How do I meditate on light? For beginner-intermediate, I suggest two different meditations: candle gazing (easy) and light visualization (intermediate). 1) Candle Gazing It’s just as it sounds. Set-up a candle about a meter away so you can comfortably stare at it without straining your eyes or neck. You
How do I meditate on the foulness of the body? Before getting into the details, I’d like to address something that you’ll probably encounter later: there’s no mention of this meditation nor loving-kindness in any of the Far East Zen traditions. That doesn’t mean that these
How do I meditate on the breath? There are two ways that I recommend for beginning and intermediate meditators: 1) simple and 2) controlled. For the simple breath meditation, the best way for me to teach you is for me to step you through it. You ready? One second…OK,
How important is posture in meditation? What posture’s easiest to sleep in: lying, sitting, standing, walking, or running? Lying, duh. And what do you do if you’ve been working for a few hours and are starting to feel yourself dragging? How would you freshen yourself up? Doomscroll through
How long should I sit for starting out? Depends on where you’re at and what you want. If you’re happy to take your time and slowly reign in your mind, 30 minutes a day is a good starting point. If you’re dead-set on enlightenment, 10+ hours a
This time I’m starting because there’s an important question which I doubt you’ll ask about: what are the key factors of a successful meditation practice. Last time, we discussed the why, what, and how of meditation in broad strokes. However, we didn’t cover how with sufficient
I’ve come across so many meditation techniques - staying with the breath, mantras, chanting, visualizing a lake, etc. I’ve even tried a bunch myself at this point. What’s the Zen way? And how do I make sense of all these options? Before telling you how to meditate,
A few of my friends suffer from depression and, to be honest, it’s heartbreaking to talk to them some days. I’m hit with a wave of darkness that overwhelms me. I grew up with one of them. When we were young, we played football together and he was
I hear all of this talk about enlightenment. Honestly, I’m not interested. My goal is more modest: I want to wake-up feeling good about my life every day. That’s it. Can Zen help? A few years back, mindfulness programs were all the rage. The benefits touted were huge:
Can you do a quick overview of the different traditions for me, an ignorant Zen noob? Sure, but bear in mind it’s broad strokes. There are six main schools: Chan, Soto, Rinzai, Thien, Seon, and Western. Chan: Chinese Zen. Zen started in China some 1,800 years back as
