meditations

15 of the Best Meditation Techniques in Buddhism (for Beginners & Advanced)

15 of the Best Meditation Techniques in Buddhism
 
Buddhism offers a smorgasbord of different meditation techniques we can practice to achieve everything we could possibly wish for: from developing peace, eliminating our anger, cultivating compassion, to meditations that will bring us to ultimate, everlasting happiness and wisdom (also known as achieving Enlightenment in Buddhism).

Below I’ve listed the most common meditation techniques that can be found across a variety of different Buddhist schools and traditions. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but hopefully it can be used as a framework to help you understand how these different meditations can be used, and may assist you in choosing which ones you might like to try and explore further.
(more…)

An Honest Look at Our Online Reading Habits and Other Cravings and Distractions

untitled-1471536-4
 
There are some days when I wish I could wind back the clock to the 1980s; to the time when we didn’t have the internet as such an integral part of our lives. When we could wake up and try to guess the weather just by looking outside. When we received hand written letters and even enjoyed writing them too. There was so much more time spent in silence, in playing outdoors with friends and imagining the future. There was a real innocence about that time; it almost seemed endless.

But these days it feels like we’re lucky to find a spare five minutes – to ponder, to reflect, to be still. Our minds race at a million miles an hour and everyone is in a rush, rush, rush. Even if we try to make time for meditation, it often feels like we need reinforced brakes like Formula One cars to try and slow down the speed of our distracted mind. Jumping from one stimulus to another seems to be the mind’s daily diet and whenever there is a spare moment, we rush to fill it with something else just in case we feel the anxiety of not having something to do.
(more…)