The winter months can be a good time to set up a regular meditation practice or to realign with your intentions if your regular practice has drifted. We revisit this article by Lama Shenpen on how to set up a regular practice, which is an excerpt from the booklet Heart of Meditation that given to all new members of the Awakened Heart Sangha when they … Continue reading How best to set up a regular meditation practice?
Fear arises in the expanse of the spaciousness of your being and if you can trust that nature of your being, the fear is simply a movement that doesn’t disturb you. You can even rest in fear… Continue reading Is it normal to need to back off from meditating if fear or anxiety arises?
It is exactly how insight starts to develop – the panic reaction is as deep as samsara itself. There would be no samsara if there were no panic. Sometimes we let things get so close to the edge that the panic manifests as raw panic and we have to start working with the reality of that – not running away or trying to avoid it – it is the First Noble Truth of Dukkha Continue reading Panic as a sign of insight & The Four Noble Truths in the Living the Awakened Heart Training
For example, as you wake up out of bed and open the curtains, you can be thinking this is like awakening from the sleep of ignorance. “May this day be one more step on the path of Awakening, may it awaken myself and others.” As you think and wish like this, note the space of awareness in which all your sense impressions are happening and in which all your thoughts and feelings are happening. Relax into that sense of space and waking up. Continue reading Don’t Just Leave Meditation on the Meditation Seat – How to Practise Daily Life Awareness
If you can relate to your present suffering with some kind of sense of it being your path, then the suffering itself becomes your practice. Just being able to let go of negative thinking and struggling with the pain and being more simple about it, that already means you are making the suffering into the path. Continue reading Pain and suffering as practice & how our thoughts can increase the suffering of pain
I think it is very important when our energy is low not to drain our energy more by feeling bad about ourselves and chastising ourselves for not doing better or doing more, or comparing ourselves unfavourably with others or with our past performance. Continue reading How can we engage in meditation if we experience low energy?
The meditation cushion is not a magic wand that solves all problems. Each situation needs to be addressed with Openness, Clarity and Sensitivity – sometimes face to face in the situation we find ourselves in – and sometimes face to face with ourselves in meditation. Continue reading “The meditation cushion is not a magic wand” – Lama Shenpen on balancing acting in the world & meditating
I think this question relates to reflection – when and how do we engage in reflection? Often it is when we are sitting quietly on our meditation cushion and thoughts and feelings are coming up, we recognise patterns and insights pop out sometimes as if from nowhere. Sometimes we worry that we are going to forget them and are tempted to quickly note them down. To do that would be useful from the reflection point of view but not what we should be doing when we are first developing some kind of Shamata. Continue reading Should we label all thoughts as ‘thinking’ in meditation?
It is important to take note of what is happening and often persistent thoughts and patterns of thinking and emoting can be freed up by using some of the wonderful methods that are emerging in the West these days… Continue reading Another question about ‘spiritual bypassing’ and meditating with anxiety and depression
I think sometimes people associate trying to meditate with constant failure. All these feelings are mandala guardians * trying to keep you out of your meditation mandala by throwing up a smoke screen of excuses. Continue reading What can we do when we feel we can’t meditate?
