This path isn't about living in a perpetual state of bliss. It’s about being in the present moment, whatever that happens to look like. Walking in your bare feet sometimes. Sleeping on the hard ground. If we’re really going to benefit from our practice, we have to be prepared to engage with the earth as well as the sky.
Dec 6, 2023
12 min
When you first started meditating, did you notice how hard it was to still the mind with all that mental chatter going on? As we practise meditation, we learn that it’s possible to stabilise the attention, to calm the mind and to train ourselves in mindfulness.
Nov 29, 2023
12 min
Buddhists talk a lot about suffering, but a joyful attitude is at the heart of the whole awakening process. So is a passionate engagement with life. As soon as we stop generating misery and drama, joy is there.
Nov 22, 2023
12 min
Pain is a process, it’s not solid, it’s more like a verb than a noun. Instead of identifying with the pain as our pain, we can breath into it. We can allow it to arise and pass in its own time. We can make it our teacher.
Nov 15, 2023
13 min
We already possess the capacity to be truly at peace, in the present moment. Inside each of us is a great well of happiness and contentment. We tend to think that a particular experience, an external circumstance will make us happy and complete. But external conditions are a pale reflection of the capacity for true contentment that exists inside us.
Nov 8, 2023
13 min
The world makes multiple, relentless demands on our attention. We live in an attention economy and it’s constantly agitating us, often without us even noticing. Where we direct our awareness is up to us. The choices we make can have a profound effect on our precious minds and on how we experience the world.
Nov 1, 2023
13 min
Sometimes meditation feels effortless and other times even just showing up to meditate is really hard. The good news is that it doesn’t matter that much whether your practice is sweet and sublime or an uphill battle. If you can get the balance of effort right, it’ll lead you towards freedom either way.
Oct 25, 2023
14 min
Practice is the act of doing something regularly or repeatedly to improve your skill at doing it. We’re always practising something. This moment is practice for the next. With Insight Meditation, we’re practising being on good terms with every aspect of our lives. And it's not just something we do on the meditation cushion.
Oct 18, 2023
12 min
Resentment isn’t a happy, comfortable state to be in. If you’re in any doubt, just tune in to your body next time you’re nursing a resentment. Listen to the chatter in your mind. It’s exhausting. Forgiveness represents a shift from a small, separate sense of self to something much bigger that includes the possibility of moving on and renewal. Without forgiveness, life would be unbearable.
Oct 11, 2023
12 min
The practice of mettā is a capacity of the heart that can be accessed even in the middle of the most difficult situations. It’s a universal antidote for suffering that allows us to be on good terms with every aspect of our lives.
Oct 4, 2023
13 min
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