Part Three – Challenges (and Solutions) With Learning to Meditate

Challenge Number Three: Emotions! In the previous two posts, we've discussed how to work with our thoughts and with sensations while we practice to meditate. Once we've gained some stability in working with our mind and with the thoughts and sensations that arise, we'll notice that they can come and go rapidly, and that given some space and distance, they'll disappear back into the landscape of the mind. But, what about emotions? Strong emotions can feel like tidal waves, washing over us, knocking us from any sense of stability that we may have around our meditation practice. I know that [...]

2015-12-21T22:02:22-07:00By |Meditation|11 Comments
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Part Two – Challenges (and Solutions) With Learning to Meditate

Meditation Challenge Number Two: Sensations! In the previous post, we looked at how to work with our thoughts when learning to meditate. This topic was identified as one of the four major challenges in learning to meditate. In this post, we'll move the discussion to how to work with the sensations that arise when we meditate. As we discussed previously, many people experience difficulties and challenges when first starting to meditate. Especially if the technique or method that is being used is based on observing the mind and its characteristics. Sensations are....Sensational! Many (or most?!) of our thoughts are based on [...]

2015-12-21T22:48:13-07:00By |Meditation|8 Comments
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The Nature of Mind, Nursing, and Rumi’s Wisdom

  Minding the bedside, remaining mindful, aware, and compassionate in the presence of those we care for,  comes from turning the mind, re-turning the mind inward; transforming the stormy arisings of thoughts, emotions and feelings and recognizing them to be impermanent phenomena, like passing clouds in the sky. The Poet Rumi wrote: The Guest House This 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 [...]

2021-09-27T00:44:33-06:00By |Meditation, Nursing|0 Comments
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(In Meditation) Where Are Our Thoughts Anyway?

Can Meditation Practice Affect How We View Our World? A Series of Articles Part Six – Where Are Our Thoughts Anyway? In this series, we've covered using the breath as an anchor for our attention and meditation practice. We've also discussed how to get some distance from the immediacy of thoughts, viewing them "from a distance" instead of getting caught up in their incessant murmur. Additionally, we've discussed how to return to our present state of mind when we're swept away by thoughts and how to remain in a state of present awareness regardless of whatever arises within our mind. [...]

2014-09-08T10:53:00-06:00By |Meditation|1 Comment
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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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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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