Effective and Wholehearted Meditation Coaching
Dizang asked Fayan, “Where are you going?”
Fayan said, “On pilgrimage.”
Dizang said, “What is the purpose of pilgrimage?”
Fayan said, “I don’t know.”
Dizang said, “Not knowing is most intimate.”
– From the Book of Serenity, a 13th century collection of Zen Koans
There’s a feeling that I sometimes get in conversation, when I feel as though I’m at a slightly awkward dead end.… Read the rest “Awakening as Intimacy; Intimacy as Not Knowing”
Meditation coaching with real-time feedback to accelerate your progress and deepen your practice.
Over the last year or two I’ve been trying out a different meditation coaching method, and have been quite delighted with the results.
Meditative dialogue is meditation coaching in real-time. I think this can be a radically faster and more effective method of meditation teaching than traditional models.… Read the rest “Meditative Dialogue: Effective Meditation Coaching with Real-Time Feedback”
A simple tool for making a meditation or daily mindfulness practice that sticks, using the Tiny Habits methodology by BJ Fogg.
It can be hard to make meditation and mindfulness practice habits. This isn’t a personal failing, it’s just that none of us are taught how to design habits!
This short tool will guide you through the process of setting up a meditation practice or short daily mindfulness habit using the methods from the book Tiny Habits, by B.J.… Read the rest “Make a Meditation/Daily Mindfulness Habit That Sticks – A Guided Tool”
An introduction to the Internal Family Systems model for those who wish to use it as a complement to meditation practice.
This is the noughth (0th) of a series of blogs about why Internal Family Systems is such a helpful complement to meditation and spiritual practice in general.
This blog is specifically to give a basic introduction to the model for those who haven’t heard about it, or have, but want to understand it more in-depth.… Read the rest “IFS Series Prelude: A Summary of the Model”
The clear distinction between attention and awareness is one of the things that makes The Mind Illuminated such an effective approach to meditation.
Most people know what attention feels like, but don’t have a clear sense of what awareness feels like, even if they understand the concept.… Read the rest “Guided Awareness Practices”
Joy is the lubricant that makes progress in meditation smoother and faster. This tip will help you to cultivate that joy as you practise.
The development of meditative joy is one of the best things you can do for your meditation practice. It’s something that you can do right from day one – I’m not talking here about some esoteric meditative joy that you need to have wizard-level concentration to experience.… Read the rest “How to Cultivate Joy in Meditation”
This interactive tool will guide you through a daily mindful review practice, based on Appendix E from the book The Mind Illuminated.
This tool was created using Guided Track. Here is a link to the code used to create this tool if you would like to adapt or modify it.
If you have any suggestions to improve this tool, they’ll be gratefully received: please leave them in the comments.
Learn how to meditate more effectively and more enjoyably with “approach” intentions, rather than “avoidance” intentions.
Doubt can often arise with respect to whether one is following meditation instructions correctly or not.
This is perhaps especially true for people following The Mind Illuminated, which contains loads of fantastic and detailed practice instructions. I’ve heard from many people who love the detail and clarity, but get paranoid about whether they’re putting all the parts together correctly, or whether they’re getting some small detail consequentially wrong. … Read the rest “Carrots, Not Sticks: Approach Vs Avoidance Intentions in Meditation”
The classic metaphor to describe emptiness is two sheaves of wheat leaning against each other. This structure – their “stand-uprightness” is not an effect of either one or the other sheaf of wheat, but arises from their interaction.
In my last blog I wrote about what emptiness means in a Buddhisty context, and some ways to understand emptiness on an intellectual level.… Read the rest “Emptiness Part II – Mountains, Rivers, and Wheat”
Here are some ways to get a good intuition for the Buddhist philosophy of emptiness.
Emptiness – it’s a word that comes up a lot in Buddhist thought, and often in a way that makes it sound very important. This was quite frustrating to me for some time because I didn’t get what people were actually talking about or why it was relevant to contemplative practice.… Read the rest “A Whole Bunch of Ways to Think About Emptiness”
