For a dozen years, I attended a lot of meditation retreats. Two or three times a year I immersed myself in the practice, for week-long intensives. Before each new Zen ‘sesshin’, as they were called, or Vipassana retreat, I struggled with whether to take the time out of my life, my work, parenting, diminish my […]
Tag Archives | Practice
Dating Relating Mating
A Map For Romantic Relationships Walk, run, rest. Hop, skip, jump. Birth, life, death. Everything has a rhythm—an order. This is true for romantic relationships but most people don’t know or pay attention to the order. It goes like this: Dating, Relating, Mating. And when I use the term “mating,” what I mean is entering […]
Patience
Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength. — Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton How many times a day do you check your email? I don’t even want to ask myself that question. I don’t want to know because I’m pretty sure I have a […]
How To Meditate
Our way to practice is one step at a time, one breath at a time. Shunryu Suzuki […]
Embodied Awareness
How Aware Are You? In our retreats we teach a way to use language, Perception Language, which helps to ground us in the present moment. Using Perception Language minimizes our tendency to become reactive or defensive. But, for those times when we do become reactive—when our “train has left the station”—we have recently incorporated another […]
How Smart Living is Easier Than Hard Work
There is a way of living that’s easier—smart living! It applies to our physical bodies, our emotional lives, our relationships and even the way we do our jobs. For many years I’ve struggled with a physical condition that prevents me from exerting myself or pushing myself too hard. If I do push too hard, I […]
The Secret Language Of Buddhism
Here’s the first secret: An ancient Pali language, the language that the Buddha spoke during his lifetime, was a “verbing” language. This way of speaking was unique in that it allowed one to stay in process, not fixing oneself or clinging to a static or permanent state, but being in motion, continuously […]
Perception Language is a Mindfulness Practice
Perception Language allows you to listen to other people without getting defensive, realize they are only talking about themselves, and stop making compassion-less judgments of others. Perception Language allows you to speak with authority and clarity about your own experiences, to be in the present moment, and to more easily reveal yourself so you […]
Sensory Awareness Leads to Mindfulness
Do you want to live your life with more mindfulness? Do you want to stop rushing toward the end of your life? In a Live Conscious Retreat we begin each day with a form of mindfulness meditation called Sensory Awareness. In this practice we use our senses to slow ourselves down and get more deeply […]
Personal Narrative — Day 6 — Maya Tulum
Since early on in this retreat the participants have been thinking and working on what we call a “personal narrative.” The idea behind your personal narrative is that you have a story—you may not be conscious of your story—but you have a story. Is your story—your narrative—healthy? Is your personal narrative one that makes […]