If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed.
If you're visiting from Interesting South, the page you are looking for is here. Thanks for visiting!
Bringing mindfulness into the world can be challenging. We can, however, turn the world into a place of practice. Each moment we live is a chance to be mindful and present, never to be repeated again. Developing mindfulness is important to help us live presently in life. Here we look at a few personal and reader tips that have helped us view the Big Blue Room as a place of practice and mindfulness.
Continue reading ‘8 Ways to Develop Mindfulness’
To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe
How does this work? Studying the self is to forget the self? This quote is one of the most common Dogen, and Zen quotes. But what does it mean? What is it saying? What’s it pointing to?
Continue reading ‘Studying the Self’
What are you holding onto? Where are you stuck? What’s keeping you from moving forwards? These questions continually help me find out what’s going on, and break through. It may seem a bit odd asking yourself questions, but funnily enough, you know what you need deep down, and the answer is usually pretty surprising.
Continue reading ‘Let Go!’
Life is filled with experiences. These experiences, regardless of good or bad, are stored as memories in the mind and body. Sometimes we ‘access’ memories to reply them, or to evoke certain states. We also ‘keep away’ other memories that we don’t want to process fully for some reason or another.
Continue reading ‘Coming Back to Memories’
D.T. Suzuki was quoted as saying that “before studying Zen, mountains are mountains. While studying Zen, things become confused. After studying Zen, mountains are mountains.” This was one of the first Zen sayings I heard, and it continues to resound in me.
Continue reading ‘I Breathe, Mountains are Mountains’
It’s always a little bit scary meeting someone. At some level we hope they like us, or understand us. There’s always a little bit of risk, and that can even be fun for some. There’s also a really deep desire for us to be heard and connected with.
Continue reading ‘Discovering Connexions’
When looking at coming on a retreat, there’s a lot of excitement and anticipation about how things will go. Talk of how good the meditations will be, talk of waking up early, really doing the work, and of course talk of really becoming enlightened.
Continue reading ‘Twist of the schedule’
In each moment we have the potential to be present, or to miss it. If we miss the moment, we never get it back, and when it happened we were essentially dead. Along the journey of evolution, we seemed to picked up the habit of not living in the moment, spending time either in the past, as memories, or in the future, as planning.
Continue reading ‘Living with Time to Enjoy Life’
