The smell of cotton candy brings to mind amusement parks and the thrill of being a child. The smell of wet, fallen leaves brings the sad memory of summer’s end and the happy one for some of us of school’s beginning. For most of us, our sense of smell is rather strong and peculiar to [...]
The dictionary offers a simple definition of meditation, but our minds tend to embellish the definition and make it into something mysterious and esoteric. There are many different types of meditation, and the external form of any one of them may be the image we carry in our minds of what meditation is. This [...]
Those of us who are lucky enough to be able to walk, do so at least a little bit every day. Yet, when the word meditation is tacked onto it and we are invited by a teacher to do some walking meditation, many of us become clumsy and off balance. We may even begin [...]
Faith Even if you take all the suggestions in my books and this blog, you are bound to come up against a wall now and then. You may sometimes wonder exactly what you are doing, as nothing seems to be happening. And at times throughout this quiet-corner process (there’s that term again!), you may question [...]
Acceptance Through each step of the process of finding, facing, and using a quiet corner, you will learn a great deal about yourself. The first thing you might learn is how you deal with the process. While there is some instant gratification in three-part, three-breath breathing, most of the lasting and strengthening rewards of spending [...]
So Easy, Yet So Hard You need no special skills to face a quiet corner—no special talents, no special brainpower. Each one of us has the raw material necessary. Desire is a requirement, but if you’re reading this, you already have that. Simply set some time aside, choose a spot, get comfortable, breathe, and voilà—a [...]
The garbage needs to be emptied. The cat’s claws need to be clipped. The back closet needs cleaning, and that letter to Aunt Flo simply can’t wait any longer. As you approach or think about entering your quiet corner for meditation practice, you may be distracted by the need to do something else. Don’t be [...]
As the days pass, you will have begun to practice your breathing and homed in on a quiet corner or two. You can now begin to extend your breathing practice. Once you settle into your corner, sit down in a comfortable, relaxed position. You can sit on cushions on the floor or sit upright in [...]
Spending/Saving Time We are a culture obsessed with time—how much we have or how little we have. We are also under the illusion that we have time to spend or save as we choose. But as the saying goes, time waits for no one. Time just is. It is there whether we are or not [...]
The effort that many of us put into not doing something or the time we spend thinking about doing something can be extremely stressful and anxiety producing. If you procrastinate, you probably worry about all the time you’re wasting as you think about getting started. You probably don’t waste as much time as you think [...]
