Tag Archives: instructions

Resources for troubling times

Troubling times. They come in all shapes and sizes: the personal – a missed exam, a fractured friendship – and the global – a civil war, a devastating earthquake. How does one find the courage, the enthusiasm, and the joy, to go forward when confronted by troubles beyond our control?

Writing in the Tricycle blog (“In The Spirit of Service”), well-known author and meditation teacher, Sharon Salzberg, describes a path for cultivating an open heart that combines service and meditation and service. On the topic of meditation, she describes practices for cultivating mental states that “foster a connection to our own inherent capacity for wisdom and love. They put us in contact with a world beyond the moment-to-moment fixations of our mind.”

Practice Rules

When I sit (or walk) I usually go through a period of time where I tell myself what to do. This may take several forms: “pay attention to the … (breath, sounds, sensations, …),” “label thoughts,” “ask, ‘What is this?’” and so on.

Essentially I have set up ‘rules’ for my practice. This inevitably leads me into territory that is familiar to many meditators.

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I can’t meditate. I think too much

How do you picture yourself as a meditating person? Do you see yourself as peaceful? Happy? Untroubled by annoying thoughts? A blank slate? Or do you see yourself as a person with an anxious, busy mind, with a tense body, or beset by emotional storms?

It is likely that your expectation of yourself as a meditator will influence your decision to try meditation. Here is what teacher/author Jason Siff has to say about such expectations in “unlearning meditation: what to do when the instructions get in the way“:

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Discover wonders

Every day I receive an email with a bit of wisdom or a question in it. Today’s message seemed to capture perfectly the spirit of adventure that one might find in ‘just sitting.’

Be in harmony with each breath, each moment, and know that in giving yourself this time to develop awareness and a steadiness of attention you are nourishing spirit, head, and heart. Let it be an adventure, and in the silence and the stillness that comes with practice you’ll discover wonders here for you, now. – Elena Rosenbaum, “Awareness Meditation” from Tricycle’s Daily Dharma collection, March 4, 2015

Meditation apps

Can a smartphone (or tablet, or laptop) be conducive to the cultivation of mindful awareness? It just might if it happens to equipped with a meditation app. The NY Times Personal Tech file published reviews of four iOS and Android meditation apps, Calm, Headspace, Happier, and Digipill that claim to help users calm down, cultivate awareness, get better sleep, and so on.

NOTE: Some of these apps are free and some are not. I have not tried any of them and I am not endorsing any of them. If you decide to try one, let me know what your experience is like.

Update (Mar 30, 2015): Robin passed along info about another app: Simply Being – Guided Meditation for Relaxation and Presence (available for iPhone and iPad).

A Metta Prayer

‘Metta’ is a word in the Pali language that has been translated variously as boundless friendliness, general benevolence or goodwill, and even loving kindness (the last one is probably the most common phrase on the web, but I have seen scholars grind their teeth over this rendering).

Metta, however you translate it, is associated with a type of meditation practice in which one silently recites a set of phrases that are designed to open the heart and cultivate a friendly attitude towards oneself and towards others. The phrases can be very simple and can be recited anywhere (for example, when waiting for the bus).

The Metta Institute offers this simple list of phrases along with a basic set of written instructions:

  • May I be happy
  • May I be well
  • May I be safe
  • May I be peaceful and at ease

The phrases can also be reworked according to one’s muse. Here is a portion of “Maylie’s Metta Prayer” (quoted by Robert Meikyo Rosenbaum in “Walking the Way”):

  • May I be at ease in my body, feeling the ground beneath my seat and feet …
  • May I be attentive and gentle toward my own discomfort and suffering …
  • May I be attentive and grateful for my own joy and well-being …
  • May I move towards others freely and with openness …
  • May I receive others with sympathy and understanding …

Remembering the phrases and the instructions can be taxing at first so I found it helpful to start out by listening to audio instructions while I meditated in this way. Here’s a 27-minute audio session with well-known Buddhist teacher, Sharon Salzberg.