{"id":985,"date":"2016-07-04T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-04T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/?p=985"},"modified":"2016-07-02T18:15:44","modified_gmt":"2016-07-03T01:15:44","slug":"independence-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/2016\/07\/04\/independence-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Independence Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On this day in 1776 our ancestors declared their independence from the King of England. Beginning meditators often tell me that they are seeking a similar kind of independence from obsessive, habitual, and distracting thoughts. Their desire to be &#8216;thought-free&#8217; is widely shared. Read what a long-time meditation teacher and author, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stephenbatchelor.org\/index.php\/en\/martine\" target=\"_blank\">Martine Batchelor<\/a>, has to say about &#8216;freedom from thought&#8217;:<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We have to be careful not to think that meditation is about getting rid of thoughts. On the contrary, I would say that meditation helps us to creatively engage with our thoughts and not fixate on them. When people say they cannot concentrate, I say, \u201cNo, no, no! You are concentrating\u2014too much on any one thought!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You can read\u00a0the rest of her essay <a href=\"http:\/\/tricycle.org\/magazine\/meditation-mental-habits-and-creative-imagination\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> (Tricycle magazine, Fall 2010) and also find\u00a0a link to an online retreat that she led for the magazine (paywall).<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>What is an &#8216;online retreat&#8217;?<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0Online retreat systems vary, but I think Tricycle&#8217;s retreats work like this. If you pay to participate in a month-long retreat before it\u00a0starts, you can watch the video teachings given by the teacher during the month (usually 4 or 5 videos of 10-20 minutes duration), and you can ask the teacher questions during the retreat month. On the other hand, if you come along <em>after<\/em> the retreat,\u00a0all you can access are the video teachings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On this day in 1776 our ancestors declared their independence from the King of England. Beginning meditators often tell me that they are seeking a similar kind of independence from obsessive, habitual, and distracting thoughts. Their desire to be &#8216;thought-free&#8217; is widely shared. Read what a long-time meditation teacher and author, Martine Batchelor, has to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11],"class_list":["post-985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=985"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":988,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions\/988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}