Category: Zen practices
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Calming Breath Practice: Tongue Tricks and Tranquility Juice
Read time 3 minutes. A calming breath practice or three to help dissolve the ego. Long before I knew much about Zen, I stumbled upon an interesting practice. One night, for reasons I can’t remember, I tried to imitate Tibetan throat singing with childlike sincerity. The deep rumble filled me until it felt like my…
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Uncle Bob, Zen, and the Leftovers – A Micro Zen Practice
Micro Zen practice?It’s just this simple: MindfulRebellion Want the entire story? Read: Practice Takes Practice: Energy Awareness. Choose your own adventure:
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Practice Takes Practice: Energy Awareness
Read time 3 minutes. Learn a simple yet powerful energy awareness practice that helps you break the emotional feedback loop. Ahead lies a deceptively simple practice.But it only works if you’re willing—truly willing—to stop fighting what is.You don’t have to like what’s happening.You do have to stop arguing with it.Perhaps you find yourself struggling with…
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The Ripple Behind the Illusion of Self
Read time 2 minutes. What is your true nature? It lies beyond the false self.
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Unknowing Into The Peace of No-mind: Who Knows?
Read time 7 minutes. Unknowing is a stand alone article in our series regarding paradox. We have been winding our way through the endless dualities that rise up in Zen thought and practice. Each step reveals how overlapping, how intertwined, these ideas actually are. Such is the case with today’s topic: no-mind. I like to think of…
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Mindful Listening: A Meditation Game
Read time 4 minutes. Mindful listening is a stand alone article in our Blocked Energy series. We’ve spoken often about the importance of accepting and allowing. Most of the time the focus has been on mental attitude—how we relate to thoughts, how we lean into letting go. Today, let’s turn the lens slightly and look at the…
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Everyday Zen: 5 Tools Of Awareness Beyond Conditioning
Read time 7 minutes. Awareness Beyond Conditioning is a stand alone article in our Everyday Zen series. Today’s lesson is one we can get excited about. It’s where the knowledge we’ve been gathering begins to shift into practice—into something lived. Many of Charlotte Joko Beck’s teachings turn on Zazen, the seated meditation practice central to…
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Acceptance Meditation Practice: Die While You’re Alive
Read time 4 minutes. Acceptance Meditation Practice is a stand alone article in our series regarding Acceptance. Today’s lesson turns to an old and powerful meditation technique: the practice of contemplating death and mortality. On the surface, it may sound grim. Yet, as with so many Zen practices, what seems dark at first becomes a gateway…
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Active Meditation Practice: The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Read time 3 minutes. This active meditation practice is a stand alone article in our series regarding mindfulness and meditation. In earlier lessons I spoke at length about the practice of letting go. Today we merge that theme with our discussion of active meditation. The practice I’ll outline is simple: it can be done in leisure time,…