Struggle Creates Success
One time in Sri Lanka, while on a long silent retreat, I complained to the teacher that I was having a particularly difficult time with a block that had arisen in meditation. I… Continue reading
Tag Archive: health
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Meditation Needs Love
When I first began meditating I had terrible difficulty with it, and almost gave up at one point, because I felt as if I just didn’t have what it took. It wasn’t… Continue reading
Yoga and Meditation Can Change Your Genes, Study Says
In a new paper, published in Frontiers in Immunology, British researchers analyzed the findings from 18 previously published studies—involving a total of 846 people—on the biological effects of meditation, yoga, breathing exercises, Qi… Continue reading
Rhythm of Breathing Affects Memory and Fear
NEUROSCIENCE NEWS DECEMBER 7, 2016Summary: A new study reports the rhythm of your breathing can influence neural activity that enhances memory recall and emotional judgement. Source: Northwestern University. Breathing is not just for oxygen;… Continue reading
Don’t Fight to Meditate.
Hi Roger .. I’ve been learning to meditate and I’ve been to a number of teachers who keep instructing me to concentrate on the breath. It is supposed to relax me and make… Continue reading
Meditation the Journey
” The things that trouble our spirits are within us already. In meditation, we must face them, accept them, and set them aside one by one. Cristopher Bennett I was thumbing through a popular tabloid news… Continue reading
Mindfulness and Habits
Roger – I meditate every day and I think it helps my life. But I’m told by my teacher I should be mindful as well as meditate, and I’m not that sure about… Continue reading
Love The Pain!!
Most people, as they go through the process of learning how to meditate, pass through a number of stages, some pleasant, some unpleasant. And my view is, no matter whether pleasure or pain,… Continue reading
The World of Worry
In the mid nineteenth century, the word ‘worry’ referred solely to the act of physical harassment, whether of animals or humans – for example, ‘the dog worried at the sheep to herd them… Continue reading
The Perils of Positive Thinking.
So, at the outset, let’s get it out in the open. My personal view is, positive thinking, either as affirmations or visualizations, doesn’t work. In fact, it’s been seen that these strategies actually… Continue reading
Becoming Mindful
“Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep… Continue reading
Feeling Before Thinking – Always
As much as I’ve covered this subject in numerous posts, people still consider compulsive thinking to be the main obstacle when they meditate. And its completely understandable. After all, in a culture such… Continue reading
A Little More
I was looking through a meditation journal from one of my retreats in Thailand the other day and I found something that made me smile – a vibrant little note scrawled in my… Continue reading
Stillness is Not Stopping
A lot of people have a mistaken view that when they meditate, in being still, everything should stop – thinking, sensations – everything. They have the impression that stillness is a state in which… Continue reading
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
Why Does Meditation Make Me Angry
Question: “I’m finding I get really angry when I meditate. I remember things that have happened and I get angry and I don’t know what to do. Is this being created by the… Continue reading
Stillness Heals Everything
Meditation can be summed up in one sentence: ‘Meditation is the skill of being still.’ The stillness I’m talking about is not the semi-comatose stillness we’re in when watching TV, nor is it… Continue reading
Clearing Away The Crud
Hi Roger, Sometimes when I’m meditating and my mind is running away with itself, I find myself sitting with my mind all over the place. But I’ve noticed during these times, just sitting… Continue reading
Why Does Meditation Make Me Cry?
Hi … been taking a break over the New Year and now I’m back. A few questions have come in over that time which I’ll address over the next few days. The first… 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
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