mindful Archives - Minding The Bedside

For Black Friday…Meditate! How to Use Meditation to Spend Less…

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 [...]

2021-11-30T14:15:00-07:00By Jerome Stone|Meditation|0 Comments

Meditation Tip of the Week: Meditate Under Water…Or Biking Up a Mountain!

MEDITATION TIP OF THE WEEK MEDITATION TIP IS A WEEKLY SERIES OF EASY TO REMEMBER, SHORT AND BASIC TIPS ON MEDITATION. PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK, IS IT HELPFUL? In the previous weeks, the "Tip of the Week" has focused a lot on how to meditate in our daily lives. This week's tip will be similar; meditate under water, or on a tightrope!! When we begin to get comfortable with our meditation practice we can get lazy about it and only practice under the best of circumstances. But, that's not what meditation is about. It's about learning to [...]

2019-10-24T13:49:24-06:00By Jerome Stone|Meditation Tip of the Week|Comments Off

How to Watch the Cloud-Like Thoughts Within Our Mind

MEDITATION TIP OF THE WEEK ...IS A SERIES OF SHORT, EASY TO REMEMBER, AND BASIC TIPS ON HOW TO MEDITATE. PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK, IS IT HELPFUL? When Meditating, Understand Thoughts to be Like Clouds Minding one's life mindfully, aware, and compassionately comes from realizing the changing nature of our thoughts. We do this by turning the mind inward, transforming the stormy arisings of thoughts, emotions, and feelings by recognizing them to be impermanent phenomena like passing clouds in the sky. Minding one's life mindfully comes from realizing that whatever thoughts and emotions may be stirred up [...]

2019-10-24T13:44:49-06:00By Jerome Stone|Meditation Tip of the Week|3 Comments

Our Meditative Mind Reminds Us of Compassion While Minding the Bedside

How can we call remaining in the present “meditation?” Is meditation merely a state of non-distraction? When do you find yourself most present? Most distracted? Whether distracted or present, each moment is an opportunity, an invitation, to meditate. Many people assume that we mediate by finding a cushion or quiet place and then sit, motionless, in a state of calm bliss. But, every moment that we’re awake can also be a moment when we’re aware. Each Moment is an Invitation to Practice Each moment that we’re present, whether with our family, friends, or those we care for, is a moment [...]

2019-02-26T11:58:19-07:00By Jerome Stone|Compassion, Nursing|1 Comment

When Meditating, Don’t Give in To Distraction – 10 Tips On How to Stay Focused…

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 [...]

2019-02-26T13:42:40-07:00By Jerome Stone|Meditation, Mindfulness|5 Comments

Why Meditate? Are You Tired of Being Angry, Sad, Jealous, or…Exhausted?

Do your feelings and emotions rule you? If you're like me or if...you're human, then you've probably experienced anger, sadness, jealousy (or envy?), or emotional exhaustion. And, if you're like me, you're happy and grateful when those emotional states and feelings go away, right?! What do you do when you experience strong emotions? How do you deal with difficult feelings that just won't go away? What do you do when these experiences persist even when you try to push them away?

2012-12-06T19:49:41-07:00By Jerome Stone|Meditation|4 Comments

Is Mindfulness the Same as Meditation?

t's funny but there are so many concepts and ideas about what meditation is that we can get caught up in the definition of it all while forgetting to practice. Does it matter what you call it if you're doing it? Or, do you need to have a word for it to understand what you're doing?

2019-02-26T13:42:25-07:00By Jerome Stone|Meditation|5 Comments

The Buddha Walks Into a Bar…[this is meditation?]

There's a joke that goes something like this: A monk walks up to a hot-dog stand and says "make me one with everything"...you've heard this one before? Well, you may have heard that corny joke about the hot-dog stand, but you haven't read a book like this before...unless you've read some of the late Chogyam Trungpa's works, in which case you're ahead of the crowd. And even then, what author Lodro Rinzler has to say is new, fresh and definitely unique. Appealing to a younger crowd, "The Buddha Walks Into a Bar" brings some key Buddhist concepts about meditation and [...]

2012-04-20T11:18:44-06:00By Jerome Stone|Uncategorized|0 Comments

How Do I Meditate? Use Compassion…For Yourself!

HOW DOES COMPASSION HELP YOU TO MEDITATE? Good question... Let's start this post with the wisdom of a wonderful writer, James Finley. I've used this quote in other posts and keep coming back to it because...it's so good! Our feelings of impatience and frustration with ourselves in meditation are certainly understandable, especially when they persist in spite of our best efforts to overcome them. But as we sit in meditation we can begin to recognize the subtle violence inherent in our impatience with ourselves. As our awareness and understanding of our limitations in meditation continue to deepen, we begin to [...]

2014-08-25T17:42:26-06:00By Jerome Stone|Compassion, Meditation|2 Comments

The Allure of Life’s Dramas, Are We Addicted to Strife?

Are We Addicted to the Soap Opera Mind? Since I first began to meditate, and even after years of meditation, I've found that the "non-meditative mind," the mind that is habituated to distraction, still remains. Though I find more peace and am able to live more presently with the mind that is free from the routine habits of distraction, there's a powerful force within my mind based on the habit of running after drama and strife. I'll call this the "soap opera mind." The soap opera mind likes things stirred up a bit, it likes to chase after drama and [...]

2014-02-24T12:27:13-07:00By Jerome Stone|Meditation|3 Comments