Posts Tagged ‘mindfulness’
Scenes from a Mindfulness Retreat: The Work
Part two of a four-part series. You can read the introduction here. One of the things I think those of you who have been on more traditional retreats would find most unusual about the mindfulness retreat is how interactive it was. There were no long periods of silent meditation, broken by occasional meals, dharma talks…
Read MoreMindfulness for Beginners and Secularists (Book Review & Video)
Recently I’ve been contacted by atheists/secularists who have heard that mindfulness is a great practice, backed up by scientific study. These people want to learn mindfulness and meditation, but aren’t interested in Buddhism. I went through my own library, but found most of my books on mindfulness and meditation focused a great deal on Buddhist…
Read MoreAwareness, Questioning, and the Path of Compassion
This is a wonderful talk by Martine Batchelor about the practice of awareness, questioning, and the path of compassion, and how they all fit together. Secular Buddhist practitioners often ask, So what is the practice? What do I do? Martine does a great job of explaining what we get out of the practice of meditation,…
Read MoreWeekly Practice (Dukkha, or Suffering)
We’ve covered a lot of ground in these Weekly Practices, and now you should have a good idea of what mindfulness and concentration are and how meditation develops both. We’ve also looked closely at the impermanence of everything, including the five aggregates that we tend to mistake for a static self. Lastly, we took a good look at craving and attachment.
This week we’ll examine dukkha, often translated as suffering. Dukkha is also the third mark of existence and the subject of the noble truths.
Read MoreReport from Wisdom 2.0: Living with Awareness, Wisdom, and Compassion
Ted and I had the opportunity last week to attend the Wisdom 2.0: Living with Awareness, Wisdom, and Compassion conference in Redwood City, California. We listened to speakers who are well known in the Buddhist and Yoga communities, as well as some who are prominent in the technology industry. It was fascinating to hear how mindfulness, compassion, awareness, and empathy are being brought into the workplace through classes, yoga sessions, talks, etc, as well as how digital media are bringing people throughout the globe together to share and discuss these topics.
Read MoreWeekly Practice (Not Self & Review)
If you’ve been following along each week, first with impermanence, then with mindfulness and concentration, and then with body and feelings, and lastly with mental formations, you may have caught on to the repeated question, “Is this thought, feeling, body sensation, emotional reaction a solid, unchanging self?”
Read MoreHappiness, The Great Illusion
Most of us have been raised on various stories that end in “And then they lived happily ever after.” Our media pushes the importance of happiness, as though any other state of mind is repulsive. We tend to gravitate towards people who seem happy, and let’s face it, we all enjoy the feeling of happiness.
Read MoreEpisode 102 :: Martine Batchelor :: Let Go: A Buddhist Guide to Breaking Free of Habits
Martine Batchelor speaks with us about her book, Let Go: A Buddhist Guide to Breaking Free of Habits.
Habits. We all have them, most insidiously if we aren’t even aware of them. Fortunately, we’re not stuck with habits, and every moment is an opportunity to have a new and fresh beginning at redirecting our minds, so we can break that cycle of habit formation and continuation.
Read MoreWeekly Practice (Mindfulness & Concentration)
If you followed along last week in the Weekly Practice (Impermanence), you may not have realized it, but we were also laying some groundwork for this week’s practice on mindfulness and concentration.
Read MoreOn "Nutriment" and Life As Process
One of the many little things I have discovered while studying the Pali texts over the last several years is that the people of the Buddha’s time were obsessed with food. You may laugh, if you like, but this is actually important. I hear all the time that, in interpreting these texts, we need to…
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