{"id":25749,"date":"2011-01-10T18:11:40","date_gmt":"2011-01-11T01:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edtechpost.ca\/wordpress\/?p=25749"},"modified":"2011-01-10T18:11:40","modified_gmt":"2011-01-11T01:11:40","slug":"meditation-resources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottleslie.ca\/edtechpost\/wordpress\/2011\/01\/10\/meditation-resources\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Resources on How To Meditate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I just got a DM in twitter from someone asking me for pointers to some resources on how to meditate, and thought I&#8217;d post my reply here in case these were of any help to others.<\/p>\n<p>First off, to be clear, I am offering these not as any great expert but simply as things I have used in the past that I&#8217;ve found helpful. As they say Your Mileage May Very. Second, there are many, many different forms of meditation, traditions and rituals. I do not intended to go into those details. I sit with a Buddhist Sangha (community of practitioners) that practices in the &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.plumvillage.org\/\">Plum Village Tradition<\/a>&#8221; developed by<a href=\"http:\/\/www.plumvillage.org\/thay.html\"> Thich Nhat Hanh<\/a>, but also have sat in the Vispassana and Zen traditions. It&#8217;s all good. I tend to not be overly dogmatic about these things, trying to find what works for me ,but I expect there are many more experienced practitioners who would chastise me for this as being lazy.<\/p>\n<p>In any case, for some very brief reading you could try<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/diydharma.org\/how-meditate\">How to Medititate from D.I.Y. Dharma<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thebigview.com\/buddhism\/meditation.html\">Meditation Instructions in the Theravada Tradition<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One of the ways I got started was by listening to guided meditations. Two of the collections I like are<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.buddhanet.net\/audio-meditation.htm\">BuddhaNet Audio<\/a> (especially the ones from Malcolm Huxter)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.audiodharma.org\/series\/1\/talk\/1835\/\">Audio Dharma<\/a> (I like some of the Gil Fronsdal ones quite a lot)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I guess the biggest pieces of advice I would have are<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Don&#8217;t give up. I use the phrase &#8220;Firm but Gentle&#8221; to describe the attitude I need to have towards my practice and myself &#8211; I need to be firm in my resolution to keep practicing, but gentle both in my practice and with myself when my mind wanders or when I find a few days have passed without sitting.<\/li>\n<li>Let go of expectations &#8211; don&#8217;t expect a flash of lightning or a dramatic transformation to overtake you. That is not what it&#8217;s about, in my experience. But if you are consistent in sitting, starting with maybe 15 minutes a day and expanding as you go, you will start to notice subtle changes and benefits from cultivating mindfulness. But don&#8217;t even attach to those! Just sit.<\/li>\n<li>Find a sangha or others to practice with. This can take some time, and don&#8217;t worry if at first you don&#8217;t find one that jibes with you. Eventually you will, and it feels wonderful once you do, to simply sit with others.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That&#8217;s it. I&#8217;m happy to talk to anyone who has questions but I&#8217;m really no expert, just someone also trying to find his way along the path. &#8211; <em>SWL<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I just got a DM in twitter from someone asking me for pointers to some resources on how to meditate, and thought I&#8217;d post my reply here in case these were of any help to others. First off, to be clear, I am offering these not as any great expert but simply as things I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/scottleslie.ca\/edtechpost\/wordpress\/2011\/01\/10\/meditation-resources\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Some Resources on How To Meditate&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[233],"class_list":["post-25749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-rest","tag-meditation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottleslie.ca\/edtechpost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottleslie.ca\/edtechpost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottleslie.ca\/edtechpost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottleslie.ca\/edtechpost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottleslie.ca\/edtechpost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scottleslie.ca\/edtechpost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottleslie.ca\/edtechpost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottleslie.ca\/edtechpost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottleslie.ca\/edtechpost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}