I am grateful for so, so many things in this life (lest I forget). When I was 18 I read Marcus Aurelius’ ‘Meditations’ for the first time. Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor (161-180 AD) and a Stoic philosopher. His book, which is essentially the man’s diary, has been and still is tremendously formative for me. It …
This week we’re going to work with noting again. We will explore how we can apply noting effectively in off-the-cushion contexts. Using noting in such a way is kind of like using training wheels on a bicycle, you use the training wheels to get started, and then, once you can handle the balance without falling …
Hey you guys, So we’ve done metta (loving-kindness) meditation before, but have you heard of muditā (sympathetic joy)? This is a slightly different, but also highly skilful attitude to cultivate within ourselves. Though not an English word, schadenfreude – the pleasure felt when learning of someone else’s failure – has been picked up by the English language and …
Hey everybody! This is the week of fire kasina. We’ve previously done visual field meditation (earth kasina) with bowls and other objects, but this one is a bit different. Here we start by looking at a candle flame (or other light source), however the real action plays out after closing one’s eyes and switching the …
This week we’re going to finish up looking at the three characteristics which fuel insight practice. Recall in previous emails that I mentioned how we change our relationship with ourselves and the world by provoking insights about the nature of experience, and that we do that by collecting evidence about three aspects of experience: impermanence, …
Hey meditators, So what are the 2 subtlest movements of mind? Well, expansion and contraction. Other names could be: -Lightness and Heaviness, -Release and Pressure, -Outwardness and Inwardness, -Going and Coming, -Air and Earth, -The big bang and The big crunch, -Yang and Yin, -Order and Chaos, -Form and Emptiness. “If you know the way …
This week we’re continuing our work getting into the nuts and bolts of insight practice. Recall that last week I mentioned how we change our relationship with ourselves and the world by provoking insights about the nature of experience, and that we do that by collecting evidence about three aspects of experience: impermanence, suffering/unsatisfactoriness and …
As you may have noticed, one of the core things we are keen on at Meditative.dev is using meditation as a vehicle for insight practice. Insight in a general sense is defined as the capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of someone or something. The types of insights we’re interested in here are …
A core theme that comes up in meditation circles is the insight into ‘no-self’. Understanding what this piece of wisdom pertains to is indeed key to the restructuring project of mind, which leads to a life of less suffering. “No self = No suffering” so they say. However, it is beyond not obvious what this really …
“Tough time never last. Only tough people last wldjdfhdflsdkds.” – Demi Demi Last time we explored the flexibility of the mind with our practice. We expanded awareness and conjured a soft, loving, warming metta; adopting the mindset of a tender, gentle Bodhisattva. This is one spiritual archetype, but we can inhabit many more and indeed …
