We have been practicing the opposite of what meditation asks of us for so many years, no wonder it is so hard to meditate every day. I am often asked why is hard to meditate every day? Despite the utter simplicity of the practice itself, why is it so difficult to consistently sit down and
Who is maladjusted? It is someone who lost the ability to be surprised. We must re-learn how to be surprised. Alice Walker has good advice for all of us who practice mindfulness meditation: Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise. As a meditation teacher, I’m happy when folks describe feelings familiar from childhood resurfacing in meditation,
We savor our life just as it is, messy, littered with abandoned to-do lists and unfulfilled expectations. We appreciate our life now, we’re not just managing it. When asked about the fruit of meditative life, the 13th century Japanese monk Dogen Zenji replied: “enlightenment is intimacy with all things.” Mindfulness allows us to intimately
Do you have to meditate every day? The question really should be can I be happily present with things just as they are, rather than struggling with a goal? I find that newer students don’t ask this question much in their meditation groups, fearing, perhaps, that they might be the only ones with this concern.
I think so, but the real question is how to develop patience with the meditation process itself. The only way to fail at meditation is to stop meditating. As long as you show up, the meditative process happens. It’s really simple: sit down on a chair or a cushion, set the timer on your phone
The suffering in the world is overwhelming, but the whole mess looks differently when we when know how to meditate every day. Everyone is frazzled. Shootings, politics, racial and economic disparities, climate catastrophies. That’s why it’s really important to learn how to meditate every day. This is not a post about learning to meditate in terms
When I do catch the mind moment, in mindful dishwashing, the most ordinary things take on inexpressible beauty. A few folks have asked me if I am feeling any lingering effects from my recent Covid-19 illness. Not really; but I do I find mindful dish-washing in the kitchen sink to be much more fulfilling. I
Meditation is not easy, I get it. There are aches and pains in the body and the mind can get restless … and there is inner simplicity. But, as Hawaii-born retired Sumo grand-master Akebono would say to reporters after winning yet another match, “I just try my best.” That’s all we ask. Try your best.
Do we feel we are missing out on some better, or more spiritual, experience by being stuck with a mountain of laundry, a sink overflowing with dishes, or a yard full of leaves to rake? Karen Maezen Miller, in a piece in Lion’s Roar, describes the domestic practices of ancient Zen masters as intimate daily
No matter how nice our home is, it is still “of the of world,” as my Buddhist teachers in Asia would say. We are settling in to a new house. As I get older, moving feels more emotional, more gut-wrenching. Witnessing our old home slowly coming apart, with carefully chosen bits going into carefully chosen boxes,