Category Archive: Stillness

Meditation is More than Calm

  Interesting question came in during the week. “I started meditating recently. Today was my fourth time actually, about 20 minutes long. I was fine afterwards, calm, like I had been the 3… Continue reading

Feeling Comes Before Thinking

As much as I have covered this subject in numerous posts, I keep hearing meditators complain about thinking. ‘I cant stop thinking,’ seems to be the main complaint, and obstacle in almost everybody’s… Continue reading

Why Does Meditation Make Me Angry

A meditation audio course participant asks:“Hi Roger, I’m finding when I meditate I get really angry. I remember things that have happened and I get angry and I don’t know what to do. Can… Continue reading

Surfing the Storm of Our Self

I received this question from an audio course user, and it reminded me of a very important point to be made, so here goes: “Hi Roger … been using your audio course and… Continue reading

Acceptance is Everything

An audio course participant wrote: ‘Hi, I’ve just begun meditating and I’m finding it quite a hellish experience. I can’t seem to find the calm I imagine should be happening. I end up sitting… Continue reading

Stillness Heals Everything

As I’ve said before, meditation can be summed up in one sentence: ‘Meditation is the skill of being still.’ The stillness I’m speaking of is not the comatose stillness we are in watching… Continue reading

Letting Go of Tranquility

I’m sorry I’ve been absent for a while, but I’ve been working on my novel, “The Sweet Burn of Emptiness”. It’s taken eight years for me to get to this final draft, so… Continue reading

Reality is Created by Actions, Not Thoughts!

Question:  Hi Roger, I read something the other day about the Law of Attraction, which basically states: you attract what you think about. What’s your view of this? …………………………………………………………………….. Interesting question, which gives… Continue reading

What Is The Void?

Question: What is the void? I sometimes go with a friend to a Zen meditation class and the Japanese monk who teaches there keeps talking about ‘the void’. Can you explain what this… Continue reading

The Prison of Thinking

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.                                … Continue reading

Expansiveness is the Lifeblood of Meditation

A question came the the other day that made me think. It was about a very common problem to do with uncomfortable tightening of the breath each time the practitioner meditates.  I won’t… Continue reading

Acceptance is the Beginning of Release.

In the two decades I’ve been teaching meditation, the common thread that runs through the motivations of most of the people I’ve taught, is they want to be released in some way. Whether released from a sense… Continue reading

Accepting the Battle

In most of the emails I’ve received about the variety of problems people have when they meditate, I’ve noticed a common thread. Whether it’s restless mind or restless body or an attention that… Continue reading

Thinking is not Necessarily Knowing.

QUESTION: Hi Roger, Just wanted to touch base on something that’s happened. I’ve been meditating for a long time using a Samatha type method and only recently switched to the Vipassana methods in… Continue reading

The Sound of Silence

Following is an interesting article from the Age Newspaper about taking a short 3 day Vipassana meditation retreat, and what happened.  I strongly recommend, if you’re at all serious about Vipassana meditation, that… Continue reading

The Many Minds of Mind

G’day Roger, Sometimes while I’m meditating, my mind is full of instructions about what I should be doing – things like: pay attention to sensations of weight, now pay attention to sensations of… Continue reading

Forgiving the Monsters

I was looking through all the emails I’ve received from meditators over the last few months, and it occurred to me that a lot of the problems we have in meditation, as varied as they… Continue reading

When Meditation Becomes Hell

An Audio Course participant sent me a question about how meditation had changed, seeming to have become worse instead of better, painful instead of tranquil, as one would expect.  So I have recorded… Continue reading

The Divine Trap of Stillness

Well, I’m finally back online.  I’m sorry I’ve been absent for a while, but I’ve been travelling in China, and until recently, was not able to get to my blog, because WordPress.com is blocked… Continue reading

The Mind … and the Mind …

Following is a particularly curly question about something which always seems to become an issue in meditation, however briefly. Hi, Sometimes while I’m meditating it feels like I’m using my mind to try… Continue reading

Pain is Only a Problem if it’s a Problem.

In my last post, ‘Hurt’s So Good’, Leena asked a good question which I thought was worth another post: She asked: “Life is Pain, Highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling you… Continue reading

Hurts So Good!!

AUDIO COURSE PARTICIPANT’S QUESTION: Though the Practical Meditation Audio Course has an MP3 dealing specifically with pain, I’ve received a couple of questions to do with chronic pain, in which, generally speaking people… Continue reading

Walking the Walk

A lot of people think meditation is all about sitting still in a quiet darkened room for long periods of time – and for sure, a lot of methods do indeed concentrate on… Continue reading