Meditation

“If you let go a little, you will find a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will find a lot of peace. If you let go absolutely, you will find absolute peace and tranquility.”

The way attention and peripheral awareness work together is a lot like the relationship between visual focus and peripheral vision. Try fixing your eyes on an external object. You will notice that, as you focus on the object, your peripheral vision takes in other information elsewhere in your field of vision. You can compare that with your experien

The condition in which the mind “stands back” to observe its own state and activities is called metacognitive introspective awareness. 13 Attention, on the other hand, can’t observe activities of the mind because its movements and abstracting of information from awareness are activities of the mind. In other words, we can’t attend to attention. Whe

Consider how much time you spend thinking—in even the subtlest way, in the back of the simulator—about what others think of you. Be mindful of doing things to get admiration and praise. Try to focus instead on just doing the best you can. Think about virtue, benevolence, and wisdom: if you sincerely keep trying to come from these, that’s about all

You have mastered Stage One when you never miss a daily practice session except when absolutely unavoidable, and when you rarely if ever procrastinate on the cushion by thinking and planning or doing something besides meditating. This Stage is the most difficult to master, but it can be done in a few weeks. By following the basic instructions and c

Chunks of my identity are falling off, month by month. Parts of me that kept track of my social status and my anxieties are relaxing and falling into the void. What’s left, increasingly, is a feeling of complete satisfaction with the way things are. You know that feeling of drinking a glass of water that’s exactly correctly cool on a hot day? Imagi

This journey of finding a meaningful alignment with ourselves and the world is not an easy one. To gain more clarity and understanding in this domain, I usually encourage people to explore the work of James Hollis. His book Living An Examined Life is a great start and full of meaningful contemplation that is sure to bring more clarity to the journe

The path of Buddhism is often called The Middle Way, as it’s midway between indulging in sense desires and renouncing them. The Buddha essentially said you can eat and feel good, but if you want to be liberated from suffering you can’t be attached to eating and feeling good.