But if you make your best effort just to continue your practice with your whole mind and body, without gaining ideas, then whatever you do will be true practice.
So even though you have some difficulty in your practice, even though you have some waves while you are sitting, those waves themselves will help you.
Sleep is the best meditation.
Sometimes the best answer to a question is another question. Is it not by asking questions that we stimulate each other to reach more deeply into our own source and, thereby, approach the Source, both together and in our different ways? (7)
When it comes to ourselves, we often have a blind spot. That is, we fail to see ourselves as others see us. We fail to recognize our most obvious traits: our strengths, weaknesses, mannerisms.
Mindfulness meditation doesn't change life. Life remains as fragile and unpredictable as ever. Meditation changes the heart's capacity to accept life as it is. It teaches the heart to be more accommodating, not by beating it into submission, but by m...
Sometimes, sitting there on the cushion failing to watch your breath, it can feel like you’re the only weirdo weird enough to be wasting your time in this way. But you’re not! There are generations of weirdos, monasteries full of them, and we hav...
Contained within a given lesson or particular technique is the essence of all techniques. You imitate and study a particular form to grasp the universal principles that allow the technique to work in the first place and that will finally enable you t...
If we do not push ourselves enough, we do not grow, but if we push ourselves too much, we regress. What is enough will change, depending on where we are and what we are doing. In that sense, the present moment is always some kind of beginning.
As the beautiful does not exist for the artist and poet alone—though these can find in it more poignant depths of meaning than other men—so the world of Reality exists for all; and all may participate in it, unite with it, according to their meas...
We must be willing to encounter darkness and despair when they come up and face them, over and over again if need be, without running away or numbing ourselves in the thousands of ways we conjure up to avoid the unavoidable.
Through it all, we attempt to bring balance to the present moment, understanding that in patience lies wisdom, knowing that what will come next will be determined in large measure by how we are now.
Concentration is a cornerstone of mindfulness practice. Your mindfulness will only be as robust as the capacity of your mind to be calm and stable. Without calmness, the mirror of mindfulness will have an agitated and choppy surface and will not be a...
You might be tempted to avoid the messiness of daily living for the tranquility of stillness and peacefulness. This of course would be an attachment to stillness, and like any strong attachment, it leads to delusion. It arrests development and short-...
Actually we do not have any particular name for our practice; when we practice zazen we just practice it, and whether we find joy in our practice or not, we just do it.
In zazen practice we say your mind should be concentrated on your breathing, but the way to keep your mind on your breathing is to forget all about yourself and just to sit and feel your breathing.
You see something or hear a sound, and there you have everything just as it is. [...] Whatever you do, it should be an expression of the same deep activity. We should appreciate what we are doing. There is no preparation for something else.
I visualise what I want through meditation. The process of meditating is a great way of making sure I have my priorities sorted. It's not about money - I focus on my career and the kind of film projects I want to do. Film-making is a passion for me, ...
Meditation calms, and soothes the soul. Using meditation techniques to quiet our minds helps us get a handle on what happens to us in our lives. Since our view of our external life is basically a reflection of our inner state of being, slowing down o...
The only thing that seems to differ between the major schools of meditation is the point of concentration. Some traditions use mantras, others follow the breath, some have their eyes open, others have their eyes closed, some use simple words, others ...
The greatest teacher in healing is nature itself. To be out in the nature is like being surrounded and embraced by love. Trees are also very beautiful people, who have their own innate wisdom and who are already in oneness with Existence. And the sky...
