We meditate for many different reasons. Often, our original motivations morph as we move forward on this path. It’s juicy to reflect why we keep this up; and to be really honest with ourselves. Dorothy Figen offers us one answer — Why meditate? There are many reasons. But those that stand out most strongly are learning…
I always felt making a set of resolutions meant needing to improve myself, be better at something, or change my body somehow. The blogger Krista O’Reilly-Davi-Digui, a working, single mom who writes about minimalism and the anti-consumption movement, recently wrote: What if I just accept this mediocre body of mine that is neither big nor…
I check the news before I have finished my first cup of tea, and by the time the cup is empty, my chest is already tight. Some mornings it takes real effort to sit down on the cushion after that, calm enough to notice anything at all. A line from a poem by Neruda comes…
It seems many of us get hooked by trying to get somewhere in our mindfulness meditation practice. We evaluate where we are now and feel there is some ultra-cool place, where meditation, if done correctly, will eventually take us. But what is the striving to get to that magic place is compounding our subtle (and…
There’s an old Zen story that I like very much. A monk comes to the monastery of the master Zhaozhou and asks for teaching. The master asks him, “Have you had your breakfast?” The monk says that he has. “Then wash your bowls,” is the teacher’s reply, and the only meditation instruction he offers. Zhaozhou…
Our son Kupai started Kindergarten last week. When I woke him up for school the other day I asked him how he had slept. He said that it was really frustrating that after we read him his story and kiss him goodnight he thinks about the events of the day. He explained that he thinks…