Now About Meditation

When someone is abrupt with us, we should reflect on the notion that such action might be a reflection of their current situation. Most of us have experienced having or being in a conversation, maybe with a co-worker, an acquaintance or a friend, where they might have been a bit abrupt? After experiencing such situations, we usually end up thinking, “what was that about? Are they annoyed at me?” Because of this, we might get swept away by anxiety or anger and not see what’s really going on. In these situations, we might end up going down one of two routes - either get anxious that they’re upset with us and think of everything that we might have done that could have upset them or them might have taken offence to, or maybe we might get annoyed and end up confronting them, throwing a coin or two into the swear jar on the way out. Although there an alternative to getting swept away in any of these routes. We can choose to take a step back and not get swept away by our immediate rea...

The Buddha said suffering is a part of life, something that we know to be true: life is stressful and uncertain. It could be said that change and uncertainty are probably the only constants in our lives, which can either be a cause for us to suffer or to growth.  One thing is certain when we start a family, everything changes ; it results in a total upheaval right down to our brain, body and hormones for both women and men.  There is nothing more stressful, uncertain, and constantly full of change than the process of parenting one's children. And while it might be that the change into becoming parents might bring us hardships and joy, growing up is not all fun and excitement for our children. So how do we go about dealing with change? How do we learn to bear the pains and joys of life without being caught up in them or turning our backs on them, and how do we teach our children to do the same? Traditionally, in eastern meditation practice, this quality of abiding is called equ...

  More often than not, when we get thoughts about our bodies, they are usually related to how much we weigh, how hungry we are, and the pains and aches we are feeling, and it seems that we cannot stop thinking about the body.   On the other hand, there are times when we completely forget about the body, causing us to go through the motions of life while we are totally lost in our thoughts.   When I’m in one of these situations, what I find helpful is the short practice by Tsoknyi Rinpoche, which I found on Lion’s Roar a meditation practice of dropping into the body and our feelings .   Personally, I have found this practice very useful as its simple, practical practice that helps in bridging the divide between our bodies and mind. Also, another practice that I found helpful is the memories of kindness practice  which also helps me bridge the divide between how I feel and my body.

 We could say that we are immersed in a world of sounds. If you pay attention, almost every minute of your waking life is filled with some form of sound: most prominently the ambient sounds in our natural environment, including music and radio, conversations and messages, and the cacophony of thoughts in your own head. Considering all of this, we have to ask ourselves: How frequently do you get genuine moments of silence in our everyday life? If we reflect, it seems that we have the inclination for filling moments of silence or stillness with noise and distraction and all other activities in between. What is the reason for this? Why do we have this inclination towards filling up moments of silence with some type of activity?   Because it seems that silence makes us feel uneasy, and since silence makes us feel uncomfortable, we will automatically try to fill it up. Why? In moments of silence or stillness, we return to ourselves, which is not always an easy thing to do to ...

 When it comes to meditation practice I really find helpful the following by Christopher K. Germer the author of the book the mindful path to self-compassion; You shouldn’t feel disheartened when you discover that your mind wanders incessantly. That’s the nature of the mind. It’s also the nature of the mind to eventually become aware of its wandering. Ironically, it’s in the very moment when you despair that you’re not mindful that you’ve become mindful. It’s not possible to do this practice perfectly, nor is it possible to fail.  That is why it’s called a “practice.” (Germer, 2009, p. 35) This reminds me of the notion that in meditation there is no success or failure it's all about the cultivation of awareness so becoming aware of a wandering mind is in itself not a failure within our practice but an achievement a reminder to return to resting on our meditation anchor  which is the fundamental pedagogy at the heart of mindfulness meditation practice.   And in their ...

Trudi Edginton , University of Westminster After a busy and stressful year, I recently found myself physically and mentally exhausted with a very real need to relax. A last-minute holiday felt like a perfect solution and I returned feeling refreshed and recharged. What was it that helped me to relieve my physical tension and restore my inner calm? Was it exploring somewhere new, swimming in the sea, spending time with family – or just lying on the beach, touching the sand and completely switching off? As a clinical psychologist, cognitive neuroscientist and mindfulness teacher, I am fascinated by how our thoughts and emotions relate to our physical responses. They are a key to understanding our ability to tolerate and respond to stress. Scientific research has highlighted a range of ways our individual perception and experience of stress vary. For example, the amounts of certain chemicals in our bodies that affect how we feel, such as cortisol and oxytocin, can be negatively affect...

  We go through the critical elements for the development of mindfulness in this sitting meditation session. Through first picking our chosen point of focus for directing our attention as an anchor for our mindfulness practice. Then, if we find our mind drifting away from the anchor, kindly guiding it back to it, no matter how many times it has done so. We also discuss the notion of proper focus in mindfulness meditation . We'll go through the stages of settling, grounding, and resting in this mindfulness session. After that, we gently rest our attention on our preferred anchor, with the purpose of this exercise being to note when we lose awareness of our point of focus and gently bring it back into our attention. While reminding ourselves that the act of recognizing a wandering mind or that we are caught in compulsive thoughts is a moment of mindfulness, the recognition of a momentary lap of awareness within itself.