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.

TRANQUILITY GAME: INVITING THE HEART

We can never understand the nature of the mind through intense effort, but only by relaxing, just as breaking a wild horse requires that one approach it gently and treat it kindly rather than running after it and trying to use force. So do not try to catch hold of the nature of the mind, just leave it like it is.3

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

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man. —Heraclitus

Contrary to our prevailing wiring and conditioning, it is not about getting rid of unwanted thoughts and feelings. Rather, the secret to reducing mental suffering is consciously settling in a balanced, accepting manner into the flow of experience.

There are two kinds of light—the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures. —James Thurber

Relaxation helps set the stage, and playfulness mitigates the intensity that most of us bring to meditation.

He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity’s sunrise. —William Blake