I have been practicing psychiatry for 40 years, but I've never seen this much stress and worry about economic well-being and the future. I've found there are simple strategies for helping people cope.
The focus and concentration of Cirque du Soleil clowns and acrobats is a kind of meditation -- one slip and it could all be over!
All too often, however, spirituality reinforces rather than transcends conventional limits, boundaries, and notions of the ego. Sandwiched in between manicures and lunch dates, the quickie yoga class becomes just another way to augment and reinforce the self.
How many of us have texted from a yoga class, while the teacher is talking?
Where is this self that demands so much time and attention, fixing and cajoling, encouraging and pampering?
Two years ago, during a working trip to Lyons, musician Darrell Scott visited an energy healer. It changed the way he thinks about music.
You are a silent point of awareness using a human body to sense and navigate the world around you.
Learning how to belly breathe will instantly help you to release stress and relax your whole body, as well as get more oxygen flowing.
Let's begin the work of reducing our attachment to the idea of "I" by engaging in experiences of awareness using our spiritual sculpting tools of silence, service, inquiry and intention.
I grew up knowing Pema Chodron (the second most popular Buddhist in America, after that Dalai Lama guy). Or, rather, she knew me (I was just a little kid running around not paying attention to anything).
I was talking with a friend about what we were going to have for dinner, and out of nowhere a "deep" conversation about happiness showed up at the table.
Michelangelo had the eyes of an artist, able to see an angel where others saw only stone. We want to see compassionate, blissful awareness where others see only flesh and blood.
Only when we let go of the belief that yoga, or anything for that matter, must remain static in order to be pure, are we free to work together to create our most life-enhancing future
We all want the secrets to health and vitality. We can buy bottles, creams, and whatever else is advertised to us, but ultimately anything sustainabl...
When we are watching something with our eyes open, even if our eyes do not blink, our attention does. Either way, eye-blinks and "attentional blinks" mean that there is some period of time when we are missing seeing something.
Take some time away from cyberspace and connect. Appreciate. See life and yourself as small miracles and allow yourself to experience awe.
Like a spider, I am also caught up in an urge to move forward, make order and fix what has been undone by time.
My discovery of this complicated and emotional prison world came over a dozen years ago when I found a distant, foreign land down the street from my home and safe neighborhood: A medium-security prison in Concord, Massachusetts.
Having just attended a silent Vipassana meditation retreat at Spirit Rock in woodsy Woodacre, I can report that sitting still and doing nothing was, in fact, the primary activity on my summer vacation.
Throughout your day imagine being compassion, radiating warmth and love from the center of your chest, especially when you want to relax and feel more grounded.
If tomorrow, you could completely free yourself from guilt -- if you'd never feel guilty again, no matter what you did -- would you do it? Americans ...
