Posts Tagged ‘practice’
Practice Circle: Relax
I think every contemplative technique I’m aware of involves at least some degree of relaxation. The practices I was taught in MBSR all begin with bringing awareness to areas of tightness and holding in the body and inviting them to relax; the Body Scan, which is the first technique one learns in MBSR, consists of…
Read MorePractice Circle: Transforming Suffering with Compassion
As I sit down to write this, the late afternoon shadows have deepened nearly to evening, reminding me that the longest nights of the year will soon be upon us. The news is full of the angry protests over police violence and the systematic atrocities committed by the United States government in its program of…
Read MorePractice Circle: Finding Your Benefactors
For the last several months, the mindfulness group I practice with has been learning a set of meditation practices adapted by John Makransky from Tibetan dzogchen and mahamudra methods. Although these techniques have much in common with the mindfulness practices adapted from Theravada Buddhism, such as vipassana and loving kindness meditation, there are some differences in emphasis…
Read MorePractice Circle Turns Two!
The Sunday evening of October 15, 2012 marked the first gathering of the SBA Practice Circle. When we get together this Sunday at 8 PM CST, it will be our 47th meeting, a number that shocks me when I see it written down. In a lot of ways, every Practice Circle session still feels like…
Read MoreFinding Your Mindfulness Bells
One of the meanings of sati, the Pali word usually translated as “mindfulness”, is to remember. With a little practice, it’s not hard to learn how to concentrate and focus your awareness. The big challenge is remembering to do it. We forget even when we’re sitting on a cushion for the express purpose of meditating! …
Read MorePractice Circle: Mindfulness of the Body
Even as one who encompasses with his mind the mighty ocean includes thereby all the rivulets that run into the ocean; just so, O monks, whoever develops and cultivates mindfulness directed to the body includes thereby all the wholesome states that partake of supreme knowledge. One thing, O monks, if developed and cultivated, leads to…
Read MoreAbout that Label …
As many of you know, there’s a “Religious Views” label on the Facebook “About” page. When I signed up for Facebook several years ago, I was pretty deeply into the New Atheist movement, spending much of my time griping about traditional religion and writing skeptical material on various pseudoscientific agricultural practices with some friends of mine.…
Read MoreWelcome to Practice Circle: An Update
Back last fall, we announced the start of an experiment, an online dharma practice group called the Practice Circle. As I write this, Practice Circle has met 16 times in the course of seven months, and so I thought it was time to write a fresh introduction to our online community as well as report…
Read MoreScenes from a Mindfulness Retreat: Experience
This is the final installment of four. Here are links to the first, second, and third part. It was 6 a.m. on the first morning of the retreat, and after a restless night’s sleep I was sitting on a wooden bench before a still farm pond, examining again my intention for being there. For several…
Read MoreScenes from a Mindfulness Retreat: Ritual
Here are links to Part One and Part Two. One of the things I’ve admired about the Friday night drop in mindfulness sessions at the UW Health Integrative Medicine Center is the creativity displayed by the teachers in developing rituals, symbolic objects and activities that help to express the wisdom of practice. There is no…
Read More