Can Positive Thinking Work as a Meditation?
The question that forms the heading of this post came up in my Quora feed, and it touched upon an interesting issue, so I’ll post my reply here in this blog: There’s a… Continue reading
Tag Archive: relaxation
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The Non-Thinkingness of Knowing
Got this interesting question on Quora: “If during meditation you reach a point of no thoughts, then how do you recognize that state without thinking?” You know it. You see, what we call… Continue reading
Clinging
Clinging creates tension because it flies in the face of change. When we cling, we presuppose it’s possible for things to always stay the same. We want things to stay the same –… Continue reading
Routine
‘The big things that come our way are the fruit of seeds planted in the daily routine of our work.’– William Feather One of the biggest problems people have with meditation is it… Continue reading
Practicing Mindfulness
‘Mindfulness isn’t difficult. We just need to remember to do it.’ – Sharon Salzberg Mindfulness gets a lot of media attention these days. Everybody’s talking about it, books have been written about it,… Continue reading
Going On Silent Retreat
If you’re as fascinated with meditation as I am, at some point you’re going to want to do it more intensively – to go into silent retreat and meditate for some days or… Continue reading
The Skill of Being Still
As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve not been posting over the last year, largely because I’ve been preoccupied with other things – but also because the answers to most of the questions I’m getting… Continue reading
It’s Not Wrong to Feel.
To all my regular readers, I’ve been away for a couple of months because my eyes were developing cataracts and I had to have an operation. It’s an amazing thing, for the world… Continue reading
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
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
The Breath, Only the Breath.
In my audio course, and in some of the posts I’ve written for this blog, I’ve spoken at various times about emotions and pain during meditation, and described methods for dealing with these… Continue reading
Facing What Disturbs You
Following is a question concerning an unusual condition that keeps repeating each time Jacques meditates: “Hi Roger, I liked your book but I got a big problem meditating. I have given it… Continue reading
Beginning To Meditate
Recently I sent out an email to all the people who bought the Practical Meditation Audio Course, asking them if they had any questions, so i could post my replies for everybody. Since… Continue reading
Riding the Storm During Meditation
In the early ‘80’s a friend of mine began practicing a popular form of meditation being propagated by a famous Indian guru and his followers. This group had centers all over the world… 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
Our Forgotten Friend
“It is slavery to live in the mind unless it has become part of the body.” -Kahlil Gibran One time, in one of the temples where I was doing Vipassana training in Thailand,… 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
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
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
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
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
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