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Mindfulbalance Blog
mindfulbalance.wordpress.com
15
Mindfulness & Change: Personal Reflections as well as Resources, Information and Encouragement.
#85440 in All

Self is a verb

The practice of meditation invites us to investigate the flux of arising and passing events. When we get the hang of it, we can begin to see how each artifact of the mind is raised and lowered to vie...

6 h ago

Lost in interpretation

When confronted with a difficult experience, the untrained mind wants to be anywhere but in the present moment, where it perceives acute unpleasantness. The mind becomes anxious whenever it’s u...

13 h ago

Not too tight, not too loose

[Once] the Buddha asked a musician how he tuned his instrument before playing. The musician said “If I tune the strings too tight they break. If I tune them too loose, no sound will come out. S...

1 day ago

Noticing the messages of the body today

Tuning into the sensations in the body is the first foundation of mindfulness. This is a crucial practice because normally whatever we experience — our feelings, emotions, thoughts and perceptions — ...

1 day ago

Making friends with yourself

In meditation practice, you work directly with your confused mind-states, without waging crusades against any aspect of your experience. You let all your tendencies arise, without trying to screen an...

2 days ago

No criticism, no struggle

Mindfulness is first of all the ability to recognize what is happening in the present moment. It is a simple recognition – without judgment or criticism, without suppression or attachment. I br...

2 days ago

Direct seeing

The utmost care and attention is needed to see the internal drama fairly, accurately, dispassionately, in order to express it as it is seen. What we mean by “being made to feel good” or &...

3 days ago

Working with “waiting” today

When we look closely, we find that we pass a great deal of time within the mental frame of being “on our way to the next thing”— completing a task that has been hanging over us, getting to our next m...

3 days ago

Decluttering our lives

Soen Roshi, former abbot of Ryutakaji monastery in Japan used to say that when most of us want to see beauty in a room, we bring in fancy paintings, furniture, precious objects. In Zen, when you want...

4 days ago

Softening the mind

Softness means opening to what is there, relaxing into it. At such a time try this mantra: “It’s ok. Whatever it is, it’s ok. Let me feel it” . That is the softening of the mi...

4 days ago

An undivided heart

When the heart is undivided, everything we encounter becomes our practice. Service becomes a sacred exchange, like breathing in and breathing out. We receive a physical and spiritual sustenance in th...

5 days ago

Sunday Quote: Trying to hold on

It is not because of impermanence that we suffer, but because of our ideas about permanence Thich Nhat Hahn Filed under: Make the most of life Tagged: Awareness, impermanence, inspiration, Meditation...

5 days ago

Where growth begins

Without darkness, Nothing comes to birth, As without light, Nothing flowers. May Sarton It has taken me a long time to recognize that darkness is an essential element for personal growth. No matter h...

6 days ago

Learning to stay

Meditation is a way of training in learning to stay, or as one student put it more accurately, learning to come back, to return to being present over and over again. The truth is, anyone who’s ...

6 days ago

When depth comes through the broken bits

Growth can often involves a letting go of old ways, especially those that have ceased to serve. However, when we are in the midst of it, it can be hard to appreciate it in this way. We are more incli...

25 may 12

Keeping a sense of wonder today

There is a basic notion that every soul has two ‘wings.’ These’ wings of the soul ‘ are Love and Awe. When the soul is free, fresh and open, and available for inspiration, it ...

25 may 12

Everything is coming or going

At any given moment, one part of our life is already gone and the other part of it has not yet happened. In fact, a great deal of our life is gone for good — everything up to this very point in time....

24 may 12

Taking deliberate action

One of the problems of contemporary culture is that life moves at such a quick pace, we usually don’t give ourselves time to feel and listen deeply. You may have to take deliberate action to nu...

24 may 12

Change prepares for new growth

Cells die every day. Paradoxically that is how the body lives……Likewise ways of thinking die like cells, and we suffer greatly when we refuse to allow what is growing underneath make its ...

23 may 12

Noticing small boredoms

All of us experience small boredoms at work – routine, seemingly dull events that we often take for granted: remaining “on hold” on the phone, waiting at the copier or coffee line, ...

23 may 12

A crisis is an invitation to grow

Crises come at critical points in our lives. Usually they make it painfully obvious that the previous world view or attitudes of consciousness are inadequate to encompass the new situation. According...

22 may 12

Giving yourself a break today

If you’re like me, so much of what we twirl around with in the mind is, frankly, a waste of time. It doesn’t solve a problem, prevent a bad thing from happening, or bring us to peace with...

22 may 12

In-between repression and acting out

The journey of awakening happens just at the place where we can’t get comfortable. Opening to discomfort is the basis of transmuting our so-called “negative” feelings. We somehow wa...

21 may 12

Just seeing whatever is, today

The goal of meditation is to see things as they are; it is a state of awakened attention. And this is a very simple thing. It isn’t complicated or difficult or something that takes years to achieve. ...

21 may 12

A day of rest

The pebble reaches the bed of the river by the shortest path because it allows itself to fall without making any effort. During our sitting meditation we can allow ourselves to rest like a pebble. We...

20 may 12

Sunday Quote: Acceptance

  The summit of happiness is reached when a person is ready to be what he or she is Erasmus Filed under: Be fully present Tagged: Acceptance, inspiration, Joy, Life, Meditation, Mindfulness, Spi...

20 may 12

Acknowledging the brokenness within

We all tend to wear masks, the mask of superiority or of inferiority, the mask of worthiness or of victim. It is not easy to let our masks come off and to discover the little child inside us who year...

19 may 12

Liberating our emotions

From a meditative perspective, various mind states including emotions, arise and pass away empty of any substantial nature. They come into being when certain conditions come together and disappear wh...

19 may 12

Accepting your experience

An interesting reflection on how accepting the present moment is also a practice of accepting ourselves: The journey from self-hatred to self self-love involves to learning to meet, greet and open to...

18 may 12

This moment is the most profound

True honesty also means relating to each moment completely. When you are dishonest, you miss this moment because you are thinking of the next moment, or the last moment or next week’s moments. ...

18 may 12

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