We express our presence through our body, actions, movements and speech. We express it in our bearing, our posture and the way we do things. Our presence expresses itself in the way we take our place in the world, the way we take our seat. Continue reading The gift of being ‘fully present’
To find that way of being we have to make some kind of effort to recognise what is blocking us and setting ourselves up to let those blockages dissolve. Continue reading How do we balance ‘doing’ and ‘not-doing’ in our meditation practice?
First of all we need to know what a Pure Land is and what it means. Eventually we learn that the pure land is nothing other than our true nature. The pure land manifests in the heart when we realise that our true nature is our Buddha nature. So why call this a pure land? Why a place? We are Buddha nature. We are expressions of Buddha nature so why talk about it as if it were a Pure Land? Eventually it’s a matter of seeing this world we are in now as being the Pure Land. Continue reading Long Read Part 1: What is a Pure Land? And Why pray to be reborn there?
Accustoming ourselves is a good way of putting it because it’s not as if we have to create love and compassion – it is more like awakening it within us and then aligning with it more and more – accustomise in that sense. Continue reading Meditation as becoming accustomed to our sense of Love & Compassion
Lama Shenpen’s valuable teaching on integrating meditations on Love & Compassion with our daily life, recorded live on 8th August 2020. Catch up on all of Lama Shenpen’s teachings from this year (as well as teachings by other Awakened Heart Sangha teachers) on the theme of Love & Compassion, on the new mini site dedicated to these teachings HERE. If you would like to make … Continue reading Video: Integrating Meditation & Daily Life
When we try in an ego-centric way – or manipulate our experience to be what we think it should be – then it’s kind of aggressive, ambitious and pushy. But when we are simply playing in the openness of awareness – trying things out in a relaxed and gentle way that feels really alive and kind of beautiful… Continue reading How does imagination fit into the process of reflection and meditation?
Formless Meditation seems to mean anything from basic Shamata to deepest levels of vipashyana, Mahamudra and/or Dzogchen. Formless Meditation is a term coined by Trungpa Rinpoche which is clearly meant to include far more than simply a Shamata practice without a particular focus or object. Continue reading What does the term Formless Meditation mean & where did it come from?
The Vipashyana aspect of the Formless Meditation practice comes in as we begin to wonder what our experience actually is in itself. We do this by wondering what is the mind, what is a thought or a feeling, what is a sensation, what is the space of awareness in which all this happens. Continue reading What is Vipashyana Meditation?
This is Mara at work – it is almost a gut reaction. Something in us is so deeply entrenched we don’t want to disturb it – or rather it doesn’t want to be disturbed. This can often account for why sometimes we find ourselves drifting off instead of really focusing in an awake and alive way when we are meditating. We really have to look closely to see what that is all about. Continue reading Noticing ways we delude ourselves: noticing Avidya and Mara
When we talk about meditation in terms of letting go of thoughts, it can seem as if it is a matter of setting oneself up as an observer of one’s mind and to root out thinking. This is a misunderstanding of the whole process. Setting up a watcher in this way perpetuates our false sense of what we are and what our experience is. The observer might well be well intentioned, but the problem is that it is heavy-handed and believes too much in itself. Continue reading Meditation: Recognising ‘the watcher’ as thinking too
