Why Does Meditating Make Me Anxious?
Got this question in an email from Marc. “Hi Roger … I recently started meditating and frankly I find it makes me even more anxious than I usually am. But I persevered and… Continue reading
Got this question in an email from Marc. “Hi Roger … I recently started meditating and frankly I find it makes me even more anxious than I usually am. But I persevered and… Continue reading
Got this question: “Roger, I keep losing myself in daydreams while meditating. I get so lost sometimes I even forget I exist, and the more I try to focus, the more intense the… Continue reading
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
A wonderful, and quite forensic breakdown of the how sensations become suffering., and the role our conditioned reactions play in that transition. Essential viewing if you’re as fascinated by the processes within Vipassana… Continue reading
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
There has been a lot of press about the relationship between meditation and neuroplasticity recently. What this means is, where before it was thought that after fully forming itself during childhood the basic structure… Continue reading
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
QUESTION: “Hey Roger, just on the thought storms you mentioned last week, do I have to be meditating for them to arise? Because over the last couple of weeks while I haven’t been… Continue reading
Sartre once said in a play he wrote, “Hell is other people.” and indeed, when it comes to meditation, hell can sometimes be other people, particularly when they don’t understand what you’re doing,… Continue reading