Practice: Counting Thoughts
“With the mind, observe the mind.” – Buddha This first simple practice gives an immediate experience of mindfulness of thought. Sit comfortably and quietly. After...
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Establishing a Daily Meditation
First select a suitable place for your regular meditation. Place a meditation cushion or chair there for your use, and add any books or images...
Enacting Mindfully
The fifth skillful means for working with difficulties is called Enacting It Mindfully. Let’s face it, we act out most of our desires anyway. In...
How to Begin Naming
Begin by sitting comfortably, focusing awareness on your breathing. As you feel each breath, carefully acknowledge it with a simple name: “in-breath, out-breath,” saying the...
Purification: The Gateway to Higher States
Learning to concentrate, though initially difficult, works. Gradually, through repeated focus on our subject over hours and days, the mind’s wandering diminishes. It settles down...
Heart Wisdom – Ep. 14 – Simplicity and Sympathy –
The spirit of simplicity, presence and sympathy of heart can carry us through the most difficult and beautiful of times. When we learn to make...
The Entry to Expanded Consciousness: Access Concentration
The gateway to both the Realms of Absorption and the Realms of Dissolution is a stabilization of heart and mind called access concentration. Access concentration...
Developing a Healing Attention
Sit comfortably and quietly. Let your body rest easily. Breathe gently. Let go of your thoughts, past and future, memories and plans. Just be present....
Open to Vastness
You’ve had many tastes of the ever-present mystery of life when you’ve fallen in love or been present at the birth of a child, or...
Concentration of Mind
Out of a foundation of conscious conduct, the first steps of the mindful way, grows the second aspect of the path, which is called the...
Heart Wisdom – Ep. 12 – The One Who Knows
Behind all the drama of our lives, there is something unchanging and ever-present, for everyone to discover. Our methods and practices point us in the...
A Sitting Meditation
To begin meditation, select a quiet time and place. Be seated on a cushion or chair, taking an erect yet relaxed posture. Let yourself sit...
