Practical Meditation Advice

A helpful phrase to remember when dealing with distractions of any kind is, let it come, let it be, let it go. Don’t try to suppress it, just let it come into peripheral awareness. Don’t engage the distraction or focus attention on it, simply disregard it and let it be in the background. Then, let it go away by itself. This is a passive process.

My sense, based on personal experience and observing others, is that you taking to the practice depends on your ability to catch a glimpse of non-duality. Try it out, and if you don’t experience an opening in any way after some exploration, I advise to return to a “bottom up” approach, with my usual recommendation being Vipassana practice as it’s

The most effective way to overcome both procrastination and reluctance and resistance to practicing is to just do it. Nothing works as quickly or effectively as diligence. The simple act of consistently sitting down and placing your attention on the meditation object, day after day, is the essential first step from which everything else in the Ten

As fellow teacher Stephanie Nash is fond of saying, “A good meditation is one you did—the only bad meditation is one you didn’t do.” Take her wise advice to heart.

To develop intentionally directed, stable attention, you must first have a clear understanding of its opposite, spontaneous movements of attention. Attention moves spontaneously in three different ways: scanning, getting captured, and alternating.

Counting your breaths at the start of a sit really helps stabilize your attention. If you’re a novice, you should use this method all the time. Once you have moved through the Four Steps and attention is restricted to the breath at the nose, start silently counting each breath. Your goal will be to follow the sensations continuously for ten