…I find my inspiration lagging. A topic of focus for today’s post eludes me. “Nothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It’s awful.” A whole assortment of quotes from Beckett’s Waiting for Godot might be appropriate for today, but that was the first one that came to mind. It’s not exactly true of my Tuesday thatContinue reading “On the Twenty-eighth Day of 2025…”
Tag Archives: mindfulness
On the Eighth Day of 2025. . .
. . . while my friends in the east and the middle are freezing off their nards, and my Southern California friends are guarding against wildfires, here in the Pacific Northwest, during a miraculous dry spell of three straight days and counting, I worked in the yard today wearing a t-shirt. Today was one ofContinue reading “On the Eighth Day of 2025. . .”
On the Seventh Day of 2025. . .
I would like to say that I rested. I cannot say that. I can say, however, that I spent 20 minutes on the meditation cushion and had some difficulty quieting the mind. I just wanted to think about stuff. That’s the real difficulty, isn’t it, because it’s one thing to sit on a cushion withContinue reading “On the Seventh Day of 2025. . .”
On the Ninth Day of 2024: Just Sit and Breathe
Sometimes meditation is difficult. You’d think it’d always be easy; after all, one just sits and breathes. Right? How hard can that be? Most of us do a lot of sitting. And all of us are breathing all the time. Here’s the thing–our breathing (for the most part) is not a conscious choice that weContinue reading “On the Ninth Day of 2024: Just Sit and Breathe”
On the Eighth Day of 2024: Mastering My Singles, Listening
I had a good night’s sleep, but I woke up early and couldn’t get back there–so I got up. I saw my son off to school, I was on the meditation cushion by 8:15, and after that I made myself a pretty decent breakfast. And no, I am not suddenly since yesterday a “single” man,Continue reading “On the Eighth Day of 2024: Mastering My Singles, Listening”
On the Seventh Day of 2024: The Numbers
Consecutive days of meditation: 7. Number of walks taken with dogs: 3. Consecutive days of sitting meditation, on a cushion: 6. Consecutive days of walking meditation, with dogs: 1. Chances that walking meditation with dogs was more successful than sitting on a cushion without dogs: 0. Consecutive days of bicycling: 5. Cups of coffee consumedContinue reading “On the Seventh Day of 2024: The Numbers”
On the Sixth Day of 2024: The Creative Impulse, or What the Hell Am I Doing?
I must say that the sixth day of 2024 has been a rough one. I slept in a little bit longer than I usually do, then, diverging from my usual practice of hitting the cushion before doing anything electronically, other than calling up my meditation timer, I read a text message. Needless to say, myContinue reading “On the Sixth Day of 2024: The Creative Impulse, or What the Hell Am I Doing?”
On the Fifth Day of 2024: Meditation Method
I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. Ralph Waldo Emerson Stuff coming out, stuff going in. I’m just a part of everything. Peter Gabriel My meditation practice, as I discovered it some twenty-three years ago now, has been to sit in silence, either alone or with a group. EvenContinue reading “On the Fifth Day of 2024: Meditation Method”
How I Know I Need To Start Meditating Again
It has been almost a year since the last time I meditated on a regular basis, or frankly, at all. In my last year of teaching, in the same school I taught at for 32 years, in the first year back to in-person learning after the COVID-19 shut down, a group of teachers and administratorsContinue reading “How I Know I Need To Start Meditating Again”
If I Am Not My Body and I Am Not My Mind, Who Am I?
Sometimes I have difficulty with the more woo woo aspects of mindfulness practice. I tend to think about my meditation, for example, in pretty straight forward terms. I sit. I close my eyes. I breathe. I pay attention to the breath. If my mind wanders, I notice that, and then I try to bring myContinue reading “If I Am Not My Body and I Am Not My Mind, Who Am I?”
michael jarmer 