Meditation is a Cup of Tea for the Soul

I grew up in England but my mother was not British so I was able to see some of their idiosyncrasies from a different point of view. One that bemused me was their obsession with tea. It acts as the social ritual on entering someone’s home, it acts as the primary caffeine delivery mechanism of choice, but it is also the solution to all problems. You’re feeling bored - put the kettle on. You’re feeling a bit tired - put the kettle on. You’re feeling a bit depressed - put the kettle on. Your best friend has just run off

2021-01-05T19:56:11-05:00By |

Tell me what to do. Don’t tell me what not to do.

It feels wrong to give direction by asking people ‘not’ to do something. You don’t throw a ball to a child and say ‘don’t drop it’, you say ‘catch it’. There are no posters saying “don’t be ordinary”, they say “Shoot For The Stars”. Nike’s slogan wouldn’t work as well if it said “Just Don’t Not Do It”. Yet I state half the foundational building blocks of meditation as non-something. Nevertheless, there are a some precedents where ‘nots’ are considered useful. Hinduism uses the practice of ‘neti neti’, meaning ‘not this, and not that’. This is considered the only way

2020-08-01T20:15:52-04:00By |

How FOCUS can change your life

Meditation is often thought of as a relaxation exercise. That’s great, it is. If that's all you want, you're in the right place. Meditate - it'll make you feel better. But may I suggest it also has the potential to transform your experience of life in a far more powerful way than just feeling less stressed. Concentration or Focus? Meditating on the breath is sometimes categorized as a concentration exercise. I think its should be categorized as a focus exercise. This may seem a tad semantic, but although it is true that this meditation improves concentration I am far more

2020-08-01T20:17:15-04:00By |

The Biggest Mistake I’ve Made

Today I have a good meditation practice. All I mean by that is that I meditate daily. But I’ve been meditating on and off for over thirty years, and most of that was pretty dreadful. I have made so many mistakes that when I think about it I’m embarrassed to call myself a teacher of meditation. People assume because I’m the one at the front of the class that I must have it all worked out, but I haven’t. In fact I am aware that I’ve thought before that I knew something about meditation and when I look back I

2020-04-18T17:40:27-04:00By |

Wake Up

“My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement.” Patricia Graynamore (Meg Ryan) to Jo Banks (Tom Hanks) in Joe Versus the Volcano (1990). Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan made a couple of the all time classic romcoms in the 1990s. Sleepless in Seattle in 1993, and then five years later You’ve Got Mail both made fortunes at the box office. However, a few years beforehand they they

2020-04-18T17:40:29-04:00By |
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