With time and repetitions, research will tell us whether it is possible to excise the spiritual components of meditation and still see the same benefits, but knee-jerk resistance to concepts that have guided meditation practices for millennia is unacceptable, especially when an effective process has already been established.
Well, it's that time of year again. Time to...meditate? No, shop! Or, is it time to meditate on why we shop, why we consume hoping to find some outer reward to our thirst for something...new, different? Time to find happiness in...Target? Nordstroms? Amazon? How often have you felt an urge to go out and buy something, only to find that after you'd bought whatever it was, there was still a hollow place inside? Have you ever been really stressed out and felt like a little "retail therapy" was just the thing that you needed to remove your negative thinking? What [...]
We’re wired for panic; deep within our genetics lies the physiological basis for us to respond to a threat to our well-being (think a saber-toothed tiger) with panic.
Do you ever wonder how to meditate and whether to meditate with your eyes open or closed? It's a great question and it recently came up in an online class that I'm teaching, NursingZen.
The time is...now! In a recent survey, when I asked our community what your biggest challenge is in practicing meditation, one of the most common responses was finding the time to meditate. Many of you are simply too busy to take the time to practice meditation, you're just too involved in (and swept up by) life to find the time. And to that I say..... Impossible!!! Why? Meditation = Non-Distraction At its heart, meditation is simply a state of non-distraction, where we allow whatever arises within our mind to simply be. Easier said than done, I get it. [...]
Do you ever feel like life is just one big conspiracy to wake you the f* up from your distractions and habits?
When you find that you've become distracted in your meditation...or in life, simply bring yourself back to the moment, gently, easily, without giving yourself a hard time. Without beating yourself up. And then...celebrate! Because you're back!
Distraction Isn't Your Enemy! Considering that the main objective of meditation is to arrive at a state of non-distraction without altering our mind, how do we deal with the fact that distraction seems to be the one thing that prevents us from meditating? Is there some easy way to deal with our tendency to get distracted? After all, we'd probably all be excellent at meditation if it weren't for the fact that we get so distracted during our meditation. And, it's this distraction that can become the most frustrating and cause us to abandon our meditation practice in favor of [...]
Use Meditation in Everyday Life When we think about meditation or mindfulness, it's easy to get caught-up in the belief that we need to be sitting on a cushion, cross-legged, or located within a monastery to practice meditation. While these aspects of meditation can provide us with the support necessary to achieve a stable meditation practice, and while a formal meditation practice is the only way to become familiar with our mind, the primary reason to meditate, especially within the context of caring for another, is to become familiar with our true nature within our ordinary daily life. In fact, [...]
If you want to learn how to live a life with less striving, a great place to start is in your meditation practice. Since you’re not actually “doing” anything when you meditate, taking time to practice, and watching what comes up as “striving” during your practice is a great way to familiarize yourself with the state of mind that accompanies your Sisyphean efforts.