Tag: meditation
These are very personal questions: What is spiritual to you? When and where do you feel spiritual? How do these spiritual feelings get blocked or expanded?
We can carry these questions throughout our lives. Spiritual practice aims to refine and deepen our understanding of them.
I will focus on three specific spiritual practices: psychological relationships, meditation, and psychedelic plant medicines, including cannabis.
Spiritual practice is about psychological relationships because if our spiritual practice doesn’t improve our relationships with others, what’s the point?
The practice of psychological relationships with others and with one’s inner life is a personal experience with spiritual meaning. This involves experiences of vulnerability, hurt, and confusion that teach us the depth of human love and kindness.
Spiritual practice is not only personal but also universal and objective. We need to look at our minds as they are, our human instincts as they are, and our relationship with the natural world. We are born, go through all the developmental stages, and then die. Life is both precious and painful. We cannot change most of life, but we can learn to connect with it gracefully, little by little.
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Hypnosis Therapy and the Trance State
Hypnosis therapy is a method of communication with deeper parts of ourselves. Commonly, hypnosis is used to change behaviors that our conscious mind cannot change, such as, smoking cessation, weight loss, and fear of flying. How does hypnosis work? Hypnotherapy is a way to bypass our everyday consciousness that is busy with surface details. The…
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Why is Dialectical Behavior Therapy helpful?
Webster’s Dictionary defines dialectical: a method of examining and discussing opposing ideas in order to find the truth. Dialectical behavioral therapy was adopted from the mindfulness meditation traditions that go back thousands of years. It has been very effective in treating those with symptoms of borderline personality. In the previous post, Fear of Abandonment, I…
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The Heart Sutra, Holding the Paradox
The Heart Sutra is written in the form of a dialogue between teacher and student. Here the teacher is pointing out a way of perceiving the mind and body. The teacher is clearing up a confusion about our common perception of ourselves. This sutra is an explanation of how the student can embody this…
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Practicing Mindfulness
The term mindfulness is used in the three major schools of meditation in the East. It is not necessary to go into their perspectives on practicing mindfulness at this time, but a few examples of mindfulness meditation from these three traditions may give you a sense of how to practice mindfulness in everyday situations. The…
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Meditation with Obsessive Thoughts and Feelings
Shunryu Suzuki in “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind” wrote: “When you are practicing meditation, do not try to stop your thinking. Let it stop by itself. If something comes into your mind, let it come in, and let it go out. It will not stay long. When you try to stop your thinking, it means you…
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Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Generalized anxiety disorder, as defined by the Mayo Clinic http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/generalized-anxiety-disorder/DS00502 is very clear and simple. The symptoms include constant worrying, obsession over small things, and trouble sleeping to mention a few. This disorder is a group of symptoms that can be controlled by the individual, enabling you to reduce or eliminate medication. The treatments I…
