Sesshin—a silent meditation retreat—has always been a time of renewal and reflection for me. And, if I’m lucky, I’ll gain some new insight. The sesshin over this past weekend was the same, but different. There was more free time than I’m used to and I got more sleep than ever, which is quite unusual. But [...]
The beginning of each New Year is a perfect time for reflection and looking forward, whether or not we’ve made a New Year’s vow, so that we might return to the present moment with gratitude and peace. Here are a few short poems to contemplate and carry with us as we breathe each breath and [...]
Or, we can’t know until we know! How do we get to the calm place in the center of chaos? Waiting for news of anything—from sources we have no control over, which is just about everyone and everything that is meaningful—can be excruciating. Will we get the perfect gift or the job? Do we need [...]
"... a new study conducted by researchers working in Wisconsin, Spain, and France shows that mindfulness can even affect your genes. Specifically, the study shows that mindfulness can limit the "expression" of genes associated with inflammation. "The changes were observed in genes that are the current targets of anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs," study co-author Dr. Perla Kaliman, a researcher [...]
“You will not find God in an abstract idea. This is something very important. God is here for us through very concrete things.” Thich Nhat Hanh “One must not be blasphemous toward gods in whom one has no faith.” Chinese proverb “We are but guests visiting this world, though most do not know [...]
It's lovely to stumble upon a interview, and even audio, promoting the benefits of mindfulness and meditation! Check out an excerpt here and click the link below for the full interview! “Meditation is a practice, that’s why we call it a practice. It’s a behavior, if you will,” he says. When Allen began exploring mindfulness [...]
"I think this study offers a very useful component of therapy for these patients, for several reasons," David Geldmacher, MD, professor and Patsy and Charles Collat Scholar in Neuroscience in the Division of Memory Disorders and Behavioral Neurology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, toldMedscape Medical News. "First, we know that it's a stressful [...]
Sometimes the beginning is the hardest part of any task. Check out what Huffington Post suggests to help you begin, and maintain, your meditation practice! "1. Make a Contract with Yourself There's this funny thing about the brain. It wants to appear consistent to itself, and really dislikes things that make you look contradictory or [...]
October has been a month of ups and downs: Mercury in retrograde affected all sorts of communication and perhaps contributed to the logy feeling I carried with me to the hospital this week. Prior to this week, I’d always been completely present and engaged during my visits, and I always left with an uplifted spirit [...]
"A 2005 breakthrough study published in Neuroreport found meditation increased the thickness of the brain's prefrontal cortex. Normally, as the brain ages the cortex thins and the brain shrinks. The prefrontal cortex is associated with attention, higher thought and planning. Researchers at Harvard Medical School in Boston took MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) brain scans of 20 experienced meditators [...]
