Posts from — June 2011

I often try to explain that one of the biggest misconceptions about meditation practice is that it is a form of self-improvement. It is not. In fact, it is a way of stepping off the (often vicious) self-improvement treadmill most of us run on 24/7 to instead accept ourselves exactly as we are. It is a time to give up all agendas and just be.

Hang out with yourself, exactly as you are. Make friends with yourself. Doing so with an agenda is the same as befriending another with an agenda. They can tell that something is fishy. Plus, we lose the magic and possibility of the interaction and it simply becomes a task. No one falls in love with a task, and, in a sense, meditation is a way of falling in love with yourself, warts and all, wisdom and all. After all, you are extremely love-worthy. Treating yourself as a work project tends to obscure all that.

So, quite naturally, such a view provokes a question like this one, from a reader [Read more →]

I wasn’t able to get to all your (excellent) questions during our two conference calls last week, so i’ll be answering them here.

Q. My question:  I sometimes get carried away with my fantasies and discursive thoughts during meditation.  I am aware of the fact that I am getting carried away, and then I sabotage my practice by making a conscious choice that I need to process this particular issue right now, or that I find this fantasy so pleasurable that I am going to continue with it, instead of going back to the boring breath.  Then I later beat myself up for my weakness.  Do you have any suggestions for being more disciplined with my practice?   Again—this particular problem is not that I am unaware that my attention has strayed; rather, I am aware but unwilling or unable to come back to the breath. It is like a contest of wills and often the weaker one wins out. [Read more →]

Or what I think.

I’d like to say a few words about the 6th and final paramita, which is called wisdom or knowledge.

It is pretty much impossible to say what this “wisdom” is and anything you say about it pretty much points in the opposite direction of what it is, simply by the act of trying to capture it. The best thing I can say–and I don’t even know that I understand what I’m about to say–is that the transcendent action called “wisdom” has to do with continuously abiding in the state of non-duality. [Read more →]

If you were to ask on Twitter, “What is your #1 book on meditation or spirituality?” this is what you would get. At least from my Twitterverse. Enjoy! Read them all! Or just read one with absolute comprehension! Become enlightened! [Read more →]

I think I could turn and live with animals,

they are so placid and/self-contained

I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God

Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things

Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago

Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

Walt Whitman, from Song of Myself

(Me, age 4, pretending to read. Some things never change.)

These are the three most valuable and important books about meditation that I’ve ever read. You could spend your whole life reading and rereading them and would never get to the end of their depth and usefulness. In fact, if you or I were ever so lucky and diligent as to fully understand the content of any one of them, we would be enlightened. Seriously. Check them out!

What are your favorite books on meditation and spirituality? Would love to know. Please: recommend books to each other! [Read more →]

It’s about an hour long and covers the following:

What meditation is/isn’t

What the style is that I teach and that we practice together

The 3 biggest misconceptions about meditation

A review of meditation instruction–how to practice

Meditation practice

Q & A

It was a blast!!

I want to say a few words about the 5th paramita or transcendent action, which is called “meditation.”

Here, meditation means something other than our formal on-the-cushion practice. It means the effort to extend meditative awareness off the cushion, in all circumstances of course. And what is required to extend such awareness? Something kind of scary and cool and very deep and completely ordinary: letting go of our ideas, agendas, hopes, fears, and all manner of projections to instead attend to the present moment. [Read more →]

The paramitas (or “transcendent actions”) are 6 things that you can do to change the world. I hope that after reviewing the first 3: generosity, discipline, and patience, you’re beginning to see that I’m not exaggerating.

Paramita #4 is called exertion, which doesn’t necessarily mean trying super hard even when you’ve run out of energy or being really busy or front loading your schedule with things to do, no matter how meritorious. It has more to do with relaxing and taking an interest in everything that happens. When things go well, you take an interest in that. When things go poorly, you can take an interest in that too. When you’re sick and tired of everything and unable to take an interest in anything, you can take an interest in that, too. Even if just for a moment. [Read more →]

As you may recall from our past two sessions, I mentioned that there are 6 actions that you and I can take that will transform the world into a more peaceful and kindhearted place.

The first was called “generosity,” which simply means the willingness to let down your guard. Rather than holding yourself back from your world until it meets some kind of requirements, you open to it exactly as it is. This is pretty generous.

The second paramita was called “discipline” and, here, rather than referring to some kind of rigid adherence to, well, anything: a code of ethics, a schedule, a personal agenda, as a way of creating happiness for yourself, we abandon any such intellectualized view in favor of placing attention on the present moment and allowing ourselves to be guided by it. Here, discipline simply means coming back. Starting over. Taking a fresh view, again and again.

The third paramita is called patience and, here, patience isn’t so much about forbearance or tolerating people and things you don’t like with a stiff upper lip—here, patience is more about giving up expectations, of rolling with things exactly as they are. When circumstances make you happy, you notice that, take it in, lean into it, don’t try to hold on. When they make you unhappy, you do the same. Repeat, repeat, repeat. As Choygam Trungpa says in Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, “Not expecting anything, we do not get impatient.” Which sounds great, but how the hell do you actually do that?

Check out the video for more info!