Today I made the decision to return to blogging regularly here on Living Vipassana, as one way to help keep my Vipassana meditation practice central to my life -- sitting regularly being the primary way, of course! There. Is. No. Substitute. For. Sitting. I also just enjoy expressing myself through writing, and this feels like …
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Meditation Can Heal Student Minds and Help Adults Fix Societal Issues
Nine more students killed by a shooter. This time at Santa Fe High School in Texas. Things need to change and I'm not just talking about politics. Our minds are constantly being lured away from reality and soothed by artificial stimulants. We spend much of our free time attached to a device that allows us …
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NYC Old Student Talk
Hi All! I thought I'd share the following, which I posted last night in the Goenka Vipassana group on the Insight Timer app: This morning I had the good fortune to attend a group sitting in New York City with many, many fellow old students and to hear an old student talk given by Dr. …
Paradox of Mediation
In 2017, Robert Wright published a book "Why Buddhism is True" . In this book he described the paradox of meditation, which I have had for a long time. He said: "There isn't supposed to be success at meditating. As any good mediation teacher will tell you, if you talk about mediation in terms of success …
Music and Healing. Or Waiting for the Miracle…
There are tunes that stay in our minds for a long time. It was Leonard Cohen’s: ‘Waiting for the Miracle to Come’ that stayed with me for days….Music can make us happy or sad, can bring peace, tranquility or relaxation or can even protect our mind from negative influences. During my bad times I came …
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The Gate to Interior Castle. My Walking and Meditation in Pokhara.
The Himalayas are often connected with saints and sanyasis who spend their life in meditation. I see the Himalayas as a symbol of immense beauty, vast silence and the never ending inner struggle for overcoming our own personal boundaries. This year I sat a 10-day Vipassana course in a small meditation centre in Pokhara, Nepal. …
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Working with elderly people and the dying.
Elderly people are a big mirror into the human mind - and they all deserve a kind word. This is what I wrote to my friend when describing my current work. I have in front of my eyes the face of my client, the old lady, who looks at me with a trustful child-like acceptance. There are …
Giving Up
Recently, I’ve missed a few sittings. Sometimes because I hadn’t finished “living” until midnight; other times because I didn’t do it as soon as I woke up there simply wasn’t enough time to do an hour. Other times, I’ve “cheated” on the practice; I’ve stopped midway through a sitting and thought, “That should be …
Superhumans, Sensations, and Supposed To
I’ve been doing Vipassana for just under a month now and it has changed my life. The most dramatic experiences occurred while I was at the meditation centre and in the first week or so after leaving; I felt like I had tapped into my superhuman side….for a bit. As an assistant teacher assured me …
Living Vipassana 