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The least helpful meditation instructions
“Relax”, said the yoga teacher. “Clear your mind. Open up to the space of pure Being”. This is what many people’s first exposure to...
May 123 min read


Function over form
Lately I've been running into a dilemma that is familiar to many modern meditators: should I do exactly as the teacher tells me? What if...
May 126 min read


Breaking down is breaking through
Since my Zen retreat the other week, I've been thinking about the relationship between catharsis and Awakening. I've experienced a fair...
May 125 min read


Compassion: for others, too
While self-compassion is undoubtedly important, kindness towards others is not only the right thing in a moral sense, but also therapeutic.
Apr 13 min read


Compassion: obstacles and objections
A striking fact about meditating on kindness is how little people do it. Even experienced meditators seem to avoid the practice
Apr 16 min read


A profound cliche
Meditation is a microcosm of life, in that you get to see how your mind works, do your best to manage it, and along the way find out what...
Mar 274 min read


Enjoy what you have
In my last post , I suggested that in meditation and in life you should hew to the cliché about putting one foot in front of the other ....
Mar 273 min read


When meditation is awful: attitude
A lot of the time, meditation is no fun at all: you're tense, uncomfortable, distracted, and bored. You can't stay focussed on the...
Mar 273 min read


The single most useful thing that I have learned from meditation
The single most useful thing that I have learned from meditation is to feel my body, and to feel my emotions in my body. This is an...
Mar 174 min read


Silent retreat: what you need to know
My first silent retreat was challenging, and yet I have gone back for more again and again. Try your first silent retreat, and perhaps you w
Jun 30, 202414 min read


An honest guide to mindful parenting
Before I became a parent, I was pretty mindful. I meditated each morning for as long as I wanted, and I maintained my practice throughout...
May 31, 20245 min read


Breaking down is updating
I very much enjoyed this podcast - https://fitmind.com/podcast-collection/ruben-laukkonen-neuroplasticity-meditation - in which Ruben...
May 23, 20245 min read


Effort in meditation: in praise of doing and striving
I was practising in a very goal-focussed way for a while, aiming for kensho, which is the breakthrough experience of Zen, in which the...
Dec 30, 20235 min read


Mindfulness isn't what you think
Most people who are interested in mindfulness know that it comes from Buddhism. Fewer know, however, how far the modern, popular...
Dec 11, 20234 min read


Mindful parenting: the unbearable annoyingness of children
There is a story from one or another spiritual tradition in which a great yogi dwells upon a mountaintop, meditating ceaselessly. One...
Nov 16, 20236 min read


Breaking Through to Zen
I did one of these retreats a couple of weeks ago - https://zenways.org/event/breakthrough-zen-retreat-online/- and it felt quite powerful.
Oct 24, 20233 min read


Compassion: a load of techniques
In my last-but-one post , I offered three general principles to apply when cultivating kindness in meditation. In this one, I'll be more...
Oct 13, 20234 min read


The single most useful thing that I have learned from meditation, part 2
In my last post, I made a rather speculative case for body awareness as a natural state, to which we should all wish to return. In this...
Sep 30, 20237 min read


When meditation is awful: investigation
I've already written about how "bad" meditation is in fact invaluable because it teaches you how to relate to unpleasant things . But...
Sep 28, 20232 min read


Waking up Sam Harris: what Sam Harris gets wrong about awakening
Cmichel67 (Christopher Michel), CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons First, let me say...
Aug 10, 20235 min read


Compassion: cultivation
If you've read my last post , then hopefully you've started to work on building up some awareness of your emotions in the area of the...
Aug 8, 20232 min read


Compassion: the heart
To cultivate kindness, you really need to involve the body, and more specifically, the heart. Because that really does seem to be where...
Jul 24, 20233 min read


Compassion: even unto the watering can
I once read in a book about Zen that after you do the gardening, you should clean your tools with great gentleness and care. It's a nice...
Jun 20, 20235 min read


Compassion: getting stuff done
The most basic benefit that you'll get from cultivating kindness in meditation is that it will help you to keep on meditating. Whereas...
May 26, 20233 min read
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