Our goal is to create a beloved community, and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives. -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., May 4 1966
My mood is best described as annoyed or aggravated on this seventh day of the 28-Day Meditation Challenge. And sure, there are reasons. Phases of the moon and such.
Day 5: Real Happiness 28-day meditation
This 28 day meditation couldn’t have happened at a better time for me. I had fallen off the wagon, I wasn’t meditating, my New Year’s Resolution had fallen to the wayside. I noticed...
So happy to be doing the Real Happiness 28-day meditation challenge!
Today I feel sad. It frames my morning activity, how I wake up, my walk to the park and phone call to a close friend. It is there when I sit down to practice, but still I am glad...
I suppose I could plausibly say that I am one of the poster children for "Real Happiness." When Shambhala Sun wrote their featured piece last year on Sharon Salzberg's celebrated new book, my photo was right smack up there near the beginning...
I am a morning meditator. It is not because I am good, it is not because I am disciplined.
It is because I am afraid. My morning mind is a slow waking lunatic.
My thoughts are uglier than your thoughts. What is a thought? Why can’t I catch thoughts? What are thoughts made of? Why can’t I answer this question?
Today I asked my 8 and 9-year-old students where their thoughts came from? Here are the...
The news about neural plasticity, the ability of the human brain to develop new neural pathways through repetition, is quite encouraging. It affirms what the old yogis and meditation masters have been saying about the nature of the mind for...
My post this week will be my last as an IDP blogger. Among other things, I’ve realized the need to refocus my practice. I want to dedicate more time to my sitting meditation and yoga training and, in doing so, spend less time with my contemplative (...
by Patrick Groneman
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“'Greedy Bastard' is not an identity, it is a behavior that is exhibited by all human beings everyday of their lives.." -- Dylan Ratigan
While the fruition of meditation is not something to be measured, it can be helpful to look back and see how far you've come.
Learning to meditate is like becoming the skipper of a sailboat. The boat represents your life. The hull is like your...
Like last week, my post today is the little piece of Pema Chödrön wisdom I serendipitously opened to as a new part of my daily practice. At the beginning of this weekend especially, I very much like the notion of remembering to pause...
the past is pulling me back and the present pushing me forward
Contemplations on Occupy Seattle,
I often feel that I have so little to offer to the movement. I am not as brave or steadfast or selfless as so many of you. I want to share some...
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I was moved to read this story about Pancho Ramos Stierle, the meditator arrested at Occupy Oakland, who also faced the possibility of deportation after his arrest. This picture of him and a friend being...
I’ve started a new practice. Each day I randomly open Pema Chödrön’s book Comfortable With Uncertainty and read the teaching I’ve landed upon. The book is a compilation of 108 short teachings – little reminders...
Understanding Buddhism involves studying its texts, which range from bizarre or outdated to intense, poetic, profound and silly; looking at it’s transformation as it traveled throughout Asia and to the West; considering how teachings have...
