Training the mind, meditating, being mindful, or whatever else we choose to call it only works if we actively engage with it. More than that, it only works if we practice it regularly, preferably on a daily basis with a considered, gentle discipline.

There's something powerful about sitting meditation, but there are other ways to bring meditative moments into your day -- for example, use the time when you're walking to your car after work or sitting at a stoplight to check in with yourself and mindfully observe what's happening.

So many of my readers and viewers struggle with meditation. Whether you're a meditation newbie or have had a practice for years, the powerful act of tuning in can be challenging at times. To amp up your meditation practice and demystify the experience, I've created this video.

The real answer to living your life in balance and with a healthy sense of calm is not about spending more time on the mat or on a meditation pillow, but taking your practice off the pillow and bringing it into your everyday life.

Buddha's own simple truth was that nirvana is right here and now. It is within each of you. And it is up to you to uncover it and live it in the present moment, not through the layers and rituals that different men and women have added, but through what should be very simple teachings.

Life can get fast-paced and demanding, causing an overload of stress. Employ your free choice and take a three-minute, refreshing vacation. You can afford three minutes. Your productivity will go up after you reenergize from this vacation.

Meditation is the first and the last freedom, because it gives you a gallery view of your own body and your own mind. There can be no suffering once this distance is established.

Even though meditation is something that's in my wheelhouse, I've already begun to feel profound changes. The most immediate change is that I've started meditating twice a day -- something I've wanted to try for a while but have never gotten around to doing.

Many folks have been asking me to share more Kundalini meditations. This meditation busts through the ego's littleness and opens you up to your inner awesomeness and faithful intuition.

In this video, Larissa Hall Carlson, Kripalu yoga and Ayurveda expert, shares her expertise in a guided meditation on the breath.

I have always justified all this thinking and planning and creating of future fantasies by telling myself that I just had a lot of ambition to live life to the fullest. The problem was that the present me, just as she was, was being neglected.

The more we can provide the conditions for happiness in others, the more likely we'll find the relationships we seek.

Right when you feel a stress response, bring your awareness to your breathing. You can meditate everywhere and anywhere; meditation is not just for sitting down on a cushion.

Meditation can make coping with daily stressors easier and give you the often much-needed power to "let go" of troubling thoughts or emotions. It's easy to get started if you're willing to try it for just a few minutes a day!

It's easy to believe that any time you take to relax or meditate is time that could be used elsewhere. But taking time out doesn't mean it is selfish or even wasted time.

Mindfulness is not a matter of the transcendental mind overcoming the earthly body, but instead involves becoming reacquainted, familiar, and even loving with the body.

If you consider your attention like a kind of currency -- you only have so much, and what you choose to spend it on is what you will receive -- then you will begin to see that you have a choice. You have the power to guide your experience of life by choosing what you decide to focus on.

When we find silence, it becomes our breath, and when we use it effectively, it brings newness and direction to life. Silence con­quers the tyrants of habit that oppress, suppress, and deceive us.

In this post I will share a daily spiritual practice that helped me work through a life-threatening illness and discover new fulfillment, in case it may benefit you or someone you know.

When you first start meditating, it will feel weird. Yes. Your mind will tell you it's a waste of time. Why sit there and think about nothing? You will get annoyed. May I say, stick with it anyhow. It gets better.

It is exquisite to reserve a place exclusively for peace, and peace has a flavor that intensifies when concentrated. However, it's not necessary to depend on that space to meditate: You can take your practice wherever you go once it is established.

There are two kinds of people in this world: those that are able to meditate and those that are not. I fall into the second category. I have tried many times but my mind just will not shut up.

When I sit down to meditate a crazy cacophony of ideas vie for attention, each one more urgent than the last. These ideas are like demons that need to be released into the air or they will undermine my ability to function.

In order to pay attention we need to be quiet, to be practiced at stillness, to know the habits of our mind and be skilled at dancing with them, not to be controlled or dominated by them.

To help us stay "soul conscious," try living your days by a quote or a mantra. When we communicate with people, our words carry a vibration. Words carry the energy of the feeling behind it.