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Mindfulness Matters

I’ve recently resumed painting after about a 25 year hiatus. This is my latest piece, “9 Moments” that depicts nine moments of meditation, with each circle representing the arising of talking thoughts, images, and feelings in the mind. This piece is currently part of the Helen Day Arts Center Member Show and Sale in Stowe, Vermont.…

I’ve written about sleep for my stress reduction column and I’m no stranger to difficulty sleeping. Mindfulness offers us a way to work with sleeplessness. As we lie in bed trying to fall asleep or back asleep we can do a body scan practice. Instead of tossing and turning pay attention to the sensations that…

The Buddha taught the dharma through metaphor. It’s right there in the first Noble Truth and, indeed, The Four Noble Truths themselves are presented in the form of a medical metaphor with the Buddha as physician. With the First Noble Truth the Buddha diagnosed the malady of the human condition. He didn’t choose a word…

Silence is a rare commodity in our lives. Our culture does not value silence, does not provide us with rituals to cultivate it, and we often finds ourselves in an “uncomfortable” silence. Why would that be? Silence in those moments is seen as a problem, a deficit to be avoided. It seems alien — what…

Dan Gilbert’s research was recently published in Science and featured in the New York Times and discussed in my blog entry from 20 November 2010. Here is an excerpt in case you missed that: A recent article in Science (reviewed in the New York Times) lends support to what practitioners of mindfulness already know. First,…

The Squid Eye metaphor comes from business consultant and coach Susan Scott in her book Fierce Leadership: A Bold Alternative to the Worst “Best” Practices of Business Today. It refers to the ability of squid hunters to detect their prey hiding on the bottom of the sea floor. Squid are good hiders so the hunters…

It’s Stress Reduction Sunday. Read my weekly post in the Connecticut Watchdog, This week’s entry Surviving the Holidays with Poise: Mindfulness Put to the Test It’s the holiday season, and this can be a challenging time of year. When we discussed this in my meditation group, the word that came up to describe it was, “expectations.”…

Here in the Champlain Valley we got the first dusting of snow. The mountains are open for snowboarding and winter is announcing its arrival with stalwart force. It’s been slow to arrive and much of our “stick season” has seemed more like “mud season.” If the snow persists and is followed by more we’ll be…

I can hear the sucking sound as the gratitude vortex that reached its apex yesterday is losing air. We are at risk for post-Thanksgiving gratitude slump. For many, gratitude has given way to sleep deprivation as they showed up for the 5 AM sales at local stores. The opportunity to save hundreds, maybe even thousands…

Happy Thanksgiving! Today in the United States we feast with an eye towards gratitude for the abundance we have. It’s our biggest holiday with two days off and many of us are traveling and visiting with family.  Of course, if we are awake, we are thankful everyday, every moment. Gratitude is a way of being…
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