This practice is a wonderful example of how mindfulness helps us to see what we have learned to ignore through force of habit. In the modern world we tend to take light for granted, but before the advent of electricity in the early part of the 20th century, light was precious, even sacred. Instructions Expand …
Impatience is a common experience in our modern world. We become impatient when traffic stops or slows, when we or someone else is late for a meeting, whenever we have to wait and “do nothing.” Signals of impatience can be both physical; the rapid heart beat, tapping fingers, jiggling legs, tightness in chest or stomach …
Many people use affirmations to make themselves happier or more positive in outlook repeating phrases to themselves such as “I am worthy of love” or “Today I will concentrate on taking one step forward however small” Affirmations may be of value at certain times, but they can also paper over a troubled mind. This mindfulness …
Most of the time we only look at a narrow wedge of the world. As our eyes are in the front of our head, our visual awareness is usually limited to what is in front of us, a slice from the ground up to about ten feet high. Only when we see or hear something …
This charming video pays tribute to the happy wholesomeness of being alone. Tanya Davis recites her poem about the ways of solitude, gently cataloging all the places where aloneness can bring freedom and healing. Whether at a lunch counter, park bench, mountain trail, or on the edge of a dance floor – all you have …
At first sight, this practice is about bringing our attention to the experience of spaciousness within our visual field. It takes effort to shift our attention to the space around us, but when we remember to do so it can become a potent tool of awareness. When we practice this externally, it also becomes possible …
Despite being pressed into service day in day out, we rarely pay much attention to our feet even when we are using them to carry us from A to B. One reason for this is that the bottoms of our feet are about as far away as we can get from our head, which is …
Tibetan Buddhists describe our essential nature as like the sky; vast, luminous and clear. From time to time however we all find ourselves caught up in the complexities of our own mental elaborations and the clarity of our ‘essential nature’ becomes obscured by clouds of self absorption and the emotional storms of “I, me and …
This practice helps us to see how often we habitually take up a stance that is negative, oppositional or defensive in some way. This can take the form of thoughts (I don’t agree with what he is saying), body language (tensing muscles, arms crossed), speech (“That’s a stupid idea”), or action (shaking the head, rolling …
Our hands are always busy. They have a tendency to reveal our states of mental ease or discomfort. Many people make nervous hand gestures, such as rubbing or wringing their hands, touching their face, tapping a finger, cracking knuckles, or biting their nails. When people first learn to meditate, they often find it difficult just …
We tend to take their existence for granted and see them merely as a decorative part of the wallpaper of our lives, however trees are indispensable to our continued existence as a species. Be aware that what trees breathe out, we breathe in. Their very presence oxygenates our world and enables humanity to exist. It …
This is a fascinating practice and says something quite profound about how we have this habitual tendency to get mentally ahead of ourselves. I’m not going to say too much more about it at this stage, but I look forward to your observations with an eager sense of anticipation…. Instructions The shorthand for this practice …
Generosity or the act of giving is of immeasurable benefit to the giver for it opens up the heart, diminishes for a minute one’s self absorption and places value on the well being of others. The simple gesture of offering a flower, a few hours of volunteer work, a kind thought or a simple meal …
We know instinctively how to use loving eyes when we are falling in love, when we see a new baby or cute animal. Why do we not use loving eyes more often? In this practice we discover that our habitual way of looking at things is not particularly loving. More often than not it can …
This practice is about exploring our psychological attachment to the media that we use on a daily basis.
This practice is about the art of waiting and pausing, checking your internal state and using situations, that in the past you may have found frustrating, to your own best advantage.
When the phone rings just STOP, PAUSE and BREATHE before responding to the call, using the sound itself as way of bringing yourself back into the present moment.
We are continuously bathed in sound, even in places we would call quiet. Our ears register all these sounds, but our brain blocks most of them out so we can concentrate on the ones we deem important. This practice is about stopping to listen to things that would normally pass us by, as way of increasing our sense of belonging in the world.
Recent research demonstrates that 40% of our ability to be happy is determined by our intentional activities. One such activity is by deliberately bringing attention to the areas of our life that we can be grateful for.
How often do we notice posture when standing, sitting or lying down. This practice gently asks us to bring some proactive awareness to the positioning of our bodies, as best we can, from moment to moment.