Tag: meditation
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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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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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Self-Inquiry: The Direct Simplicity of “Who Am I?”
Read time 4 minutes. Self-Inquiry is a stand alone article in our Who Am I series. In earlier lessons, I introduced the practice of self-inquiry and its central question: Who am I? Over the next few writings, we will explore the nuances of this approach, why it is so effective, and how it can be applied in practice.…
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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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Neutral Observation Meditation in Review: Taking Back the Reins
Read time 3 minutes. Neutral Observation Meditation is a stand alone article in our series regarding mindfulness and meditation. In recent lessons we’ve explored what I’ve loosely called active meditations. One of the most accessible of these is neutral observation meditation—learning to step back and watch our thoughts and emotions even as we’re caught up in stories, games,…
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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,…
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Presence and Active Meditation: The Practice Field of This Moment
Read time 4 minutes. Presence and Active Meditation is a stand alone article in our series regarding mindfulness and meditation. In our last lesson we considered active meditations and their potential to lead us into deeper states of awareness. I suggested they can even open the door to Absolute Presence and Absolute Freedom. That is a bold claim, and perhaps a…
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Active Meditation: What Is It? What Are the Benefits?
Read time 2 minutes. Active Meditation is a stand alone article in our series regarding mindfulness and meditation. Today we take up the value of active meditation. Since all forms of meditation invite presence into our lives, we will also return to this theme in the next few lessons. Presence, after all, is at the heart of…