Meditation reveals that I rarely live my life in a “pure” state. Instead, a relentless, buzzing inner narrator constantly insists on labeling each moment before I have the chance to genuinely experience it. Sometimes I feel I have morphed into a character in a New Yorker cartoon, standing before a magnificent sunset while holding a…
When I first started meditating, it seemed simple enough: relax the body, notice the breath, and bring your awareness back to the breath or the body when the mind wanders off. Then, I thought, there would be some wonderful inner transformations that just sort of happened on their own. What took me years to discover…
We are acquainted with complication. We know the feeling of being tangled, knee-deep in old resentments or lost in anxiety, listening to the compelling arguments of our reactive mind. In these moments, we are, in a way, disconnected from ourselves. Being tangled up obscures the inner peace mindfulness is meant to reveal. In the words…
What makes it so hard to stick with a simple meditation we do every day? What gets in our way, and how can we make meditation a regular part of our lives? The instructions are so simple: relax and just be aware of what is happening in the present moment. And yet we find this…
I recently completed an intensive, 30 day silent meditation retreat in California following a very strict Burmese Buddhist lineage, with formal sessions totaling sixteen and a half hours per day. Each day began at 4am with the gentle sound of a bell signaling the start of another day of meditation. Each day was another opportunity…
This simple practice helps release unhelpful preoccupations that creep into your mind space as you sit quietly and observe your thoughts. As we release these unhelpful preoccupations, we find less craving for distraction hits like the news. What would it be like to spend more time absorbed in mystery and awe rather than in your…
One of the greatest gifts meditation has offered me is the invitation to not take myself so seriously. I remember a talk by the late Harvard trained psychologist turned meditation teacher Ram Dass about dropping his “somebody suit”—the suit we all wear as we go around being somebody. It never occurred to him that the…
The other day I read this haiku by the Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa. It stopped my distracted mind in its tracks. What a strange thing!To be alivebeneath cherry blossoms. What a marvel, what a special thing it is to be conscious, to be aware, and to know that we’re aware. We’re not here for that…
If you feel uncomfortable when you meditate, just remember that discomfort in meditation is normal. You job is just to give careful and kind attention to whatever arises. Do you ever find yourself feeling uncomfortable in meditation after just settling in? If your mind could text you, what would it say? Lately, mine would text:…
One of my first meditation teachers, Sharon Salzberg, often talks about her early days learning how to meditate in India under her teacher, Munindra. One of his first counsels to her was: Try to be with each breath as though it was your first, and as though it was your last. Being with each breath…