When you don’t feel compassion as you scroll through the daily newsfeed horror show- just be aware of not feeling particularly compassionate. I have received emails from readers asking whether we can cultivate a mature mindfulness practice and not feel particularly compassionate, especially regarding the state of the world. The horrors reported on media channels
When I started out, I had no idea exactly why meditation was important. Now meditation is truly life changing. When I first started meditating, I thought I knew why meditation is important. It helps reduce stress, improves sleep, and reduces negative emotions–all aspects of my life that really needed an overhaul. But it took a
… when the mind complains it does NOT want to meditate, says the Buddhist monk U Tejaniya I’m going to assume that you are like most of us who are into meditation–you struggle maintaining a regular practice, right; you might even ask when is the best time to meditate. The instructions are so very simple—be
As you set out on your meditation journey- avoid aggressive self-improvement. There isn’t anything to improve; the present moment is just fine as it is. One of the trickiest aspects of mindfulness meditation is the whole thing about letting go of goals. It seems to make no sense at all to not have any goal
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.
Just as in a moment of lucid dreaming we realize Wow, I’m dreaming, we can similarly realize while meditating Wow, I’m thinking. I had this dream the other night that allowed me to see similarities between lucid dreaming and meditation. In the dream, lines from an obscure American poet kept haunting me, and I couldn’t
The Burmese meditation teacher Sayadaw U Tejaniya on how a meditator can practice mindfulness during the pandemic. His response was “practice as usual.” OK, really? His dry answers to the questions posed by the Western interviewer stewed in the back of my mind for a few days. Don’t practice to make something happen or for
You can’t push the river, the Zen masters of old would say. And wow, how I have tried—reading, studying the Dharma, going on retreats, even fasting at times. Then I read U Tejaniya’s teachings. I have been stopped in my tracks, stunned and ultimately grateful for key instructions given at just the right moment, but
Folks who meditate in order to feel better often find the opposite. Eventfully they see that it’s the letting go of the wanting of happiness, that actually brings it! I can begin to answer by sharing a haiku I recently found: Since my house burned downI now have a better viewof the rising moon. This