Anchoring the Awareness of Emotions in the Breath While Meditating

Can Awareness and Meditation Practice Affect How We View Our World? A Series of Articles Part Two – Anchoring the Awareness of Emotions in the Breath When confronted with strong emotions or sensations, there are many options for awareness and what we can do and how we'll deal with whatever arises. Because strong emotions are so powerful in their ability to distract us from the present, plummeting us into a space of unconscious patterns, we need to have tools to bring our mind into a state of (relative) ease, where we won’t react to the circumstance, and then react to [...]

2012-12-06T19:31:25-07:00By |Meditation|13 Comments
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The Object of Our Emotion is Not its Cause

Can Meditation Practice Affect How We View Our World? A Series of Articles Part One - The Object of Our Emotion is Not its Cause A funny thing happened on the way to the office today. Okay, it wasn't really funny, and my office these days is The Laughing Goat Coffeehouse. While getting ready to prepare for the day, my wife made a request of me that seemed, to my sleep-deprived mind, unreasonable. Reasonable or not, whether the haze of sleep loss or the actual request was the trigger, the emotions that arose within my mind were ones of frustration [...]

2013-12-16T13:31:24-07:00By |Meditation|0 Comments
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Transform Your Mind, Change Your Brain

Meditation Causes Positive Changes in the Brain I've already written on how the practice of meditation can change not only our lives, but - at a very profound and empirical level - can actually change how our brain works. In this post, I'm going to let a true expert in the field take over and provide you with an incredible lecture on brain changes that can be accomplished through contemplative practices. I'm posting a link to a lecture by Dr. Davidson at the end of this introduction (you can go directly there by scrolling to the end of this post). [...]

2015-12-14T23:18:28-07:00By |Neuroscience, Science|5 Comments
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Are Thoughts the Mind, or Just a Product of it?

In the book “Zen and the Brain,” author James Austin, MD, writes: “Meditators discover a surprising fact when they finally arrive at moments of “no-thought”: they do not have to think to be conscious. For consciousness starts with being aware. The awareness has a receptive flavor, its normal landscape is not a level plateau. Instead, it rises and falls as a series of peaks and valleys.”[i] (To read an interview done with Dr. Austin by MIT Press, check out this link:  http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/auszp/austin/interview.html) As we work with our mind and begin to develop insight into its dynamics, we’ll come to realize—even [...]

2013-11-08T16:12:34-07:00By |Meditation|2 Comments
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Compassion in Action: Band of Brothers

I write about compassion, hoping in some small way to help nurses and health-care professionals to find that wellspring within themselves that sources irrepressible compassion. Every once in a while I find...or in this case, stumble upon an organization that exemplifies the kind of compassion that I aspire towards. I'm devoting this post and the space for this post, to the organization - Band of Brothers Charity Venture Group. I came upon their site by accident, if there is such a thing, and found myself deeply moved by the scope of their work, and the clarity of their vision. From [...]

2011-09-14T15:33:55-06:00By |Compassion|3 Comments
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Using Thoughts During Meditation as the Object of Meditation

Meditation Can Be Using Your Thoughts as the Object of Your Meditation For many of us, when we begin to meditate, instead of sinking into a blissful space of quietude and relaxation, we find the exact opposite. We encounter a torrent of thoughts, distractions, and just about anything else that we wouldn't want to be thinking when we're supposed to be taming our mind. But, isn't meditation supposed to free us from our thoughts? That's what I assumed when I first began meditating. After all, I'd seen enough photos of robed figures seated, motionless, in peaceful settings, undisturbed by the [...]

2015-01-20T15:19:36-07:00By |Meditation|4 Comments
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Meet the Author!

Jerome Stone is a Registered Nurse with over thirty years in a variety of health-care settings, including pain management, hospice care, ICU, and research in complimentary and alternative medicine. He is a long-time practitioner of meditation, with an emphasis in the study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism and an interest in Christian and Kabbalistic Contemplation. In addition to his Nursing degree, he also holds degrees in Environment Education and a dual-degree in Comparative Mythology and Depth Psychology. He lives in Boulder Colorado with his wife, Jill Siegel-Stone, and their son Noah. Besides his love for his family and for the [...]

2012-07-30T15:02:25-06:00By |Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Mindfulness, Meditation, Compassion and Nursing – The Perfect Fit!!

I'm stuck in Washington at Dulles Airport, “G” Terminal with several hundred other souls crammed into the boarding area. Outside, flashes of lightning illuminate the cloud-darkened sky; the loud thunder-clap strikes come alarmingly close to this small, overcrowded weigh-station. As we watch the Departure Boards, one flight after another posts “CANCELED,” and a tide of anxious and angry passengers washes over the customer service desk, employees frightened for their well-being. How appropriate it is then that I am on my way back from teaching a class on mindfulness and meditation to a group of health-care practitioners in Seattle. What a [...]

2014-09-08T23:33:54-06:00By |Nursing|6 Comments
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