The Meditator's Dilemma: An Innovative Approach to Overcoming Obstacles and Revitalizing Your Practice

Our emotional needs matter. This is our North Star. We want to know how meditation can help improve our balance of mind, increase our focus, and decrease our stress.

yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries. —Blaise Pascal

whether we are beginners or long-term practitioners, our core agenda centers around happiness.

In meditation, as the sense of self is investigated, it is seen as transitory and continuously constructed moment to moment. It is to be held lightly. It is not a thing, but an ongoing process.

TRANQUILITY GAME: INVITING THE HEART

Audio versions of many of these practices are available at http://www.shambhala.com/the-meditator-s-dilemma.html and at www.billandsusan.net/meditatorsdilemma

Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries, and

I understood immediately that certain things—attention, great energy, total concentration, tenderness, risk, beauty—were elements of poetry. And I understood that these elements did not grow as grass grows from a seed, naturally and unstoppably, but rather were somehow gathered and discovered by the poet, and placed inside the poem. —Mary Oliver

the first step in creating the holding environment is giving ourselves permission to meditate in a personally creative and meaningful way, rather than force ourselves to align with traditional instructions.