Yes, it's a strange thing to do — just sit there and do basically nothing. Yet the simple act of stopping, says Pema Chödrön, is the best way to cultivate our good qualities. Here are five ways meditation makes us better people. The mind is very wild. The human experience is full of unpredictability and paradox, joys and sorrows, successes and failures. We can’t escape any [...]
Make Friends With Your Body
On or off the meditation cushion, we can be friends with our body—just the way it is. Yoga teacher Cyndi Lee shows us how to sit with relaxation and ease. Pairs of yogis face each other, press their palms together, and shyly bow their heads. Wearing baggy sweat pants and sexy yoga tops, bike shorts and faded t-shirts advertising local breweries, they are somehow all [...]
How to Meditate Every Day — Even if You Would Rather Be Thrown into a Shark-Infested Ocean
Diana Winston sympathizes with those who struggle to sit every day, and gives ten suggestions for having a regular daily practice. Your unforgiving alarm rings for all it's worth. It's 7AM. You crash out of bed, slamming your toe on your bedside table. You fumble for your meditation cushion in the dark. "It's over here somewhere," you mumble. Hearing you awaken from the [...]
Ask the Teachers: Should I meditate for short or long periods?
Question: Some teachers say that if you're having difficulty with your meditation you shouldn't force yourself to stay on the cushion. How do you know when you're forcing your meditation, instead of applying proper effort? Should you continue with the practice if you're feeling a lot of resistance and your mind is racing? Do you recommend short periods of meditation or longer [...]
Unlimited Heart
After caring for his ailing mother for nine years, Ajahn Viradhammo reflects on self-sacrifice and the importance of cultivating a strong and expansive heart. One thing that comes up a lot for me is the limitation of personality. There’s something about it that doesn’t change very much. The extrovert remains the extrovert, the introvert remains the introvert; our [...]
What a Wall Teaches
Lin Jensen recounts his experience with the ancient Zen practice of wall sitting: what is it about a wall that helps penetrate consciousness? Bodhidharma, the Indian monk who is credited with having brought Zen to China, is said to have spent nine years facing a wall in a cave near northern China’s Shaolin Temple. If the story is true, the Zen he introduced was a Zen of [...]
From The Under 35 Project: “Revulsion Inversion”
Here's the latest instalment of The Under 35 Project, by Caitlin Bargenquast. It's the first post on July's theme, "Starting and Deepening Your Meditation Practice." "Revulsion Inversion" Revulsion is the foot of meditation, as is taught by the singing ancients. By now I have been formally introduced to techniques of meditation for 9 years. I have practiced. And the [...]
A Practice You Can Count On
Edward Sangetsu Sullivan reflect upon his Zen 108 practice, a practice that consists of meditating for one hour a day for 108 consecutive days. You get good at counting—at least up to 108. You mark off the days on your calendar like a convict in the county jail. You realize that 108 days is a really long time. Fifteen weeks and three days, to be exact. But who’s counting? [...]
Zazen: Just Wake Up
Zen teacher Myoan Grace Schireson teaches Zazen, sitting meditation from the Zen tradition, a foundational Buddhist practice. When an idea arises, just wake up. Sitting zazen is the dharma gate of bliss and repose. —Dogen-zenji, Fukanzazengi Sitting meditation, called zazen in the Zen tradition, has been described as just waking up—we wake up to the intimate reality within [...]
Sit up straight!
No, we won't be haranguing you to eat your veggies, too, but this is some advice that will help meditators and non-meditators alike. Wildmind Buddhist Meditation blogs reports on a study by researchers that finds what meditators have known for millennia — that body posture affects mental states. According to the story: "Researchers found that people who were told to sit up [...]
