strengthen practice
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Working with the Gaps
Our practice of mindfulness, especially our formal meditation practice leads us to eventually work with two gaps. The first is the gap between stimulus and response and the second is the gap between our beliefs and our actions. Committing to a formal mindfulness meditation practice and practicing moments of mindfulness as we go through our Continue reading
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Non-Striving
The practice of mindfulness meditation places us firmly in a paradoxical situation. Engaging in the practice requires setting an intention, as all activity requires intention. And yet, sustaining the practice works when we release that intention. This paradox describes an attitude or state that students of mindfulness meditation are encouraged to adopt – an attitude Continue reading
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How Can I Keep My Meditation Going?
I like to think in terms of supporting my practice. There are so many ways we can build a structure around our mediation practices to hold and support the building of the habit. Eventually we would like our practices to become second nature, a lot like brushing our teeth or getting dressed in the morning Continue reading
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Distractions
There are two main ways that distractions take hold of us, or we take hold of distractions, in our lives and our meditation practices. In our daily lives, we find that we seek distractions, especially when we are tired, hungry, aroused, frustrated, and experiencing strong emotions. We use distractions to take us away from where we Continue reading
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How do I strengthen my practice? Essential Practice II
In the blog about Essential Practice I I talked about how to start a basic foundational practice of following the rise and fall of the breath in the belly. This first stage of practice asks us to follow our breath and the sensations of breathing occurring in the rise and fall of our belly with Continue reading
Being Present 