Many difficult issues in life that create suffering and overwhelming when we experience them in a default, unconscious manner turn out to be more manageable and bearable when we pay close meditative attention to their component parts. We can understand that better using a metaphor of a giant purple ball suddenly showing up in our living rooms.
Choosing which technique to do is often an important part of navigating a meditation practice. Here are a few things to think about when deciding.
We can understand something about how to pick our meditation technique on a given day by imagining a parable of a flooded room.
Some people may be interested in exploring sitting cross-legged on a cushion, the way you might envision a shaved-head monk sitting. There are a few options for cross-legged meditation.
People sometimes ask me, “How long should I meditate for?” Given how much I love meditation practice, I am both joking and enthusiastically sincere when I answer, “As much as you can, of course!” We want, however, to be realistic in the amount of meditation that we intend to do each day. We want to…
I invite you to take on the practice of meditation equally when your mind is busy and chattering as when it is calm and clear.
Developing concentration and focus is a central goal of many meditation techniques. This post explores some of how we can best accomplish this.
Meditation often has a reputation for being peaceful bliss, but it can also bring up some unusual experiences as the body and mind are finally able to digest and process things that have been buried. Although they can sometimes be disconcerting, most of the time, such “symptoms” are normal, harmless, and fine.
A question that some beginner meditators have is, if I have a choice, what time of day should I meditate? The most common choice is first thing in the morning, but there are other options, and various factors to consider.
I wrote an article for the Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD) website, an introduction to meditation for ADHD people. I am reposting the article here too. I discuss three useful techniques, some overview ways of understanding meditation practice, and some tips for getting started.
A two minute read on the topic of, what to do if I have meditated and found it valuable, and have some sort of sense that, “I’d like to have it be more a part of my life”, but aren’t doing much of it.
One helpful and precise way to define the word “mindfulness” is as consisting of three core elements: Concentration, Clarity, and Equanimity.
When we practice meditation, we want to sit as still possible. Generally, the more our body settles down, the more our mind will settle down.
One way of understanding how meditation can help us to be happier is by imagining waking up in a cabin on a ship.
You may be someone who feels ready to devote more formal dedicated time to meditation practice and set up a home practice. If so, here are some brief tips for you in doing so.
This post has suggestions for taking a healthy, comfortable posture when meditating in a chair.
A choice that meditators sometimes encounter is whether to practice sitting with our eyes open or closed. I recommend changing it up – sometimes meditating with eyes open and at other times closed – depending on what works best for the situation.
A friend asked me about how to use meditation to avoid feeling physical pain. I replied that, yes, classically, there are mindfulness techniques that help us to turn away from and avoid pain, but usually these are just preliminaries to turning towards and fully feeling the pain.
One way to understand meditation practice is to see it as similar to the habit of physical exercise and working out, which is something that more people are more familiar with and able to understand.
We can recognize a deeply effective mindfulness technique by noticing that it usually has three aspects to it: concentrating the mind, providing deep sensory richness, and cultivating a calm, steady, equanimous mind.
For many people establishing a meditation practice, buying a sitting cushion of one’s own is a big moment. Many people find that there is something special about having their own cushion…
A traditional teaching in the Buddhist lineage is that the best times of day to engage in formal, still meditative practice is first thing in the morning, upon waking up from sleep and before the day gets going, or right before sleeping, as the challenges of another day on Earth wind down and slip away. I personally feel best about the practice of meditating first thing in the morning
* Settle in a meditative posture, a posture you can sit as comfortably in for the duration of the meditation This often means body relaxed and hanging off of an upright and extended spine * When you’re ready, attempt to feel the physical sensation at the crown of your head. Make contact with whatever sensations…
I believe that breath meditation is the best place for people to start a regular meditation practice; it is the most basic, foundational, beginner meditation practice. This post contains some breath meditation instructions for beginners.
* Settle in a meditative posture, a posture you can sit as comfortably in for the duration of the meditation This often means body relaxed and hanging off of an upright and extended spine * Attempt to feel the physical sensation wherever in the body first pulls you — Make contact with, encounter, sense, feel,…
One core teaching of classic Buddhism is “the Brahma Viharas”. The first on the list is “metta” or “maitri”, which translates as “loving kindness”. The second is karuna, compassion. The third is “mudita”, sympathetic joy. The final one is “Upekka”, equanimity, an evenness of emotionality.
Over the years, people have often asked me for recommendations for Buddhist meditation resources for beginners. Here is what I have been suggesting:
A straight up masterpiece. This book is filled with deep, true, authentic Buddhist wisdom, and yet is written in an easy, extraordinarily clear Americanized vernacular. It is a comprehensive introduction for mindfulness meditation practice, filled with clear instructions for the path. The book challenges the reader to go deep and to practice properly, but it also has a simple, patient, humorous, kind, smiling vibe to it. It covers a wide ground, and yet touches on each subject in depth.