Tag Archives: meditation
The Noise In Our Heads
“Time goes by very quickly; one day we may be surprised to discover our life is nearing its end, and we don’t know what we’ve done with all the time we’ve lived. Maybe we’ve wasted entire days in anger, fear, and jealousy. We rarely offer ourselves the time and space to consider: Am I doing …
Disentangle
“Meditation teaches you how to disentangle yourself from the thought process. It is the mental art of stepping out of your own way, and that’s a pretty useful skill in everyday life. Meditation is certainly not some irrelevant practice strictly for ascetics and hermits. It is a practical skill that focuses on everyday events and …
Battlefields
“Look deeply at your anger as you would at your own child. Do not reject it or hate it. Meditation is not to turn yourself into a battlefield, one side opposing the other. Conscious breathing soothes and calms the anger, and mindfulness penetrates it… You don’t need to discard or repress anything, not even your …
Every Inhale, Every Exhale
A reminder from Yumi Sakugawa: Your life is not on pause or delayed. Your life is still happening, so then the question is: Are you fully awake to it, paying attention even if it is completely different from your idea of how it should be like in an ideal scenario? There are no ideal scenarios, …
Too Busy to Meditate
Via The Harmonist
18th Century Hippy
Too lazy Ryōkan Taigu from The Zen Poems of Ryokan, translation ©2014 Too lazy to be ambitious, I let the world take care of itself. Ten days’ worth of rice in my bag; a bundle of twigs by the fireplace. Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment? Listening to the night rain on my roof, I …
So Much Easier
“Meditation is so much easier than most people think: Whatever you experience, as long as you are aware of what’s going on, is meditation!” ~Mingyur Rinpoche
Swap
Excerpted from Fates Worse Than Death by Kurt Vonnegut, ©1991: I was willing to believe back in the 1960s that deep meditation as practiced in India might be a way to achieve happiness and wisdom which had not been previously available to people of European and African stock. The Beatles also believed this for a …
Two Quotes about Circles
“People often say, ‘Meditation is all very well, but what does it have to do with my life?’ What it has to do with your life is that perhaps through this simple practice of paying attention – giving loving-kindness to your speech and your actions and the movements of your mind – you begin to …
Alternative States
In her book Meditation for Beginners: Techniques for Awareness, Mindfulness & Relaxation (©2002), Dr. Stephanie Clement muses a bit about altered states of mind: In the sixties, we thought an altered state of mind was something induced by drugs. Not that drugs are anything new; alcoholic beverages alter one’s consciousness, and they have been around …
Rest
“This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.’” ~Isaiah 30:15 I think churches put too much emphasis on the repentance part, not enough on rest, quietness, and trust.
Seated There
Excerpt from The Svetasvatara Upanishad: Retire to a solitary place, such as a mountain cave or a sacred spot. The place must be protected from the wind and rain, and it must have a smooth, clean floor, free from pebbles and dust. It must not be damp, and it must be free from disturbing noises. …
Anchored
Excerpted from Invitation to Meditation by Howard Cohn, © 2006: In reality, you never leave the present moment. You’re always here. You’re never not here. You only imagine that you leave the present moment. You are anchored to the present moment in three different ways. One, by your body, which contains the five senses. Whenever you …
Five
In this excerpt from the article “Teaching Mindfulness to Young People” in the September 2016 issue of The Lions Roar, Ofuso Jones-Quartery (aka Born I Music) describes a simple exercise he uses to teach meditation to young people: “Finger Breathing” In this exercise, the students hold out their left hand and, with their right pointer …
(extra)Ordinary Moments
Excerpt from “Bowing to Each Other” (Shambhala Sun, November 2015) by Brother Phap Hai: Recently, a practitioner asked me about the benefits of meditation. I knew that she was hoping I would talk about dazzling lights, profound insights, or psychic powers. Perhaps to her disappointment, I shared with her my growing sense of appreciation for …
Do you have time?
“When people say they don’t have time to meditate, I ask them, ‘Do you have time to feel like shit?’” ~Gabrielle Bernstein
Meditation
(via IvaShiva)
Been there, done that
Monty is on the web HERE.
Inclination
“Whatever one frequently thinks and ponders upon, that will become the inclination of the mind.” ~Dvedhavittaka Sutta (via)
Silence
“The only way you will ever awaken is through silence, not through analyzation of facts. Not by sorting out good and bad, but through simple silence, letting go. Letting go of all thoughts, all the hurts, all the dogmas and concepts. Letting go of these things daily.” ~Robert Adams (via)
Abbie's Tree House 