14 years – much of my adult life. It was the source of my livelihood, my community, and the spiritual path and practice to which I’d dedicated my life.
The reason for this conflagration?
Our Guru had intractable issues around power and control. Our student body fractured, frayed, and dissolved in the face of his unwillingness to relinquish any measure of leadership and control.
Confusion & ShockIt happened so fast. I was confused and in shock. Many of my peers were filled with righteous indignation and clarity of purpose, reassessing everything we had stood for. I, on the other hand, felt like it was all happening in a dream, just beyond reach or reason.
My wife and I moved from the bucolic Berkshires of Massachusetts to Boston. We found work and started to build a new life for ourselves.
It was all surreal. Like stepping out of one world with its own language and customs and geography into a new parallel world where much looked the same but everything felt foreign.
In many ways, we landed on our feet thanks in large part to friends and family. But after a year or two I started to notice something strange.
Seemingly random things would cause me to cry. A meme on social media. A commercial. A sports highlight. And I didn’t understand why. I didn’t get it. I was not a cryer. Honestly, I couldn’t remember the last time I cried.
But now I felt like a jar overfilled with water bursting the banks at the slightest bump. Once triggered, I would feel raw and exposed with tears leaking from the sides of my eyes, unable to give words or rationale to this rising inner tide.
One night I turned to my partner and said, “I think I need to talk to someone about this.” I had a vague sense that this was about everything that happened with our community.
Finding A HealerI found a therapist and during our first session, after I recounted the story of our community’s collapse, she asked me to lie on the floor and close my eyes. She gently put her hand on my heart and something gave way.
The dam in my heart broke wide open. My body shook with silent sobs as the pain and heartbreak of loss moved through me like a late summer storm.
That day, I started to glimpse the healing power of tears. When I left my therapist’s office, I felt shaky on my legs and raw. My head was hazy and filled with cotton. At the same time, like the fresh air after a real thunderstorm, I felt cleansed.
I didn’t know it, but my body had been storing up grief for years until it finally started to overflow. The dissolution of my spiritual community was just the tipping point.
Understanding GriefOver the next two years in therapy, I learned that grief, once you stop tamping it down, is indiscriminate. Once you open that door, everything is on the table. The buffet of traumatic events large and small laid bare. And you don’t get to decide what’s coming up from the depths.
But, I learned, you do get to decide how you want to relate to it all.
I learned that you can sit with it and let it pass through you or you can try to push it back down. I’ve chosen door number one. To trust the body’s innate intelligence and let the tears do their cleansing and healing work.
The Cleansing & Healing Power of CryingEight years later and I am now an avowed cryer. I never believed I would say this, but I love a good cry. It cleans me out and opens me up to myself and the world around me. It reminds me that I’m intimately connected to the pulse of life that flows through our miraculous garden planet and all its inhabitants.
It also connects me to the suffering of others. Not in a theoretical way. It’s now a felt reality that springs spontaneously from my heart center.
Fifteen years of intensive and unrelenting monastic training in the spiritual ashram didn’t awaken or truly connect me to the suffering of others…or even my own suffering.
Instead, I had to find a path through my own broken heart before I could start connecting to the suffering everywhere in the world around me.
Learning to traverse the terrain of the heart is learning that we have an incredibly sensitive spiritual, emotional, and somatic sense-making organ within. For my entire life, it’s been tracking, with meticulous precision, the wounds of separation, alienation, loss, abandonment, and injustice…trauma.
I spent the first 40 years of my life more or less disconnected from this spiritual organ. And when I look around at Western Culture, it appears to me that we’ve collectively lost touch with it as well.
An Epidemic of Self CriticismDr. Dan Brown, one of my previous teachers, was both a Vajrayana Meditation Master and a Harvard-trained clinical psychologist. He would say that in the West, we suffer from an epidemic of self-criticism.
You know what? I think there’s a pretty clear relationship between what Dr. Brown was saying and our alienation from the heart.
When I cry, I remember how incredibly important it is to be compassionate with myself. In fact, to be a decent and caring human, it’s probably the most important thing I can do. Why? Because I can’t deeply and authentically be compassionate with you if there’s no compassion in my heart for me.
A few years ago I would have nodded yes to that but inwardly raised an eyebrow thinking, “That sounds a little too precious to me and maybe a little narcissistic.”
But I understand now. That’s the voice that Dr. Brown was talking about. The culturally conditioned self that is caught up in a relentless and unwinnable race for achievement, perfection, and the next big thing. When my attention is there, the heart recedes into the background. There’s just no space for it.
Some Benefits of CryingI won’t bore you with the reams of research that show how healthy it is for us to cry. You can look that up for yourself. But here are some of the ways that I benefit from a good cry.
- It reminds me to be kind and gentle with myself.
- My heart opens to the world around me.
- I’m relieved of burdens I’m not even aware that I’m carrying.
- It illuminates a palpable thread of heart connection between me and everyone else.
What Makes Me Cry?You know what makes me cry more than anything else? Right now, it’s watching highlights from the Women’s World Cup.
Can you believe that?
Yep. I start crying as soon as the highlights begin! It’s hard crying too. Not soft. Maybe it’s hitting midlife and realizing that I’m not going to experience that kind of freedom and grace in my body ever again.
As an athlete growing up, sports were a powerful developmental vehicle for me and a window into the grace of the body. Now I have issues with chronic pain. I can’t do many of the activities that once brought me such deep joy.
But I also get the sense that it’s related to being a father of a little 7 year old girl.
Of course, she’s another trigger for big tears. The love there is just too much. And so is the wound – the innate wound that comes with that much love. So, on cue, movies or shows with young girls persevering against the odds make me cry as well.
And in case it’s not clear, I don’t judge any of this. My job is to let the tears flow and be available for whatever comes.
The Alchemy of Music + MeditationI’m also midway through a multi year meditation teacher training program. And right now we are focused on the heart. One of the teachers is a therapist who uses music in the training to help us access the closed off compartments of our hearts.
Oh my goodness – it’s effective. Once during the training, she played a song that made me cry for 30 minutes straight. It just hit that spot.
So now I’ve integrated music into my daily meditation practice. It’s like adding spiritual and emotional rocket fuel. As a result, my daily practice has become a powerful vehicle and container for processing and attuning to this wounded heart we’re talking about.
You might be wondering, what exactly am I crying about in meditation?
Sometimes in practice the tears come unattached to any specific image, memory, event, or material in my consciousness. Other times, concrete memories emerge which help me move through specific wounds from the past.
Before this course, I didn’t think meditation could facilitate this level of deep “shadow work”. But now, it’s a reliable process that’s more or less happening on its own. And I couldn’t be more grateful.
Recently I was listening to a podcast on crying from NPR. During the show, they featured a neuropsychiatrist named Michael Trumbull who wrote the book Why Humans Like To Cry: Tragedy, Evolution and the Brain.
Professor Trumbull dropped a fact that surprised me. He said that human beings are the only creatures on Earth that cry emotion.
Creating Our Own Rites & Rituals for HealingIn the end, one thing is clear to me. Crying is healthy. It helps me surface and compost challenging and painful memories. It opens my heart. It connects me to my loved ones and to the broader community of life that I’m part of.
It helps me diffuse this colossal cultural momentum of self-criticism with steady heartfelt self-compassion.
I’m not saying that you should run out and get a bunch of sad movies and make yourself cry. Or that what’s right and healthy for me is good for you.
But I am suggesting that maybe you should give it a second thought and listen to your body if, like me, it is trying to tell you that there is work to do.
Our bodies have to cut through a lot of cultural distortion (internal and external) to get that message across.
And here’s the thing. It’s always a good time to heal. And there are very few places, spaces, rituals, and rites that help us to do that these days.
Why?
Because we’ve lost most of those communal functions (ceremony, ritual, etc) in the wake of modernity, so we have to (re)create them for ourselves.
Image by John Hain from Pixabay
The post Why I Love To Cry…A Lot! appeared first on About Meditation.
Video Audio In this guided meditation, we engage with different mindfulness practices to prepare for a session of basic mindfulness. We do this in order to ground our attention in the body. Specifically, in the heart center. As we engage with these embodiment practices, we slowly start to feel into our entire breathing body. This […]
The post Basic Mindfulness Guided Meditation – August 2023 appeared first on About Meditation.
A lot of us meditate in and from our heads. But you know what? When we meditate, our whole heart and body is actually involved.
If we don’t recognize that and consciously engage with it, we’re missing out on a lot of the wisdom and intelligence that’s naturally flowing through our experience each time we meditate.
In this guided meditation, we spend the hour doing a blend of mindfulness practices to ground ourselves in the body and connect to the heart. Then I lead you through 20 minutes of basic mindfulness meditation focused on the breath.
During this phase of the practice, you will work on two essential meditation skills: Steering and Staying. Steering the attention back to your meditation object and then staying on that meditation object.
Steering and staying are foundational skills for all meditators. Those are two pillars upon which we build our inner temple.
And perhaps just as important, in our age of fragmented attention, honing your ability to steer and stay your attention is essential. Most of our online world is habituating us to do the opposite.
Remember, your capacity to rest your attention on any object of focus–staying–is directly related to your capacity for calmly and intentionally navigating life.
After the meditation, we finish with a heart-expanding song with an accompanying mudra or hand position.
This practice will help ground your attention in your heart center, balance the two hemispheres of your brain, and bring deep calm and relaxation to your day.
Oh, and just a quick note. In the beginning of the video, I mix up my words and say that we need to move from our heart to our head. Obviously, that’s wrong. In meditation, we are aiming to shift our basis of operation from our head to our heart.
Heart Based Guided Meditation* Introduction * Chanting * Pranayama * Guided Meditation – Basic Mindfulness * Music
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Last month my life got temporarily turned upside down.
My wife’s father is 89 and has late stage kidney disease. He’s very much in the twilight of his time here on Earth.
And one morning we woke up to a text letting us know they found him unresponsive and took him to the hospital.
He was stable, they said, but it wasn’t clear exactly what happened and why. We all expected he’d live for another 6-12 months at least.
His spirit was still bright and undiminished despite his condition.
But as you know, at a certain point, things can happen quickly when it comes to terminal diseases.
From Denver to LondonSo we hastily purchased three airline tickets from Denver to London, departing the next morning. We had little time to plan or pack when we finished work and hit the sack.
The next thing we knew, we were in London, staying with my wife’s brother. It was our first morning, and I wanted to go for a run.
As I jogged down the familiar streets out to the Thames Path along the great old river, where I’d run countless times before, I was irritable.
I mean, I felt angry at everyone I passed.
I’m Angry!Why did that guy just run so close to me? Why didn’t he give me more space? This must be something to do with people in the UK. Blah blah blah.
As I ran, my thoughts turned darker, ruminating upon the friction and stress of the morning’s grumpy exchanges with my wife and daughter. Looking for reasons why it was, of course, their fault.
And then it suddenly hit me like a bolt. “I’m angry!”
It was so simple, but the moment it occurred to me, all those cumulonimbus clouds curling above my head parted, and the proverbial light shone through.
In fact, I exclaimed it aloud. “I’m angry! I’m really angry!”
It All Made SenseEverything inside me settled down and the logic of it all fell into place.
I’m a creature of habit. I love my routine. I like to plan and account for as many variables as possible. Mostly to keep myself comfortable and to ward off the unpredictable. And that’s especially true when I travel.
And I don’t like to be hasty whilst purchasing high-ticket items like 10-hour nonstop plane tickets.
So yes, my comfy, controlled, and predictable little world—which I cherish—was cast into ever-cascading chaos the moment we heard about my wife’s father.
And more than that, Death itself was looming over everything. The ultimate x-factor. Stirring up the whole family.
And I realized that, of course, there was way more happening in my little human family ecosystem than I could rightly process and account for.
And all of them were probably feeling out of control as well.
I shared this insight with my wife as soon as I got home. And indeed, over the course of the trip, this insight was born out in many ways. And it was a helpful and grounding insight.
If You Can Name It You Can Tame ItIn my last post, I wrote about perspective. And how, “if you can name it, you can tame it.” And I wanted to share this story because it was such an explicit example of that principle in action.
What does all this have to do with meditation?
Everything.
I can say with confidence, that were it not for my daily meditation practice, it would not occur to me to step outside my psycho-emotional drama of the moment and question it so objectively.
In fact, I doubt I’d have the metacognitive capacity to do that.
Building Perspective Through MeditationBut in meditation, we continually confront the reality and substance of our experience moment to moment. And in that, we start to get to know ourselves through careful and compassionate self-observation.
In time we see that we can step out of whatever mental and emotional pattern or deep-set story we’re lost in.
Like stepping out of a fast rushing river on to safe and stable dry land.
From that new vantage point, we can watch it roll on by, untouched and unmoved by the quickening current.
Eventually, as our own inner dramas become less sticky and compelling, we find our attention drawn to that quiet and stable ground below our feet that we keep discovering.
And then we realize, it’s always been there. Beneath the surface of the thought stream. Unmoving. Unwavering. And always present. But that’s a topic for another time…
I’d love to hear if this story resonates with you too. Leave me a comment to let me know if you find it helpful.
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Should you make lots of effort in your meditation practice?
Or is that counterproductive in a practice that’s really all about letting go?
It’s a great question.
And the answer isn’t so obvious. But if you’re serious about making progress on the path of meditation, it’s a question you can’t ignore.
Why?
Because you need both. Sometimes we need to make ALOT of effort. At other times, we need to ease on back…way back.
So how do you know when to make effort or to ease up? And what kind of effort are we talking about anyways?
Let me start by telling you a story based on the experience of a seeker I once knew.
The Seeker’s StoryOnce there was a young man. He did tons of meditation retreats. He studied with lots of teachers. He was on a one-pointed mission to get enlightened.
He spent hours and hours practicing in the hallowed halls of Vipassana centers doing 10-day silent retreat after 10-day silent retreat. He visited with many so-called enlightened masters.
After several years of one-pointed dedication, he was feeling a little worn out. All the energy and effort he was making didn’t seem to be moving him closer to his goal.
Then one day, an old friend called him and said, “Hey, come meet me at this place in India, there’s a really amazing teacher. I think she’s the real thing.”
So the young man met his friend and soon found himself at the feet of the teacher. And he asked the venerable Ma, “What kind of effort do I need to make to be free?”
The wizened woman said quietly, “You don’t have to make any effort to be free.”
At that moment, something gave way, and the young man found what he’d been searching for.
In truth, all his seeking and effort had become an obstacle to his own realization.
Yes, it had brought him to the feet of the teacher. And yes, all that sustained work had no doubt accumulated and ripened.
But it was clear that making more effort was not the answer.
The Coarse Mind & The Subtle MindNow, I’m not saying that you and I don’t need to make an effort to follow our meditation instructions. But I am saying that how you frame those instructions and how you hold them in your body and mind is everything.
I once studied with a teacher of Tibetan Buddhism and Mahamudra. During the initial steps in the meditation practice, we had to make great effort.
“Increase the intensity” he would say, referring to the focus on our meditation object, the breath. “Keep making effort until you can stay on the breath without getting distracted.”
This was called Close Staying.
And the goal was to use that increased intensity to focus our attention on the breath without losing concentration.
But then, at a certain point, when your attention was reliably close to the breath and staying for like 80-100% of the time, he would say, “Ease up!”
That’s right.
Like going through the looking glass, the instructions turned 180 degrees, and he gave the opposite injunction.
At this moment in the practice, forward progress was achieved through less effort.
Our teacher described it this way. In the beginning, our attention is coarse or gross. So we need to apply more effort.
But then, through careful and sustained focus on our meditation object, our attention becomes very subtle. And when that happens, more effort is counterproductive.
In fact, at this stage in the practice, more effort is detrimental. Less effort, a feather light touch, easing up, and relaxing. That’s what propels you forward.
Amazing…
Meditation Is Not Something You Can DoI love this quote from another Tibetan Buddhist teacher. I think it speaks to this line we’re exploring between effort and no effort. He says:
There is a revealing Tibetan saying: “Gompa ma yin, kompa yin,” which means literally: “Meditation is not; getting used to is.”
It means that meditation is nothing other than getting used to the practice of meditation. As it is said: “Meditation is not striving, but naturally becoming assimilated into it.” As you continue to practice the method, then meditation slowly arises. Meditation is not something that you can “do”; it is something that has to happen spontaneously, only when you have perfected the practice.”
There is a point in meditation, and you may know this from your own experience, when the meditation just starts happening on its own.
At that point, it’s automatic and self-arising.
In fact, no effort at all is exactly what’s required. Our job in those moments is to simply rest in that perfect middle place. Not too tight, not too loose. We just need to get out of the way and let it flow.
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There are a lot of understated superpowers that come with learning meditation.
But there’s one that most people just don’t know about.
And no, I’m not talking about yogic powers like walking through walls or flying over mountain tops or even dissolving your body into rainbow light when you leave this world for good.
I’m talking about metacognitive intelligence.
What is that, you ask?
What Is Metacognition?Technically, metacognition is our ability to become aware of our thinking processes. But it’s more subtle than that.
One way to describe metacognition is this. It’s our capacity to decouple our self sense from our thought stream.
And when we do that, a new level of intelligence and awareness emerges.
Another way to say it is that our subjectivity—our sense of “I” or “me”—is usually embedded in and not separate from our thoughts.
So for most of us, our sense of self and our thoughts are fused together. That’s just the software we came with.
However, in mindfulness meditation we begin the process of defusing or decoupling our sense of self—our subjectivity—from our never ending thought stream.
When that happens, we are nurturing and developing our metacognitive intelligence.
What we’re doing is creating objectivity and space in relationship to our inner experience – thoughts, feelings, and sensations.
The Benefits of Metacognitive IntelligenceAs you might have already guessed, the value of developing metacognition is that we’re less victim to the ever shifting nature of our inner experience.
And potentially, we’re a lot less reactive.
In essence, we’re developing a thirty thousand foot view on our own habitual patterns of thought, feeling, rumination, and reactivity.
Previously, we might have been triggered by certain memories, thought patterns, rumination, and grudges. Instead, we now find that we have some space from those triggers and habitual behaviors.
Thanks to our metacognitive awareness, we can now see the patterns of reactivity emerging before we get hooked into them.
Why? Because we’re no longer embedded in those reactive habits.
There’s space!
And more than that.
We recognize that we have a choice. We have much greater agency in relation to our inner experience than we realized.
In short, increasing our metacognitive capacities translates to more freedom and more choice.
How does meditation help us build this metacognitive intelligence? That’s a great question.
To learn more, check out one of our mindfulness meditation training courses. We offer them every two or three months.
The post How Meditation Builds Your Metacognitive Intelligence appeared first on About Meditation.
Noel’s meditation buddyNoel Coakley is a psychotherapist, meditation teacher, and former elementary school special educator. He has studied Tibetan Buddhism since 1997 and the Bön tradition since 2013. He is a father, husband, and friend to a dog named Clementine. Noel is the director of the Boston Center for Contemplative Practice (thebccp.com) and an assistant director at Dharma Moon (dharmamoon.com). Noel is dedicated to the accessibility of the dharma and its application in modern culture.
IG: @wakeupsleepybuddhaweb: www.thebccp.comdirect email for 1:1 instruction or therapy: noelcoakleytherapy@gmail.comThe post OM106-Noel Coakley on Addiction, Spiritual Bypassing, & The Grace of Mindfulness Meditation appeared first on About Meditation.
Body Scan Guided Meditation
During the recent 10-Day Meditation Challenge, we took a tour through several different meditation techniques. And I want to share one of the best of those with you – the body scan meditation.
During the first five days, we dove into basic mindfulness meditation. That’s one of the most popular meditation techniques available. It’s also incredibly effective when it comes to calming your mind and learning how to cultivate self-compassion and loving kindness.
In fact, if you want to develop a mindfulness meditation practice of your own, we are launching a 5-week Mindfulness Meditation Training Program starting February 8th. You can learn about it here.
Coming Home Mindfulness TrainingThe Body ScanAnd today, I thought you might appreciate this guided body scan meditation.
In the body scan, we shift our focus from the breath to the body. The body itself becomes our meditation object.
And I have to admit, it’s one of my very favorite meditation techniques.
Why?
Because focusing on the body in this way is a profound vehicle for expanding your awareness. It’s also incredibly relaxing. Many people report feeling deep warmth and well being after doing the body scan.
After the body scan meditation, I feel like I’m walking on air all day. I’ll be curious to know if you feel the same.
So here is the body scan meditation from the 10-Day Meditation Challenge. I hope you enjoy it.
Meditation Challenge Day 6: Body Scan MeditationThe post Body Scan Guided Meditation (New) appeared first on About Meditation.
We're nearly halfway through the Coming Home 10-Day Meditation Challenge.
So I wanted to share with you two quick audios from the Challenge. In these two excerpts, I answer some excellent questions from the participants.
For context, we've spent the last four days learning and practicing basic mindfulness meditation. And the instructions for that practice are simple. 1. Take your seat. 2. Find your breath. 3. Label your thoughts "thinking".
I know, sounds really simple. But there's a world of depth and discovery hidden in the space between those words.
Question 1So to paraphrase the questions, the first was about how we should relate to particularly sticky thoughts while practicing mindfulness meditation. And are we failing if we are not mindful of each thought?
This is an excellent question and I wanted to share my response with you. The audio is about 4.5 min long. Here it is:
https://aboutmeditation.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Clip-How-To-Relate-To-Sticky-Thoughts10DMC-Clip-Thoughts.mp3
Question 2In this second clip, I'm responding to a question about letting go. How do we relate to challenging or strong emotions that arise during our practice? I answer this in the context of the mindfulness meditation practice which we've been learning this week during week 1 of the meditation challenge.
Here it the clip, also about 4.5 min long:
https://aboutmeditation.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Clip-How-To-Respond-To-Challenging-Emotions10DMC-Clip-Emotions.mp3
The post How To Relate To Challenging Thoughts & Emotions? appeared first on About Meditation.
Over the holiday, I was visiting family in North Georgia. We were there during the Winter Solstice.
And as you may know, on that day we mark the longest night of the year. Indigenous cultures the world over have celebrated the occasion with ceremony and ritual for millenia.
When my family and I were visiting Stonehenge in England this past July, we learned that the Winter Solstice is the biggest annual event there, when pagan pilgrims come to recognize and honor the “rebirth” of the sun for the new year.
And that’s what we did in Georgia.
A Solstice Burning CeremonyOne cold and windy night, my family gathered around the fire to do a burning ceremony in honor of the sun’s return.
But also, to honor the fruitful darkness.
We each wrote on small strips of paper those things we wanted and needed to let go of: hurt feelings, lingering grudges, toxic relationships, and other wounds and baggage we’d collected throughout the year.
Then we went around the circle and tossed our little paper prayers into the fire, burning each strip one by one. And we set our intention on freeing ourselves from these emotional anchors to make room for and give birth to whatever’s next.
It was a ritual act of letting go. Not unlike the implicit ritual of letting go that we exercise when we sit down in meditation.
Finding Wholeness In The Light And The DarkBut what I love about the solstice is the explicit conjunction of light and dark. You don’t think about one without the other. All of us, in our darkness and pain, are shepherds of the light.
Of course, most of us want the light and try to avoid the dark. But as clinical psychologist Dr. Steven Hays so eloquently puts it in his essay, From Loss to Love, “to open your heart to pain is to open your heart to joy.”
And that wonderful Pixar movie “Inside Out” captures the same poignant dynamic with its central revelation…when the character Joy realizes that her human, Rylee, can’t truly be happy without embracing Joy’s antagonist, the always blue “Sadness.”
One doesn’t exist without the other. Our human wholeness depends upon a balance of both.
The Restorative Spirit of DarknessAs we embark on the New Year ahead, yes, let’s celebrate the coming of the light. But the dark days are still long. And before we rush to embrace the light, let’s not forget that we find our wholeness in the fertile—and often challenging—darkness too.
To this end, allow me to share a poem. An ode to the redemptive, restorative, revelatory, and resurgent spirit of darkness.
And if you’re feeling particularly mired in the darkness, please know that you are never alone. Help is always available.
In Celebration of the Winter SolsticeBy Stephanie Noble
Do not be afraid of the darkness.
Dark is the rich fertile earth
that cradles the seed, nourishing growth.
Dark is the soft night that cradles us to rest.
Only in darkness
can stars shine across the vastness of space.
Only in darkness
is the moon’s dance so clear.
There is mystery woven in the dark quiet hours.
There is magic in the darkness.Do not be afraid.
We are born of this magic.
It fills our dreams
that root, unravel and reweave themselves
in the shelter of the deep dark night.
The dark has its own hue,
its own resonance, its own breath.
It fills our soul,
not with despair, but with promise.
Dark is the gestation of our deep and knowing self.
Dark is the cave where we rest and renew our soul.
We are born of the darkness,
and each night we return
to the deep moist womb of our beginnings.Do not be afraid of the darkness,
for in the depth of that very darkness
comes a first glimpse of our own light,
the pure inner light of love and knowing.
As it glows and grows, the darkness recedes.
As we shed our light, we shed our fear,
and revel in the wonder of all that is revealed.So, do not rush the coming of the sun.
Do not crave the lengthening of the day.
Celebrate the darkness.
Here and now. A time of richness. A time of joy.
The post The Longest Night of the Year appeared first on About Meditation.
One amazing tool we have to support our mindfulness practice is music. For me, there are certain songs that help center me in my heart.
Music helps us bypass our minds and gain direct access to the tender and sometimes cloistered chambers of our own innermost feelings.
And of course, music has been a constant around the camp fire and in the ceremony circle for as long as humans have sought to elevate their consciousness and harness the hidden secrets in their hearts.
In that spirit, I wanted to share with you some of the songs I’ve been listening to lately. These tunes often catapult me into a meditative state. Sometimes they command me to just sit and attend to the resonance in my heart.
Mostly, they soften and melt my sharp edges.
We all have this tuning fork within us…the one that stirs our soul and moves us into the deeper waters of our being.
And I appreciate that music is highly subjective and that the music of the spheres for one can sound like the devil’s dirge for others.
So, this is no way a definitive soundtrack of the heart. Just my soundtrack of the heart. And if even one of these tunes resonates for you, I’ll be happy.
Below, I’ve included a link to a Spotify playlist I’ve created and posted on my website. You can listen to it there or on Spotify. I’ll keep updating it with new songs.
Without further ado, here are the tracks, each with a word or two on why they’re on the list.
>> Listen Here
Trevor HallA Reminder
This song puts me in a trance. When I first heard it, I listened to it 30 times in a row. No exaggeration. Like so many of Hall’s tunes, the incantatory cadence hooked me right away. And then there I was, circling with him, around his reminder. For me, this song reminds me to come back to center and regain my footing in spirit and pure being. >> Listen Here
You Can’t Rush Your Healing
Darkness has its teachings. Love is never leaving. You can’t rush your healing. Confusion clouds the heart but it also points the way. Quiet down the mind, the more the song will play. In these lyrics we celebrate our confusion and our darkness as the vehicles and material for our healing. >> Listen Here
The Old Story
As I speak about often in this weekly newsletter, we all have our own narratives that haunt us and yet we continue to feed them with our attention. This is a meditation on letting go of that old story and the fear that belies it and, ultimately, about trusting yourself. >> Listen Here
Put Down What You’ve Been Carrying
Just like it sounds, this song urges us to let go of all that baggage we’ve been toting around and laboring under. >> Listen Here
Alexa Sunshine RoseI Release Control
This song cycles through a simple series of lyrics with layers and layers of harmony and rhythm. Beautiful, calming, enchanting, and a little otherworldly, this song transports me. This is a good one to sing along to, committing again and again to releasing control and surrendering to the flow of healing love. >> Listen Here
Drums On EarthEmotions
Because…drums.
>> Listen Here
YaimaGajumaru
The journey of the breath in all it's beauty, challenge, potential, and scope. What's possible when we step confidently in the direction of our soul's dictate.
Free from all old stories
I've been told
I walk through the valley
of my own shadow.
Geoffrey OryemaMakambo
Haunting. Ethereal. This song reaches out from the beyond the veil and draws you in. It’s twilight. The Golden hour is on the wane, and you feel the magic stirring. >> Listen Here
Leon BridgesThe River
The longing in this song, the bittersweet desire for union with God, Spirit, your own Beloved. The longing for absolution - to be cleansed and our conscience unburdened. It’s all here pulling on your heartstrings and thrummed out across Bridges beauitful, simple, pulsing chords strums.
Been traveling these wide roads for so long
My heart's been far from you
Ten-thousand miles gone
Oh, I wanna come near and give ya
Every part of me
But there is blood on my hands
And my lips aren't clean
In my darkness I remember
Momma's words reoccur to me
"Surrender to the good Lord
And he'll wipe your slate clean"
Take me to your river
I wanna go
Oh, go on
Take me to your river
I wanna know
>> Listen Here
Ajay FrieseThree Little Birds
A fresh and vulnerable take on the Bob Marley classic. Don’t know why, but this one touches me in the deep. >> Listen Here
Essie JainO, I love you
Who said lullabies are just for little ones? I’ve found that sometimes a well-placed lullaby will smite my heart unexpectedly with an infusion of pure tenderness. >> Listen Here
Cassandra WilsonHarvest Moon
The singing crickets and sun setting vibe on this track will put you in a liminal state of consciousness. Like floating downstream on your back with an cosmos of milky stars spinning above you and not a single care in the world except tending to the love that’s spreading outwards from your heart. >> Listen Here
The post Playlist: Meditative Songs To Soften Your Heart & Support Your Healing appeared first on About Meditation.
The Caribbean poet and playwright Derek Walcott has a lovely poem reminiscent of Rumi’s The Guest House.
The poem is called Love After Love.
Reunion is a key theme of the poem. After a life of desiring people and things outside of ourselves, we come home. To the person who’s been there with you all along.
Yourself.
Now, I love the poem for the sheer and simple beauty of the words and the nuanced message.
But I can’t help but notice how it elegantly encapsulates a key lesson we learn from mindfulness meditation.
When we practice, we return to ourselves, again and again and again. Where did we go, that we must return? Indeed, we don’t always realize that we’re lost.
But that’s exactly why the great masters exhort us to practice every day.
I’ve been meditating regularly for over 27 years, and I am still shocked at the power of my own mind to delude me. You’d think at this point it wouldn’t be a surprise, right!?
But nearly every time I sit down to practice, I am dazzled by the power of the human mind. We have these narratives spinning up in our heads all the time. We’re fantasizing about alternative futures. We’re nursing grudges, resentments, and regrets from the past.
And for me there is always this moment, when I drop into the zone of practice and slip seamlessly into the present moment.
In that space, all the deluding filters melt away.
In those moments, it’s like a fresh breeze just blew in. I can feel it on my skin. My ears open up, and I can hear car engines whirring in the distance, birds crooning and calling, dogs barking into space, crickets chorusing.
My animal body melts as the sounds resound within me.
All my senses are alive.
Yet just moments ago, I might as well have been a million miles away. All this was happening—the thrum of Life—but I wasn’t there. I felt none of it. At least not consciously.
And that is the dazzling power of our minds to cast a veil over our awareness.
Call it mind wandering, discursive thinking, the default mode network, etc. When we’re in it, we’re not really here in this reality. We’re somewhere in between. And we spend A LOT of time in that realm—not quite asleep and not quite awake.
That’s why Ram Dass wrote a whole book called Be Here Now! To urge you and me to come back home to ourselves again and again. To build a new habit of being, where we abide in the here and now, fully in our bodies, awake to our senses, and deeply alive.
This, I believe, is the bounty and richness, the kind of love that Derek Walcott is nodding to in his poem.
So here’s the poem. Let me know what you think and whether it rings true for you too.
LOVE AFTER LOVE
by Derek Walcott
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
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How do you bring your mindfulness meditation practice into your active life? There’s a simple exercise to do this.
Take a moment and reflect on this question.
Identify Reactivity & GrabWhere do you experience grab in your life? Where do you get hooked and notice reactivity rising in your experience?
It could be any number of things. Frustration with a coworker or spouse. Anger at yourself for making a mistake. Impatience with poor customer service or standing in line. Regret over saying something in a fit of passion. Maybe you get angry at other drivers in traffic.
We all have these moments of grab. And in the context of mindfulness, those instances are also where our growing edges lie. That’s where we find the food and fuel for our development.
Start to pay attention to those moments when you experience grab.
Approach It With CuriosityWhat happens? Be curious. What was the trigger and then what was the narrative that spun up inside your head in response to it?
The way to do this is when you feel that grab, when you feel your temperature rising or you feel the fight or flight kicking in, if you notice that you’re getting wound up by a story in your head, just stop for a moment and come back to your practice.
Find your breath and ride it right into the present moment. That will interrupt the pattern.
Then stay with your breath for a minute. What happens? What do you notice?
Connect to the sensations in your body – what changes?
Now that you’ve taken a step away from that reaction and that grab, what do you see and know about it? How can you respond differently?
Be Gentle!All this time, stay connected to the present moment and stay curious. Not too tight and not too loose.
And above all else, be gentle with yourself. Bring a friendly attitude to whatever you find. Even if you don’t like what you see. Befriend whatever you find there and then stay with your breath.
And remember, these areas where we experience grab tend to be unexamined regions of our psycho/emotional landscape. So we need to bring a backpack full of gentleness to this endeavor.
Gentleness can help us on multiple levels here. It can help melt our resistance to looking. It can help soften our response to what we find. It can buffer the feelings of self-criticism and judgment that may arise in response.
To all of these we bring a gentle touch.
Soften the Self-CriticismOne of my former teachers was a meditation master who also had a PhD in psychology. He talked about how we in the West suffer from an epidemic of self-criticism and self-judgment.
That really landed for me. Most of us are damn hard on ourselves.
By applying gentleness in our mindfulness practice, we start to uncoil that frozen knot around our heart. We start with that gentle attention to the breath. Like a snowflake drifting down and melting on a warm stone.
And then through that practice we get a feel for that gentleness and we bring it to bear on ourselves.
We hold everything gently.
Making Friends With YourselfIn a Trycycle article on self-compassion, Pema Chodron talks about this in a way that I find helpful. In particular, when it comes to dealing with challenging feelings and experiences with gentleness, she frames it in the context of making friends with yourself.
My teacher said that making friends with myself meant seeing everything inside me, and not running away or turning my back on it. Because that’s what real friendship is. You don’t turn your back on yourself and abandon yourself, just the way you wouldn’t give up on a good friend when their darker sides began to show up. When I became friends with my body, my mind, and my transient emotions, and when I was able to comfortably settle into myself more and more (and remember, this takes time), then staying in the present moment, in all situations, became more possible for me to do. I was able in meditation to return to my breath and stop beating myself up.
May your practice be friendly. May your practice be loving. May you open your heart to yourself.
And give this little exercise a try. Let me know how it goes.
The post Here’s How You Can Practice Self-Compassion appeared first on About Meditation.
At the heart of meditation practice, there’s a compelling koan. A paradox that creates positive tension inside of us.
In the simplest terms, it’s this.
Discovering That Nothing Is WrongWhen you really let go of all the noise in your head and let yourself drop down deep into the center of your being, there’s a boundless ocean.
There, you discover that nothing is wrong. In fact, you find out that nothing was ever wrong to begin with. Everything is perfect as it is.
In that place of perfect peace, there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do. There are no problems to solve. And most importantly, you are not a problem to solve.
And that experience is a revelation. Resting in this boundless space heals something very deep within us.
Embracing ALL Of OurselvesAt the same time, when we focus on our breath and land squarely here in the present moment, without judgment, we encounter ourselves without filters.
And that’s the other side of the paradox.
Because sometimes we may not like what we find. Perhaps it’s anger, fear, anxiety, grief, or some old story of resentment that you’ve rehashed in your head a thousand times.
At those moments, we’re challenged to hold fast to our practice and let all those hard parts of ourselves be there without judgment.
How do we do that?
Applying GentlenessWe apply one of the core principles of our mindfulness practice - gentleness.
Learning how to bring the principle of gentleness to bear in our practice is essential. As you’ll find, it slowly but surely softens the brittle, broken, and hardened parts of us. In time, gentleness melts our resistance to embracing all of ourselves.
It helps you open your heart.
How can these two seemingly opposite dimensions coexist within us? Perfection and chaos. Heaven and earth. No problem and big problems.
And there it is.
That’s the beautiful human paradox that meditation puts squarely in our lap.
In my experience, holding that tension is humbling and helps me grow and evolve.
We’ll be exploring both sides of this paradox in Coming Home - A 5 Week Mindfulness Meditation Training Course.
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There are 5 things that we all need to carry in our self-care tool box.
This was one powerful lesson that came out of the death doula training I recently took.
The general idea is this.
If we’re going to provide the kind of loving presence and balanced attention that’s required at the bedside of someone who’s dying, we need to make sure that we fill our own cup first.
Because if we don’t, inevitably we are not going to be up to the task. Something is going to come up that challenges our capacity to stay present.
That’s guaranteed.
This is also a great lesson for life in general. Especially now, when many of us are more stressed out than ever before.
So what are the five essential self-care tenets?
5 Essential Self Care TenetsLet’s take a look. And then after reading them, allow yourself a moment to reflect: “How am I doing in these five categories?” And remember, these are aspirational.
- Physical - Are you getting plenty of sleep? Are you eating enough nutrient-rich fresh food? Are you getting plenty of exercise?
- Emotional - Do you have outlets to process and compost your feelings and emotions - a framework for self-reflection, journaling, therapy, womens/non-binary/mens groups?
- Spiritual - Do you set aside time for regular prayer, meditation, and contemplation? Do you attend retreats and courses in this context?
- Relational - Do you cultivate deep connections with friends, family, or loved ones? Are you building and nurturing community in your life?
- Attitudinal - Do you try to see things from other people’s perspectives?
Together, attending to these five dynamic dimensions of self-care creates a solid foundation for living a rich and meaningful life. One filled with purpose and meaning.
Starting this week on November 8, we’ll be tending to the spiritual and emotional elements of this list in Coming Home: A 5-Week Mindfulness Meditation Course.
Here’s a snapshot of the course schedule:
Class 1: Introduction to mindfulness meditation and core practice instructions
Class 2: Cultivating gentleness and friendliness
Class 3: Applying precision to the view and technique of mindfulness
Class 4: Letting go of old stories and narratives that don't serve us
Class 5: Reducing reactivity and not making a problem out of thoughts and feelings
Retreat: Dec 18th, 11am-1pm ET – Graduation
Also, we’ll set up a complimentary one on one call so you can tell me about your goals, your visions, and your intentions for the course. That will help me tailor the program to meet you where you are.
>> You can learn more and register for the course here.
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Show Notes* Leap X Consulting * The Flow Research Collective * The Art of Impossible by Steven Kotler * Stealing Fire by Steven Kotler * The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler
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There’s one thing I noticed pretty quickly when I started to practice mindfulness meditation. And it’s something I come back to ALOT.
In a lot of ways, it’s the heart of my practice.
It’s about relationships. In particular, it’s about relating to my six-year old daughter. She’s smart and sassy and she’s a real joker.
Having a little girl grants me a lot of gifts. For example, she’s taught me how to play again. How to get down on the ground and relate at kid-level. It’s a whole different world!
Avoiding Relationship, Avoiding OurselvesBut it’s also forced me to see the many many ways that I run from my relationships. Of course, I don’t think of myself in that way because I’m generally an extrovert.
And that’s what I’m talking about.
Through my practice, I started to notice that sometimes I just disconnect from my little person. Usually, it’s because I’m overwhelmed.
At those times, it’s easier to go into a rote response and stop genuinely relating to her as a little human being with very big feelings.
I go on autopilot and become a two-dimensional rule enforcer. And the thing is, kids really feel this kind of disconnect.
Take a Breath, Stop Running, Get CuriousMindfulness meditation has helped me not only to identify this pattern, which is already a win.
But it’s also given me tools to stop checking out when I feel overwhelmed and when the demands of parenting push me outside my comfort zone.
How?
Mostly, it comes down to reconnecting to my breath and remembering that I’m alive right now and right here in this moment. And instead of running from that feeling of overwhelm, I turn towards it and get curious.
From that place, I’m connected again. To myself and to my daughter.
And it’s always amazing what I find there. There are resources available to us in these moments when we come back to our own ground of being. Creativity, flexibility, ease of being.
The dignity of facing myself squarely…with compassion.
Meditation for LifeThis move is simple, yes. But not always easy. That’s why we practice!
Practicing mindfulness meditation is as much about what happens off the pillow as on it. Maybe even more so.
As I hope it’s clear from this example, we practice on the meditation cushion so that we can remember not to run away from our experience in moments like these when we’re stressed, overwhelmed, anxious, scared, or enraged.
We’ll be learning how to cultivate these skills in Coming Home: A 5-week Mindfulness Meditation Course.
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I just finished a 5-day contemplative care training at our local Zen center. Some people refer to this as death doula training.
It was moving, poignant, and heart-wrenching in the best way.
And needless to say, I shed more than a few tears as we confronted some of the more fragile parts of ourselves.
Directly contemplating one’s mortality (and the mortality of our beloveds) has this way of putting you right up against it. There are just some things I can’t ever imagine losing. And by things, I mean people.
Walking Each Other HomeOf course, we’re all going to walk through that door someday. And I love how Ram Dass talks about it.
He says “We’re all just walking each other home.”
I love that so much.
It speaks so beautifully to what we’re doing here together on earth. During the brief flash of our incandescent lives.
We’re Called To Deeper WorkThat there’s a deeper story at work that isn’t reflected in our daily grind, the media, and our culture at large.
Yes, we’re building lives and livelihoods and fighting our respective corners. But on another level, I think we’re all eventually called to much deeper work than that.
We touch into that work when we face our mortality and everything that comes up in that process. And it’s a great metaphor for our mindfulness meditation practice.
In both cases, we are invited to tend to and heal the broken and disowned parts of ourselves and our lives.
Just as our culture furiously tries to hide death and our mortality and our “ancient treasures” as one person in my course lovingly referred to our aging family members. So it also compels us to honor and share only the shiny, happy, thriving, successful parts of ourselves.
But practicing mindfulness is an invitation to enter the present moment, without that judgment, and honor it all.
Attention to the broken piecesAgain, allow me to turn to a poem from The Way of the Wise Woman for help in expressing these ideas.
lviii.
The Wise Woman knows there is a well-worn
Path to that end and all maps lead there,
To that inner devastation, the war-torn
Human heart, the place where
Attention dwells;
The path out of hell
Passes through the broken heart
So that’s where all healing has to start.
It is by loving Attention to the broken pieces
That Human suffering eventually ceases.
After the last 5 days, I’m more certain than ever that tending to the broken, misshapen, traumatized, hurt, and disowned parts of ourselves is where we find the juice for transformation.
For me, it’s the pathway home to my own broken but beating, loving, feeling, and healing heart.
Through mindfulness meditation, we can begin this healing process and help walk each other home.
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It is not the perfect but the imperfect that is most in need of our love. – Oscar Wilde
Over the last 28 years, I’ve done tens of thousands of hours of spiritual practice. I’ve sat in long silent retreats without moving a muscle.
In those times, I’ve felt grace and light flood my mind and body.
Stillness and silence settled so deep into me that my spirit set sail on a boundless sea of awareness.
But as blissful and amazing and important as those experiences were, none of them ultimately helped me deal with the most important thing.
Yes, they helped me understand that there’s part of me that is limitless and untouched by the chaos and pain of our world.
And that’s priceless.
How To Feel and Heal Our HumanityBut those experiences didn’t help me deal with the other limited and imperfect dimension of myself.
I’m talking about the aspects of myself that I keep neatly tucked away under the bed or in the closet. My fears, anxieties, doubts, aggression, and my very human need for control.
For me, it wasn’t until I started practicing mindfulness meditation that I discovered how some meditation practices are better calibrated to help us feel and heal that very fallible, very human part of ourselves.
And I find that from that fertile ground of mindfulness, a different kind of self can start to spring. One where I’m no longer turning away from some of me while embracing the rest of me.
Through mindfulness, I discover that I can hold it all…gently. And in that, I find a more enduring sort of peace.
A Form of FearlessnessI love the way that John Wellwood PhD, a renowned psychologist, psychotherapist, and spiritual practitioner speaks to this. He talks about it in the context of fearlessness.
He says:
“So delving into feelings might sound like indulgence, but I would say that the willingness to meet your experience nakedly is a form of fearlessness. Trungpa Rinpoche taught that fearlessness is the willingness to meet and feel your fear. We could expand that to say fearlessness is the willingness to meet, face, include, make room for, welcome, allow, open to, surrender to whatever we’re experiencing. It’s actually quite brave to acknowledge, feel, and open to your need for healthy attachment and connectedness, for example, especially if you’re relationally wounded.”
The great poet, Oscar Wilde, put it a little differently. But it’s a similar message. He said:
“It is not the perfect but the imperfect that is most in need of our love.”
Amen.
Everything Is Food For the SoulAnd finally, this poem, from a lovely and accessible chapbook that I like to read in the wee hours. It’s called The Way of The Wise Woman by Red Hawk. If you, too, enjoy poetry as a vehicle for accessing the cloistered vaults of your mind and heart, I recommend this book wholeheartedly.
xxxiii.
For the Wise Women, everything is food
To feed her Soul, from the steady streams
Of thought to the rush of emotion;
The soul feeds on energy transformation,
Negative energy into love. Not fooled by the dreams
Desire spins, the Wise Woman stays steady in her attitude
And is not ruled by every changing mood.
To grow and mature, the Soul must be fed well:
Just as a chick eats the yolk to escape its shell,
The Soul consumes negativity to escape from hell.
How The Light Gets InFor me, what these excerpts and poems are pointing towards is the durable and stable soul strength and peace of being that comes from embracing and including our shadow.
Sure, it’s hard work. Yes, it might break your heart. Definitely, you will confront the darker parts of yourself. The “imperfect” that is most in need of our love.
But as someone once said, this is how the light gets in…through the broken bits.
And it’s all right here. That’s the amazing truth about mindfulness. Everything is always right here. It’s a practice of curiosity and presence. We ride the breath into the present moment and enter the zone of discovery.
And if we choose to look with that gentle presence and curiosity, we start to come home and to feel and heal those long-neglected regions of our being.
Please let me know if and how this is all landing for you too. I’d love to hear.
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Do you ever have one of those moments when a poem, a song, or a piece or writing just pierces your heart and hits you square?
Recently I was taking a meditation training and someone shared a remarkable poem. Somehow, it seemed to encapsulate our entire retreat.
Yes, it’s about mindfulness, and about being kind to ourselves. But it’s about so much more than that.
It’s really about that elusive goal of a life well-lived, which Socrates put in such a pithy and timeless way.
He said: “Know Thyself!”
Or the slightly longer version, “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.”
In fact, I love this poem so much that I had it framed. Now it sits in my meditation practice room in a beautiful big red frame.
I did this because I wanted to remind myself WHY I’m sitting down to meditate each morning.
The name of the poem is The Guest House by Rumi. Here it is.
The Guest HouseThis being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.-by Rumi
Can you relate?
And it’s true. Mindfulness is about welcoming all of it. The good, the glorious, the bad, the abysmal, and every shade between. Embracing all of ourselves is no small challenge.
But ironically, that’s where resilience, clarity, and equanimity come from. Intentionally being with it all.
More than any other meditation practice I’ve done, mindfulness meditation has helped me live the lessons of The Guest House.
To be right here, curious, and welcoming the whole messy business of me.
All of it.
If you can relate, let me know what you think of the poem. Or just pop a high five/fist bump/thumbs up in the comments because…Rumi.
Oh, and here’s a picture of that framed version of The Guest House sitting in my meditation room.
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In early 2020, before any of us had heard anything about a lethal virus emerging from Wuhan Province, China, I attended a life changing 8-day Mahamudra meditation retreat with Harvard neuropsychologist and Vajrayana master Daniel P. Brown PHd. After a nine year pause on spiritual retreats, this was my first extended in-person retreat with a […]
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In this episode, filmmaker Sanjay Rawal and I explore our shared experience with Sri Chimnoy (my first spiritual teacher) and discover–to our shared surprise–that we joined Sri Chimnoy’s community around the same time and attended some of the same events. We explore the inspiring work of Sri Chimnoy and his extraordinary and hugely influential teacher, […]
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In this episode, Julie and Morgan discuss the part of you and I that is forever untouched by the chaos and disruption of this crisis. We explore that limitless part of the self and how it can serve as a powerful point of calm grounding in the storm of our lives in this historical moment. […]
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In this episode, I interview my former mentor and spiritual teacher Jeff Carreira. Jeff and I lived, worked, and practiced in an intentional spiritual community together for 13 years in Western Massachusetts. Jeff was not only a spiritual mentor to me during that time, but he was also my boss. Jeff was the Director of […]
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(The script for this guided meditation comes from Tom Lynch, PHD at http://RadicallyOpen.net.) When times are tough, sometimes the best way to clear your head and open your heart is to focus on other people. So in that spirit, I’ve recorded a Loving Kindness Meditation for you. I think we could all use a little […]
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In this second part of my interview with Dr. Daniel P. Brown, we explore the second stage of training in Mahamudra Pointing Out The Great Way. In part 1, we explored the Elephant Path of concentration and meditation, which is the first stage of training in Mahamudra Pointing Out The Great Way. Special Offer […]
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In this first part of my interview with Daniel P. Brown, we explore the first stage of training in Mahamudra Pointing Out The Great Way called the Elephant Path of concentration, meditation, and peak performance. In part 2, we explore the second stage of training in Mahamudra Pointing Out The Great Way. Special Offer for […]
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Over 25 years ago, I attended boarding school and got to live, work, and study with some remarkable people. One of those people was a classmate named Hui Neng Amos. Neng was one of my dorm prefects. And in addition to being a generally kind and easy going guy, Neng practiced this strange and–to my […]
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What is intention and why is it one of the most important pillars of meditation and our spiritual life in general? Two events brought this to mind for me recently and they were important enough to me that I wanted to share them. And for context, I’ve thought a lot about intention. When I lived […]
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I’m delighted to introduce you to Daniel Piatek, a spiritual guide to many and an old friend and mentor of mine. Daniel and I spent several years living, working, and meditating together in a contemporary spiritual ashram. That was almost 20 years ago. These days, Daniel leads transformational spiritual travel adventures. His upcoming “Reunion with […]
The post A Guided Meditation to Discover Your Next Right Steps: Advice From Your Future appeared first on About Meditation.
How do you keep your meditation practice strong and steady? How do you stay inspired? In this episode, I share some of the things that have added fuel to my fire and helped a lot to keep my meditation practice fruitful. In particular, we explore the power of getting up early as a way to […]
The post OM095 – Early Mornings, Intermittent Fasting, And Tips To Propel Your Practice appeared first on About Meditation.
BIO: Dr. Jeffery Martin is a founder of the Transformative Technology space, serial entrepreneur and social scientist who researches personal transformation and the states of greatest human well-being. He spent the last 10 years conducting the largest international study on persistent non-symbolic experience (PNSE), which includes the types of consciousness commonly known as: enlightenment, nonduality, the peace that […]
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“Your own mind is a sacred enclosure into which nothing harmful can enter except by your permission.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson Do you have days when you feel a little out of control? Maybe even a little crazy? I sure do. Sometimes events spiral out of my control (surprise surprise!), my emotional center veers off balance, and […]
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In ordinary life, we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich. – Dietrich Bonhoeffer On a recent weekend retreat, I experienced some challenging moments. It’s not the first time. In my life, I’ve gone on more silent retreats than I […]
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I’m delighted to share my interview with Daniel Palazuelos. Dan’s approach to medicine and public health is deeply informed by his meditation practice and his passion for zen and poetry. Together, these influences have helped Dan nurture a perspective and approach to his work (and life) that is founded on compassion. In this interview, we […]
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When I first heard that Mark led guided meditations at the local hospital here in Boston, I was intrigued. I then learned that he also creates guided meditations for the popular meditation app Calm. That’s when I knew I wanted to interview him for the podcast. So today I’m excited to share my interview with […]
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Kate Manser is so happy to be alive. Here’s her story. In 2013, Kate’s 27-year old manager at Google and her 27-year old college friend died in unrelated, unexpected tragedies. It shocked and terrified her, and she developed a fear of death that began to take over her life: she would imagine getting hit as […]
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Megan Marini is a speaker on emotional intelligence and conscious leadership. After leaving a job in finance to teach yoga, she dove into wellness and leadership. Later attending Naropa, a contemplative psychology and Buddhist college where she started building communities and mission driven brands. Today she runs Boston Men’s Group, a project that prepares men […]
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In this week’s One Mind Podcast I review the book Radical Acceptance, written by buddhist teacher and clinical psychotherapist, Tara Brach. Believing that something is wrong with us is a deep and tenacious suffering,” says Tara Brach at the start of this illuminating book. This suffering emerges in crippling self-judgments and conflicts in our relationships, […]
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BIO: Jonathan Mozenter is a consultant, coach, and educator. His work focuses on helping organizations and individuals manage positive change. Jonathan helps clients to understand where they’re at, identify current challenges, then build and implement plans to help realize their life vision. Professionally, he has been working with people for more than 20 years in […]
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BIO Wim Hof got his nickname “The Iceman” after he broke a number of records with regards to resisting cold. Some of his feats include climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in shorts, running a half marathon above the Arctic Circle on his bare feet, and standing in a container while covered with ice cubes for more than […]
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This week I’m delighted to share my interview with Bud Torcom, CEO and Co-founder of Mazama Media, a digital media agency and a member of Facebook’s exclusive Small Business Council. As Bud’s company grew, he took on more and more stress and anxiety. He realized he needed to reduce his anxiety and attempted to start […]
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BIO: Gabriel Baldwin began learning mindfulness as a fifteen year old at a mindfulness retreat for teenagers at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS). As a depressed and bullied teen, learning mindfulness was invaluable to overcoming these challenges. As a staff person on these retreats since 2008 he has now participated in well over 25 with […]
The post OM084 – Helping Students Practice Mindfulness in the Classroom with Gabriel Baldwin appeared first on About Meditation.
I recently had the privilege of reconnecting with an old friend of mine, Tola Oguntoyinbo, an artist and entrepreneur living in Chapel Hill, NC. I had a blast in this conversation with Tola. In addition to exploring how meditation practice compliments his art, we explored Tola’s life-changing experience on a 10-day Vipassana Silent Retreat. Vipassana–a […]
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BIO Errol Doebler is the founder of Leader 193. He brings passion to leadership based on his experience as a Navy SEAL Platoon Commander, FBI Special Agent and SWAT Operator, as well as his time as a leader in the private sector in New York City and Washington, DC. Errol’s diverse experience in leading combat […]
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Julie Hunt is a Chopra Center Certified Meditation Instructor devoted to helping people live healthier and happier stress free lives using meditation.
The post OM081: Julie Hunt Chopra Global Certified Meditation and Perfect Health Instructor appeared first on About Meditation.
Matthew Ferry on the Path to Enlightened Prosperity. He is global thought leader in personal transformation who creates results by teaching you how to be happy now, regardless of the circumstances of life.
The post OM080: Matthew Ferry on the Path to Enlightened Prosperity appeared first on About Meditation.
Bio Sandra Bershad, MA is an Intuitive Mentor, Psychic Channel and Transformational Guide for Conscious Visionaries, Leaders, and Highly Sensitive Empaths. Devoted to revitalizing the wisdom of every person’s true essence, Sandra empowers her clients to excavate what no longer serves them and transform their limiting beliefs and programming so that they can consciously actualize […]
The post OM079: Sandra Bershad on Psychic Powers and Daily Meditation appeared first on About Meditation.
Have you ever wanted to learn more about the relationship between meditation, technology, and leadership? This week I’m excited to share an interview with you all about this topic. I was delighted to join former Navy SEAL Platoon Commander, FBI Special Agent and SWAT Operator Errol Doebler and his cohost Zac Ruiz for their Leadership in […]
The post Leading, Coding, And Meditating appeared first on About Meditation.
Julia Rymut In this episode, Julia Rymut and I explore the arc of her meditative experiences. From her early adventures in India and her misadventures in a spiritual ashram to her more seasoned Buddhist practice today, Julia and I riff on the journey of growing into a mature meditation practice. Julia is a yogi, meditator, […]
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What’s the point of meditation? There are lots of different takes on this based on your religion, your mode of practice, your philosophy of life, etc. But for many of us, we meditate to feel better. We want to bring some much needed peace and stability that’s missing, into our lives. To relieve stress. To […]
The post OM077: Fuel Your Meditation Practice with this Not-So-Secret Ingredient appeared first on About Meditation.
Guest Bio Brad Kershner is a school leader, philosopher, and longtime meditation practitioner. He earned his MA in Philosophy of Religions at the University of Chicago, and is completing his PhD in Education at Boston College. He has studied with Buddhist teachers in zen, vipassana, and mahamudra lineages. He is currently Head of the Early […]
The post OM076: Brad Kershner on Integrating Meditation & Your Life appeared first on About Meditation.
Mahamudra Meditation with John Churchill Born in London, England, John Churchill’s interest in meditative and contemplative studies began as a teenager. After leaving high school, he joined Samye Ling Kagyu Monastery in Scotland where he began his studies in Mahayana and Mahamudra Buddhism. He came to the United States to study at Naropa, a Buddhist […]
The post OM075: John Churchill on Mahamudra Meditation & A Vision For Enlightened Culture appeared first on About Meditation.
Kenzo An is a successful marathon runner, a long-time meditator, and a thriving salesman in the Fintech industry. He’s also a regular contributor here at Aboutmeditation.com. In this episode of the One Mind Podcast, we unpack the core themes from some of Kenzo An’s most recent blog posts including: The transforming power of meditation. How solo retreats […]
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Have you ever paid attention to the way you think? Have you ever noticed that your thinking is often repetitive or unoriginal? One of the biggest things meditation can help you with is becoming aware of your habits of thought. Through regular and consistent practice, we slowly but surely lift up and out of the […]
The post OM073: Do You Know What You’re Thinking? appeared first on About Meditation.
How do you start your day? Do you take time to cultivate the conditions for success and thriving, whatever that looks like for you? It’s an important question and one that I think about a lot. I am a huge fan of morning routines. And the thing is, if you’re interested in change. If you’re […]
The post OM072: What’s Your Morning Routine? appeared first on About Meditation.
Stress is a killer. The science is clear. With all our success and achievement, there is an invisible cost. Our physical, emotional and psychological health take a beating over time. And sometimes there is no return. Stress is also addictive. Just like caffeine is the magic ingredient that powers our love for coffee, chronic stress […]
The post How To Manage Stress Through Meditation & Mindfulness appeared first on About Meditation.
In the spirit of the New Year, here is a new year guided meditation on mindful presence. Mindfulness is all about paying attention. We all have these wonderful and rich organs of perception. Our senses. Mindfulness is about getting out of your head and into your world and we do that through paying attention. Your five […]
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It’s been a challenging few weeks here in the United States. There’s been a surge of violence on a number of fronts. Because of social media and our 24 hour news cycle, we are all a lot more exposed to the violence and trauma of these events. If you’re like me, it hits you right […]
The post OM071: The 5 Steps To Mindful Grieving appeared first on About Meditation.
iRest is a research-based transformative practice of deep relaxation and meditative inquiry that: releases negative emotions and thought patterns, calms the nervous system, and develops a deep capacity to meet any and all circumstances you may encounter in life. -Dr. Richard Miller Healing Emotional Trauma With iRest Meditation You can read the full writeup on the […]
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This podcast is based on an essay from meditation teacher Jeff Carreira. You can read the original article as well as previous articles and podcasts with Jeff at the links below. Enjoy! A Meditation On Falling In Love With The Present Moment We understand everything through metaphors and falling in love is the perfect metaphor to […]
The post OM069: A Meditation On Falling In Love & The Present Moment appeared first on About Meditation.
Let me ask you, what do you think of when you think about summer? For a lot of us, that word evokes feelings of warmth and comfort and happiness. For me, summer is all about meditation. Guided Meditation For Summer Abundance I think of the magical twilight in summer. The pink, red, purple, and blue […]
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Do you know how to practice mantra meditation? It’s a lot easier than you might think. However, there are a few things you need to understand before you get started. First, you need to know the different between free and focused awareness. Then, you need to know where to put your attention while you’re chanting. […]
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What is a mindful pregnancy and why is it important? Pregnancy is such a blessing, heralding new life and the miracle of creation. But it’s also a time of tremendous stress. That stress, if left unchecked, is potentially dangerous for both mum and baby. So how can you mitigate stress and cultivate a mindful mindset during pregnancy […]
The post OM066: Mindful Pregnancy, Birth, & Postpartum appeared first on About Meditation.
What does a mindful approach to pregnancy look like and why is it important? Pregnancy is such a blessing, heralding new life and the miracle of creation. But it’s also a time of tremendous stress. That stress, if left unchecked, is potentially dangerous for both mum and baby. So how can you mitigate stress and cultivate a […]
The post OM065: From Islam To Enlightenment And Back Again (Mindfulness And Pregnancy Series) appeared first on About Meditation.
What is Vipassana meditation and how do you practice it? According to many, Vipassana meditation is the actual practice that gave rise to the Buddha’s enlightenment over two and a half thousand years ago. Today, Vipassana is considered one of the most popular forms of Buddhist meditation. In the West, it was popularized by contemporary American […]
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What is flow? According to Dr. Greg Cartin, a sport psychology consultant who works with professional athletes, artists, and performers, it’s a unique intersection of skill and challenge where the challenge at hand is just a hair more demanding than our actual skill level. These are the conditions that give rise to flow states, when […]
The post OM063: The Science & Psychology Of Flow States appeared first on About Meditation.
By penetrating very deeply the present moment, the past and future fall away, and you become free. Fear is the demon that prevents us from letting go of the past and the future, that in turn, keeps us from spontaneously plunging into the present. ~ Joe Gifford A 95 Year Old Yogi Do you fear […]
The post OM062: 95 Year Old Yogi On The Joys of Life, Death, & Meditation appeared first on About Meditation.
What is the difference between meditation and mindfulness? Recently I joined fellow meditator and Showrunner Harry Duran, the host of Podcast Junkies, to discuss this question and much more. It was an honor to join Harry on his show. We explore the importance of meditation teachers and mentors, the power of going on silent retreat, […]
The post OM061: The Real Reason I Started Meditating appeared first on About Meditation.
If you haven’t listened to part 1 of this special 2-part series on Sufi Meditation with About Meditation cofounder Tom Bershad, please start here. What is Sufi meditation and how do you practice it? Aboutmeditation.com cofounder Tom Bershad has practiced the Sufi Way for over two decades. Tom started meditating as a young man when he […]
The post OM060: Visiting Rumi’s Tomb & The Sufi Way (Part 2) appeared first on About Meditation.
What is Sufi meditation and how do you practice it? Aboutmeditation.com cofounder Tom Bershad has practiced the Sufi Way for over two decades. Tom started meditating as a young man when he formally took up Transcendental Meditation (TM) in the early ’70s. Now, over 40 years later, he’s logged thousands of hours of meditation. But for […]
The post OM059: How To Practice Sufi Meditation (Part 1) appeared first on About Meditation.
Gibran Rivera is an internationally renowned master facilitator who has devoted his life to the development of leaders and organizational transformation. Recently, he completed an inspired run of 100 days of meditation. In truth, that’s not all that strange for Gibran. He’s walked a meditation-based spiritual path for more than a decade. Instead, what’s interesting is […]
The post OM058: 100 Days Of Meditation With Gibran Rivera appeared first on About Meditation.
A New York Times reporter reveals what business leaders around the country are already discovering: meditation may be the key to fostering a happier, more productive workplace.
The post OM057: David Gelles, NYT Reporter and Author of Mindful Work appeared first on About Meditation.
Guided Meditation For Stress Relief This episode of the OneMind Meditation Podcast is an abbreviated version of our last episode which addressed the stress associated with the US presidential election. Several of you requested an abbreviated version of that guided meditation, without the prelude and commentary. So this guided meditation for stress and relaxation will ground […]
The post OM056: Guided Meditation For Stress Relief appeared first on About Meditation.
Does the election cycle stress you out? The other day, I was scrolling through social media, and every other post was about the U.S. presidential election. And as you can imagine, most of it was polarizing and vitriolic. The deeper I got into it, the more angry and stressed out I felt. It seemed to […]
The post OM055: Guided Meditation For Election Stress appeared first on About Meditation.
Practice makes perfect. It’s an old adage we all know too well. But what does it mean in the context of meditation? If you pan back and look at all the major breakthroughs in art, science, spirituality, and other fields, you’ll discover practitioners who’ve invested thousands of hours of hard work. Often that work is […]
The post OM054: Why Practice Makes Perfect In Meditation (What would Jimi Hendrix say?) appeared first on About Meditation.
Can technology really help you meditate? What if there was a piece of hardware that actually let you know when you’re mind is wandering? And in doing so, helped you bring it back to center. Well, it’s not sci-fi and you don’t have to wait. The technology to do this exists. In fact, it’s been around for […]
The post OM053: Exploring MUSE The Brain Sensing Headband with Ariel Garten appeared first on About Meditation.
Do you ever struggle to get to sleep? Finding the right guided meditation for deep sleep isn’t always easy. In this guided meditation—designed to help you fall into a refreshing slumber—we focus on relaxing and letting go of the past. Is Insomnia An Epidemic? If you struggle with insomnia or just logging a sound night of […]
The post OM052: Guided Meditation For Deep Sleep appeared first on About Meditation.
How do you nurture mindful relationships? And what is a mindful relationship anyways? Every adult who’s had an intimate partner knows that healthy relationships take work and a lot of practice. They’re like a a garden. You can’t take it for granted. If you tend it carefully, mind the bad weather, and nurture it over […]
The post OM051: How To Nurture Mindful Relationships appeared first on About Meditation.
Middle school and meditation. Sounds a little like oil and water to me. Focus, stillness, relaxation, and equanimity aren’t the first things that spring to mind when you think of adolescents launching into puberty. It is, after all, the greatest physical, mental, and emotional transformation of their young lives. But maybe we need to look at it differently? Maybe […]
The post OM050: Teaching Meditation To Middle Schoolers With Ross Robertson appeared first on About Meditation.
How often do you need to meditate? To advance in your practice, should you meditate every day? This is the question that we explore in this episode of the OneMind Meditation podcast. Why We Struggle With A Daily Practice Let’s start with the perennial problem. A lot of people feel guilty because they start meditating and then […]
The post OM049: Should You Meditate Every Day? appeared first on About Meditation.
What happens when you find that you aren’t actually living your own life? When you’re there, but not there? When the perfect Molotov cocktail of stress, ambition, and an ego-infused corporate culture drive you to physical breakdown. Because, it happens more than you might think. In this episode of the OneMind Meditation podcast, we explore […]
The post OM048: The Journey From Chronic Stress To Mindful Presence appeared first on About Meditation.
What are affirmations and how do they work? Can a daily meditation practice compliment your affirmations? In this episode of The OneMind Meditation podcast, I explore these questions about meditation and affirmations with Harry Duran. I met Harry on a 10-day silent retreat. He’s a long-time meditator and the host of a popular podcast called Podcast Junkies. In […]
The post OM047: Meditation And The Power Of Affirmations appeared first on About Meditation.
What is the relationship between menopause and meditation? Can meditation help during this significant life transition? According to holistic health coach Katherine Miller, yes it can. Meditation And Menopause Katherine Miller is a holistic health coach and former meditation teacher and yoga instructor. Recently, she finished hosting a successful global tele-summit called Menopause Is A Trip. […]
The post OM046: Meditation And Menopause: Everything You Need To Know appeared first on About Meditation.
How do you practice mindfulness during your day? What are some mindfulness exercises that can connect us more deeply to ourselves and to the world and people around us? In this short audio, we explore two mindfulness tips that will ground and deepen your connection to life. Two Mindfulness Tips First, we explore the power of […]
The post OM045: Two Mindfulness Tips That Can Change Your Life appeared first on About Meditation.
This simple beginners guide will help you become a better meditator. We want you to love meditation and develop rich rewards in the form of inner peace, a focused mind, and a centered soul. So we’ve collected some of the best of About Meditation’s how-to articles and practice tips into a simple guide to help you […]
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Stress is a killer. It’s no exaggeration to say that our society is stricken with a stress epidemic. Stress is also one of the biggest reasons why people are turning to the time-honored practice of meditation for relief. Stress does all sorts of damage at the emotional, psychological, physical, and spiritual levels of our being. […]
The post A Beginner’s Guide to Relaxation And Stress appeared first on About Meditation.
What is the difference between meditation and mindfulness. Recently I joined fellow meditator and Showrunner Harry Duran, the host of Podcast Junkies, to discuss this question and much more. We explore the importance of meditation teachers and mentors, the power of going on silent retreat, the difference between mindfulness and meditation, the incredibly short time we have […]
The post What Is The Difference Between Meditation and Mindfulness? appeared first on About Meditation.
What is the relationship between meditation and healing? Can meditation heal trauma? That’s a question we get asked a lot here at About Meditation. That makes sense, because these days, many people embrace meditation as a way to heal from different kinds of trauma. I came to meditation over twenty years ago on a quest for meaning. I […]
The post OM043: How Mindfulness Heals & Opens The Heart appeared first on About Meditation.
For this holiday week we are replaying the episode on How To Turn Meditation Into A Keystone Habit. This is one of the most popular episodes of the OneMind Meditation Podcast. If you’d like to learn more about how to turn meditation into a habit, here’s a list of resources. Listen & Read: Listen to: OM 006: Build […]
The post OM042: How To Turn Meditation Into A Keystone Habit appeared first on About Meditation.
Recently I was interviewed by meditator and entrepreneur Sonia Thompson on the subject of meditation. Sonia is a good friend and she asked some very insightful questions. In fact, Sonia’s questions were so closely aligned with the most popular questions we receive here at AboutMeditation.com that I decided to dedicate this episode of the podcast to answering […]
The post OM041: 7 Questions About Meditation That Everyone Asks appeared first on About Meditation.
Meditation and productivity. They certainly make for strange bedfellows. How, after all, can an ancient esoteric practice focused on “non-doing” help you to do more in less time with less wear on your system? This is the question I set out to answer in this episode of The OneMind Meditation Podcast. At the end of […]
The post OM040: Meditation & Productivity: Everything You Need To Know appeared first on About Meditation.
What is brainwave entrainment and what does it have to do with meditation? Often referred to as binaural meditation, many people claim this technology can enhance your meditation practice and actually accelerate your mental, emotional, and spiritual growth. In fact, there’s a body of research which supports these claims. Brainwave entrainment has even proved effective in helping […]
The post OM039: Can Brainwave Entrainment Meditation Accelerate Your Growth? appeared first on About Meditation.
What is tai chi? Is it true that this ancient martial art, often referred to as a form of moving meditation, can impact the health of your mind, heart, bones, nerves, muscles, and immune system? In fact, the latest research out of Harvard supports these claims and more. Of course, Tai Chi masters have known this […]
The post OM038: Harvard’s Guide To Tai Chi (Moving Meditation) appeared first on About Meditation.
Be grateful for adversity, for it forces the human spirit to grow. For surely the human character is formed not in the absence of difficulty but in our response to difficulty. ~Jim Rohn Have you ever come back from death? There aren’t a lot of people on earth who can say they’ve died and come […]
The post OM037: Meditation & The Miracle Morning with Hal Elrod appeared first on About Meditation.
I have come to feel that nothing is more tonic—more urgent, in fact—than simply doing nothing. ~Pico Iyer What is the art of doing nothing? Is it just a fancy spin on lazy navel gazing? Or is it, like many suggest, an important refresher for your brain and a profound contemplative practice? These days “doing nothing” is […]
The post OM036: Meditation And The Art Of Doing Nothing appeared first on About Meditation.
There are a lot of evergreen meditation tips. There are techniques and tricks you can learn along the way. But I’ve found that one lesson stands above the rest. After meditating for more than two decades, I’ve come to call it the Golden Rule of meditation. The Golden Rule is simple. In essence, it tells […]
The post OM035: The Golden Rule of Meditation (Everything You Need To Know) appeared first on About Meditation.
Be aware of yourself and know yourself. No matter how much you have learned and how much you know, if you don’t know yourself you don’t know anything. ~Zen Master Shosan What does a modern-day warrior look like? Does being a warrior have anything to do with meditation? And when was the last time you […]
The post OM034: Why This Pro Boxer Meditates Every Single Day appeared first on About Meditation.
We’re fascinated by the words. But where we meet is in the silence behind them. ~Ram Dass Why do we need silence? That disarming question launched a recent conversation I had with a health reporter. The answer to that question has many parts. Why? Because there’s inner silence and there’s outer silence. They’re related, but they’re […]
The post OM033: Why We Need Silence Much More Than We Think appeared first on About Meditation.
Where do meditation and psychology intersect? For several decades, these two models of self-understanding—one based in religion and the other in science—have started to mingle and merge. As mindfulness steadily develops a body of research to support it’s efficacy in treating stress, depression, anxiety, and emotional trauma, we’ve seen the simultaneous rise of mindfulness-based psychotherapy. In this […]
The post OM032: Growth & Insight Through Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy appeared first on About Meditation.
Meditation can be challenging. That’s especially true when you’re starting out. It’s easy to get lost, confused, frustrated, or just bored. As you wade into the deeper waters of contemplative arts like meditation, it’s important to understand the terrain. For example, it’s helpful to know where you can expect challenges. Where (and when) are you going to have […]
The post OM031: Having Trouble Meditating? 5 Common Challenges Every Meditator Needs To Understand appeared first on About Meditation.
Do you have a clear way to manage your stress? When your stomach drops out and your adrenaline kicks in, what do you do? According to a mountain of scientific evidence, stress erodes nearly every significant system in our body. That’s why it’s important to develop some conscious tools to help you mitigate the effects of stress […]
The post OM030: 4 Mindful Steps To Manage Stress With Meditation appeared first on About Meditation.
Can meditation make you 10% happier than you already are? According to Dan Harris, the co-anchor of ABC News’ “Nightline” and the weekend edition of “Good Morning America,” the answer is unequivocally “Yes.” After covering the religion beat for ABC News, Dan discovered meditation and wrote the bestselling book 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice […]
The post OM029: How To Be 10% Happier with Bestselling Author Dan Harris appeared first on About Meditation.
What can you learn from the practice of mindfulness? Why has this ancient practice exploded into the mainstream? You may have noticed the long-time meditators among us looking bewildered but happy about this geek-to-chic transition. One definition of mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment with nonjudgmental awareness. That sounds simple, but it’s endlessly subtle. The truth […]
The post OM028: How To Practice Basic Mindfulness with Julianna Raye appeared first on About Meditation.
Awakening self compassion is often the greatest challenge people face on the spiritual path. ~Tara Brach What’s the right way to deal with emotional pain during meditation? Often, difficult emotions arise in meditation when we least expect it. We don’t tend to welcome those feelings with open arms. For most of us, the natural response to any sort of uncomfortable feelings is to tuck tail and move […]
The post OM027: How To Manage Grief And Emotional Pain During Meditation appeared first on About Meditation.
This infographic is republished with permission from Best Medical Degrees.
The post How Meditation Can Save Your Life [Infographic] appeared first on About Meditation.
What if you had a map of everything? I don’t mean the kind of map that gets you from London to Sydney. I’m talking about one that leads you from the befuddled state of confusion to the great state of clarity. From the lowlands of lagging inertia to the summit of inspiring insight? What if this map […]
The post OM026: What Integral Theory Can Teach You About Meditation (Part 2) appeared first on About Meditation.
You are not separate from the whole. You are one with the sun, the earth, the air. You don’t have a life. You are life. ~Eckhart Tolle Is your world big or small? Because, often that’s a matter of perspective. For example, do you feel like your entire being is trapped sometimes behind the cartesian grid of […]
The post OM025: Taming Your Crazy Mind With Meditation (Part 1) appeared first on About Meditation.
Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach you stillness. ~Eckhart Tolle Do you struggle to be still? I don’t just mean in meditation. I’m talking all the time. Maybe if you’re like me, you experience impatience […]
The post OM024: 10 Essential Tips To Nurture Stillness In Meditation (And In Your life) appeared first on About Meditation.
Meditation isn’t about what’s happening, it’s about how you relate to what’s happening. ~Sharon Salzberg What does success in meditation look like? Does it mean that you’re suddenly as serene as the Buddha? Does it mean the end of your anger, fear, doubt, and other unpleasant feelings? This is a subtle and interesting question. Why? Because success […]
The post OM023: 8 Important Signs Of Your Success In Meditation appeared first on About Meditation.
There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life. ~Tara Brach Do you listen to what your mind tells you? Or do you step back and observe it cooly, knowing that you aren’t what you think? Because, there is a world of difference between those two positions. […]
The post OM022: How To Practice Mindfulness Meditation with Jennifer Howd appeared first on About Meditation.
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Is everything ok? I mean right now, independent of whatever is happening in your life, do you think life itself is a positive event? Stop for a second and think about it. Sure, […]
The post OM021: The Two Miraculous Gifts of Meditation with Jeff Carreira appeared first on About Meditation.
How do you learn compassion? Can meditation teach you? Or does it have to come from your own suffering? Maybe a combination of both? I know well how my own experiences of a broken heart have pierced the veil of selfishness and opened me to the needs, pain, and suffering others. But do we have to live with a broken […]
The post OM 020: Learning Compassion Through Tibetan Buddhism with Richard Klein appeared first on About Meditation.
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. ~Aldous Huxley What is silence? I’ve been chasing silence since I was 20 years old. But why is it important and what can you learn from it? Is it, as some research suggests, essential for our health? Many people think of silence as just the […]
The post OM 019: A 5-Part Meditation On The Power of Silence appeared first on About Meditation.
Transcendental Meditation opens the awareness to the infinite reservoir of energy, creativity, and intelligence that lies deep within everyone. – Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Have you ever wanted to learn more about Transcendental Meditation (TM)? Arguably one of the most popular forms of meditation on the planet, it’s ironically challenging to learn without spending lots of money […]
The post OM 018: The Most Popular Meditation Technique on Earth with Tom Bershad appeared first on About Meditation.
Begin with little things daily and one day you will be doing things that months back you would have thought impossible. ~Swami Satchidananda Meditation and yoga have gone hand in hand for millennia. It was only when yoga came to the West that it got reduced to the calming and healthy physical practice most of us […]
The post OM 017: The Ashram & The Entrepreneur—Exploring Meditation As A Habit with Sonia Thompson appeared first on About Meditation.
One does not practice meditation to become a great meditator. We meditate to wake up and live, to become skilled at the art of living. -Elizabeth Lesser Do you struggle with stress and anxiety? At times do you feel like you’re life is a little like a hamster wheel that you can’t get off? Many […]
The post OM 016: Meditation For Life—How To Break Free From Stress & Tunnel Vision appeared first on About Meditation.
What you seek is seeking you. ~Rumi What does it take to keep going when, as the saying goes, the going gets tough? Really tough. We all start on the path of meditation with high hopes, serious aspirations, or maybe just guarded optimism. We come to the practice suffering from stress, anxiety, and some form of overwhelm. Maybe […]
The post OM 015: The Lonely Meditator’s Guide To Developing True Grit appeared first on About Meditation.
By penetrating very deeply the present moment, the past and future fall away, and you become free. Fear is the demon that prevents us from letting go of the past and the future, that in turn, keeps us from spontaneously plunging into the present. ~ Joe Gifford Do you fear death? Does the promise and mystery […]
The post OM 014: 95-Year Old Yogi Shares His Secrets & Why He Doesn’t Fear Death with Joseph Gifford appeared first on About Meditation.
Do you suffer from chronic pain? Did you know it’s possible to reduce your pain through meditation and mindfulness? Are you aware that meditation can help reduce the stress related to chronic pain? Now more than ever, clinical psychologists are using contemplative modalities like meditation and mindfulness to help their clients manage pain. Whether you suffer from physical, psychological, or emotional pain, […]
The post OM 013: Brain Science & How To Manage Pain Through Mindfulness with Dr. Jennifer Wolkin appeared first on About Meditation.