The Value Of Silence | Ep 253

 

What is scarier: sitting in silence or the fact that you are afraid to sit in silence?

In this episode I discuss how technology has granted us the ability to endlessly occupy the space that was once filled with silence. The benefits of which are obvious: education, entertainment, content and connection - but at what cost? What do we lose by blocking off access to such a fundamental aspect of the human condition? What is the value of silence?

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Why There Is No 'Best' Meditation Position | Ep 252

 
an older man sitting in meditaiton

It feels like every tradition has a prescription on how you should sit; where to hold your hands, what to do with your eyes, and how you should handle sleepiness and pain are all prescribed.

For advanced practitioners, these suggestions should be heeded, but for beginners, they can be a hindrance - one that can be so over prescriptive and off putting that it may cause said beginner to stop practicing.

Simply put, the perfect posture is the one that keeps you meditating.

In this episode, I share with you a talk that I have released on Insight Timer - the #1 meditation app for sleep, anxiety, & stress.

Click play below to listen or scroll down to read the transcript:



What is the Best Meditation Position?

This question gets asked in a lot of the classroom discussions, particularly for my meditation courses. They say, how should I sit during meditation? What is the best meditation position? What is the best posture? It's a big contention among beginning meditators. I've got a few different approaches to offer you, depending on where you are in your meditation journey.

First up, if you are an absolute beginner, if you are just starting out, I would suggest to you personally that it doesn't matter. The goal of a beginner meditator is to just get time on the mat, just to meditate. If that means you're sitting down, lying down, broken posture in a chair, standing up, whatever, just get meditating. The only caveat to that is that you don't want to be in pain and you don't want to fall asleep.

So I typically suggest to people, take a seat or lie down. You can close your eyes if you wish, get yourself comfortable. But if you find yourself falling asleep, you find yourself in pain, tweak it, twist it, make a change. That's the first suggestion. The goal here that I look for is broad principles. What's the broad principle of a beginning meditator? Well, to meditate. How do you facilitate meditation? By making it comfortable and easy. So let's not stress too much about posture at that stage.

Now, a more advanced meditator is going to start wanting to play with posture and start looking at how posture impacts mood. If you were to just sit up straight with me right now, just sit up straight, imagine a rope pulling your head to the roof and just tuck your chin in gently. We're not forcing anything. Notice the inner feeling.When I sit upright in a good posture, I feel elated.

Now crumple yourself into a ball, huddle up. How do you feel now? Right? Your posture can impact mood. The same thing happens if you are lying down. Lying down implies sleep, and sleep does lead to different impacts too, and you can play with the use of sleep as a focus point of meditation too. But what you'll find is that the deeper you dwell into meditation and spirituality and different traditions and practices, oftentimes they do suggest a posture.

Now, once you've established a habit, once you are able to sit on the mat and you know you've cleared that space out in your life for meditation, then I would encourage you to start moving towards a posture. But it’s not about doing it dogmatically. As in, some people look at the technical aspects of the meditation, as in I've got to say these words, sit in this posture, do this exact thing, for it to work.

And that's okay for some people, but for a lot of people, that technical approach misses the overall principles of what we're doing here. Once again, does it matter if you're sitting in full lotus, perfect position to not moving a muscle? Maybe, but I would argue that the inner work and the response and the movement, the introspection, the looking at what's going on in your body, the actual act of the practice of the meditation is more important than posture.

So, with all of that said, I would suggest that you do move towards a more formal posture, but don't hold onto that idea too tightly. And if you feel the need to hold onto that idea so tightly, that it's good to think about why. Are you thinking, ‘I've got to practice in this posture because that's what the guru says, that's what the book says, that's what the tradition says…’

I would encourage you to just step back and just analyze that thought. Introspect on that thought, let that thought percolate. Does the posture really truly matter?

Non Dualistic Meditation

My main focus when I meditate is on mindfulness, a form of is non dualistic meditation. So in reality, from that perspective, the body posture is irrelevant: it's all part of the same ever present now. It's all transient, but to attain that sort of awareness, one must continue practicing, right?

One must practice daily.

There's arguments to suggest back and forth that that's neither here nor there, but I do practice, and I practice daily. I sit, I focus on the breath, I focus on the sounds, I do my meditation. How I sit does sort of impact the quality of the meditation. Now, once again, from a non dualistic meditation mindful perspective, you only have the meditation you're having, or the meditation is just occurring.

It's just a noticing of the moment. But I have noticed that I'm able to be more mindful when I am using a more formal posture. I personally sit, in meditation, either in a cross-legged position, just cross-legged on the floor, with my back resting against a wall, or I sort of kneel on my feet, and sit in that sort of kneeling prayer posture. And that's the way that I do it, that's the way that I practice, because I find that that works best for me.

So find the position and posture that works best for you. If you have certain physical conditions or disabilities or restrictions or movements or injuries or whatever it is, certain postures won't work for you. I would argue that all traditions, all practices, all talks, everything, even this post, is a finger pointing to the moon. It can only guide you so far. And you have to take that step into the, for lack of a better expression, the artistry of the practice.

You have to take it and embody it and make it yours. With everything we do here in the meditation space, in the spiritual space, but also in life space, it's like we learn all the basic techniques and then we try to embody them. And then one day we discard them and we just act. We just go, we just do. We have to start to do that with our meditation practice because once it's internalized, once it's embodied, how can words, how can instruction, how can anything get you to the deepest truth?

It can point you there, but there's something internal, something spiritual, something ethereal that has to happen for you to attain that level of presence. You can practice letting everything drop away. You can practice hyper-focusing on the present moment. You can practice sitting in a super-rigid meditation posture for hours, whatever it is, but there'll be a moment where something happens that arises and then things just click into place. Then I guarantee you that that thing will be independent of a perfect posture. There'll be something else going on.

So the summary is this. If you're starting out in meditation, just meditate. Don't worry about the posture. Eyes closed, open, head tilted up or down, focus, whatever, just meditate. You can be lying down, standing up, doesn't matter.

As you delve deeper into your practice, start playing around with the formal practices of your tradition. In general, that upright, imagine a balloon pulling your head up to the roof, gentle but firm, sort of posture tends to be quite ideal. But once again, consider that it's not about the posture, it's about the practice. The posture is just one part.

 

Life Sucks When Your Expectations Are Not Met | Ep 248

Life Sucks When Your Expectations Are Not Met | Ep 248

The difference between expectation and reality is often the source of significant discontent.

Life trains us to search for ideals: the perfect partner, job, life, outcome. Unfortunately this almost never arises and even if it did, it would be fleeting…

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Give The Gift Of Presence - Guided Meditation | Ep 247

Give The Gift Of Presence - Guided Meditation | Ep 247

What greater gift can you give someone than the gift of presence? When you are fully present, mindful, and in the moment, you are able to give all those around you access to the best version of you, and thus the moment they are in with you.

In this episode, I share with you a guided meditation…

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Why You Should Never Stop Learning About Yourself | Ep 245

Why You Should Never Stop Learning About Yourself | Ep 245

The more you know about yourself the better choices you will make and thus the better life you will lead.

In this episode I share some recent instances of deep personal insight where I discover things about myself that are both good, bad, and ugly.

I share the importance of such discoveries as well as the ways in which I (and you can) foster further insights into your own nature.

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How To Mindfully Meditate For Absolute Beginners | Ep 244

How To Mindfully Meditate For Absolute Beginners | Ep 244

Yesterday, a friend asked me how to meditate, that talk inspired this episode. Here is my guidance for absolute beginners:

1: sit comfortably (no pain or sleepiness)
2: set a timer for 5 minutes
3: pick a meditation object (breath, vision, sound)
4: when you notice a wandering kind, bring it back to focus. A successful session is one that you complete, ideally every day!

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Eliminate Excess Suffering By Identifying 'The Second Arrow' | Ep 239

Eliminate Excess Suffering By Identifying 'The Second Arrow' | Ep 239

Life will shoot us with the first arrow - these are real injuries, setbacks, losses and pain.

But the greater cause of our suffering comes form ‘the second arrow’ - the fear, anxieties, ruminations, and other internal mechanisations that we dwell upon.

In this episode I discuss the concept of the second arrow, as well as how we can use it to eliminate significant amounts of excess (and useless) suffering.

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Ughhhhh! - Chaos, Confusion, War & Worries | Ep 197

Ughhhhh! - Chaos, Confusion, War & Worries | Ep 197

It feels like the world is in utter chaos right now. War, pandemic, scandals, corruption, and hypocrisy are rampant. We have more information than we need, and little ability to impact anything.

In this episode I discuss my response to recent events, highlighting how I am attempting to stay sane during it all.

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#179: Don't Delay Your Happiness

#179: Don't Delay Your Happiness

We have a tendency to believe that happiness will come ‘when we make it’ or ‘when we accomplish the goal’. In this way we delay our happiness to some future state.

The problem is that we live the majority of life in the pursuit, and when we finally do arrive, our happiness is short lived.

Thus we risk living a life where we are delaying our happiness, and never actually enjoying it, or the present moment.

But the good news is that once we recognise this process, we can start mindfully appreciating the present moment and enjoying the journey as well as the destination.

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178: Change Is The Only Constant

178: Change Is The Only Constant

There is nothing in life that doesn’t change.

Consider your body, your goals, your life. It is always changing and will always change.

In this talk, I break down how mindfulness helps us to accept change and embrace it by living in the moment.

By seeing reality as it is, for what it is, we can find peace.

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177: Positive Habit Acquisition

177: Positive Habit Acquisition

Positive daily habits are the key to personal development and growth.

Start slow and let life open up to accommodate the new habit. One minute a day is infinitely better than none - and the change will not come as a shock.

Your mind, body, and life will accommodate to your new habit and it will stick.

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166: Your Mindfulness Toolbox For Daily Living

166: Your Mindfulness Toolbox For Daily Living

Introducing my 10 meditation course on insight timer ‘Your Mindfulness Toolbox For Daily Living’.

In this course you will learn a collection of traditional and novel practices, techniques, concepts and strategies to attain mindfulness, and take the benefits of clarity, calm and control off the meditation mat and into every day life.

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157: What Is Mindfulness Meditation - Introduction, FAQ & Beginning Your Practice

157: What Is Mindfulness Meditation - Introduction, FAQ & Beginning Your Practice

Mindfulness Meditation is the act of purposefully paying non-judgmental attention to the present moment.

To begin meditation, focus on the sensations of your breath. When you notice that you are distracted, gently return your focus back to the breath. Sounds simple enough, however, the beginning meditator quickly runs up against a plethora of questions, concerns and insights.

This talk aims to inform and empower all who wish to start a successful mindful meditation practice.

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