Home Retreat Program

Shinzen Young is offering introductory home-based Vipassana retreats through his website BasicMindfulness.com. These are retreats which you can do anywhere in the world as long as you have access to a phone with either a handsfree or speakerphone option. Previously, only those who had done a residential or non-residential in-person program with Shinzen could [...]

Deep Listening

At its core Mindfulness practice is really about deep engagement. Deep listening to ourselves internally, and externally to our environment. Quieting the body-mind so that we can be completely receptive to what is, rather than manipulating, misperceiving, adding to, or taking away from our present experience. I emphasize contact with the body often in these [...]

What is this?

A useful question in day to day life. One of my meditation teachers often had us ask this question to ourselves once or twice a day, perhaps setting an alarm at random on our watch and engaging in this contemplative inquiry at that time the alarm rang.
When we ask ourselves ‘What is this?’ we are [...]

Lifeforce Energy

Some time ago I was working with anxiety in my meditation practice. I was at a time of transition, entering into a long term relationship in it’s beginning phases (exciting, but still somewhat stressful), juggling courses with working in my professional life and doing deep healing work on myself. These things added up to a [...]

Working with Anxiety

Most of us feel anxiety every day of our lives. Anxiety in small doses can be a healthy motivator and part of our daily performance in life. However, for many people anxiety reaches an intensity level around certain experiences and situations that prevents us from making the choices we want and engaging in activities that [...]