Good morning! Often when I ask people if they’ve ever thought about a meditation practice, they look at me like are you crazy, there is way, way too much going on up here (pointing to head) and there is no way I can stop thinking. The #1 biggest misconception about meditation practice is that it involves clearing the mind of... READ MORE
Good morning! I am so happy to talk to you again about meditation practice as part of what I’m calling The Open Heart Project. It all began on March 5, 2011. This is the 3rd post and it contains some suggestions for establishing a daily practice. Be reasonable. Set a very doable goal. Don’t say, for example, “for the rest... READ MORE
Good morning! It is my pleasure to introduce you to meditation practice or, if you already have a practice, to revisit the foundations with you. This link leads to a brief video introduction to Shamatha meditation, or the Practice of Tranquility. It is about 10 minutes long. The video is also at the bottom of this post. The Practice of... READ MORE
Sign up here. Happy New Year! Today is Tibetan Buddhist New Year and a great day to start fresh and celebrate the fact that you exist. Come to think of it, every day is worthy of such celebration–and nothing creates the quality of a fresh start more than meditation practice. With each breath, you begin again and all... READ MORE
Marianne is a writer, a human rights advocate and a yoga teacher based in New Zealand. Her beautiful blog is about her experiences teaching yoga in Afghanistan, teaching other people to live authentically, and writing her very first book, Zen Under Fire: Learning to Sit Still in Afghanistan. (Not out yet.) We became friends on Twitter, had drinks in Brooklyn,... READ MORE
Love this post from Apartment Therapy (a blog about home design and dec0r) about how a meditation retreat changes the way you look at this world. And comments reveal the many (understandable) misconceptions and (not so understandable) judgments people have about what such a retreat is supposed to look like. The Best Fresh Start… Vipassana & Design
Did an interview with Michele Rosenthal for her site, Heal My PTSD. Here is a link to the audio interview, if you’d like to listen. myths about meditation how to begin a simple meditation practice the benefits of meditation in PTSD recovery inner growth from trauma benefits of creativity in healing posttraumatic stress (ever heard of the word ‘vibing’?) the... READ MORE
Is this you? 1. You check email obsessively throughout the day with a mix of hope and dread. 2. You panic when you’re stuck waiting and don’t have your phone, a book, music, something. 3. The idea of driving to work in silence makes you feel queasy. 4. When you awaken to 30 new emails rather than the requisite 50,... READ MORE
Courtesy of The Here & Now Project.
Perfect advice from 16-year old reincarnation of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. “…If your mind is going all day, I must tell you frankly that is not something you should be worried or upset (about), because that really happens all the time.”
Recently appeared in Huffington Post… By now, many of us have heard of the extraordinary, scientifically proven health benefits of meditation. It relieves stress (by lowering cortisol), improves focus and memory (by raising the level of gamma waves), prevents relapse into depression by 50 percent (according to studies by Jon Kabat-Zinn, M.D. and Zindel Segal, Ph.D.), boosts immunity (in one... READ MORE
This post first appeared on the Huffington Post. Check it out for all the cool, wacky, sweet comments. Meditation has been getting a very good rap lately. Very good. Scientists have proven that it actually makes you happier. It is included in mental health programs. It is being taught at gyms, schools and in the workplace. It has stopped being associated... READ MORE
Get a new meditation from me every Monday morning