"In the garden of gentle sanity, May you be bombarded by coconuts of wakefulness". Daily meditation - All Welcome

[mangosTrickyrice]

Quote is from Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, whoever he may be. I found it in Pema Chodron's Places that Scare You and it made me laugh.

This thread is for anyone at all who's interested in mindfulness and meditation. We had posters on the last thread from various Buddhist traditions, Christians lapsed and practising, plus your wishy-washy agnostics . Some of us aim for 10 minutes of meditation practice each day, others focus on mindfulness in daily living, and still others focus on naps horizontal meditation. So really anything goes. The original thread is here if you have a month or 2 spare to read, otherwise just jump in below.

oh yay Kate - poor DD - hope she continues to feel better

SISB - thanks for your lovely words - it is tough but we are managing

metta all

XXX

Thread actually fell off my "threads I'm on" list, it's been so long. Am doing atrociously on the mindfulness front, but am enjoying BabyMango and looking forward to tomorrow.

Hope that everyone is well (especially Katie and family), and wanted to wish all of you a lovely, stress-free, joyful and mindful Christmas

i can see there may be mindfulness-related new years resolutions in my immediate future, as well - anyone else?

hello dear friends
so lovely to hear from mmmango and justa. thinking of you both - and of you all on this thread. justa, very best wishes for your c-section - good luck!!! mango, mindfulness continues to be a daily challenge for me, so i will happily join you on the new year resolution front, i so want to do better on this one.
swine flu is behind us (DD needed tamiflu then antibiotics and was full-on ill for a whole week, very unusual for her, but is much better now thanks) so we are really looking forward to tomorrow now. i'm going to church (for the first time ever on xmas day, i am ashamed to admit!) just to give it a whirl...a local, tiny country one which is holding a little service at 9.15 am. my dad the atheist is coming too, i think he sees it as a little father-daughter outing(!) and our neighbours will all be there, i'm looking forward to a little oasis of tranquility in an otherwise hectic day.
big hugs to you all,
and a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!
k xxx

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
I hope you've all had a lovely day. All well here - Father Christmas / Amazon brought me a Pema Choudon and Buddhism for Mothers book so whilst the family watches Dr Who I'm going to catch up on some reading on the sofa. Horrah!

JUsta - good luck with C-section - shall be thinking of you.

Katie - hope father / daughter bonding experience at church went well. Good to hear that all are better in the 123 househould

Mango - Would happily join you in mindfulness resolutions. Hope BabyM is doing well.

PB - positive vibes - are coming your way.

XXX

Hi everyone...
I just wandered in to wish you all a very happy and peaceful New Year.

Thank you all for your support over the past year and book recommendations!

My Xmas presents to myself are a great success! Pema C's book is so good I want to buy everyone I know a copy. All handbags should have a copy!

Sarah Napthali's book is just wonderful-probably the best yet . And today I received my meditation cushion - it's wonderfully comfy. Thanks to PB and Katie for recommending it.

Metta to all.

Love PFS

PS: Katie - on a separate matter I've also heard about "shewee" great for ladies who camp / go walking. I'll let you google it. A friend was given one by her boyfriends mother!!

fluffy!
are they those unspeakable cardboard portable glastonbury female toilets??! i was shown one by a friend a couple of years ago, she said she was massively inhibited as soon as she whipped it out at the festival she was at, and basically went into acute urinary retention (medical jargon alert) heh heh!!
lovely to hear from you. i thought sarah n's latest the best yet too - perhaps bcs i am at the school age stage myself, i suppose, but i don't think it's just that.
i am loving 'the mindful way through depression' which i am finally reading properly, rather than skim-reading. i did treat myself to a novel over the xmas period too 'post-birthday world' by lionel shriver - appalling faux-cockney dialogue aside, a real winner - compulsive!
my new year's resolution is simple but challenging - to really, seriously, bring mindfulness to bear on daily life more often.
that's it. (that's enough, i reckon!! given how blindingly hard it is to do, i find!)
big hugs to you all. i am sure not all of you are planning to go to bed tonight at 10, as i am, so have a fabulous celebration and see you in 2010

Happy New Year, everyone!

Hope that you all had a festive time and are recovered (and ready for work, for lots of you).

Well for 2010 I've decided that every time I think about meditation during the day, I'll stop, take a couple of breaths and refocus on whatever I'm doing to do it more mindfully. The beauty of this as a resolution is the "whenever I remember" part - it can't fail! It's working so far anyway, and means that I can avoid the tedious chain of thoughts about how I should be meditating more and when will I find the time etc etc etc. Funnily enough, I seem to 'remember' fairly often through the day.

I've also joined a thread on the housekeeping boards - as I'm not working, I ought to not live in such a pigsty be a bit more on top of things.

Hi Everyone,
Just dashing in quickly to say a quick Happy New Year to everyone.
Mango - I like your NY resolution..shall try to remember to follow your example.

Thanks to my new meditation cushion - courtesy of the Croydon FWBO centre - I'm sitting regularly and it is SO much easier on a cushion than a chair. Instead of doing an early evening meditate I've switched to the end of the day and I don't set a timer and I just sit for as little / or as long as I feel comfortable with. It "feels" much better to be more flexible over the time otherwise it becomes another thing I've got to cram in to a short space of time. Usually it takes me 10minutes to stop monkey minding!!

Katie - yesterday I made it to a Quaker meeting, in spite of no heating and sub zero temperatures in the room, it was strangely invigorating.

Hope you're all well.

LOve PFS

Katie - the shewee isn't cardboard it's plastic and sort of like a funnel. You have to google it.....

Hi all - hope it's ok for a newby to jump in!

I've been dipping into this thread (though haven't read all the posts - it's kind of long!) and hope some of you might have some ideas / tips for me. I really need to find a way of clearing my mind, because it's something I am really struggling with at the moment. I have a lot going on in my life (don't we all?) and I'm finding it very difficult not only to pray / meditate but to focus on work and, increasingly, to sleep (I keep waking in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep again because my mind is so crowded with thoughts).

At the moment I tend to just sit for a minute, and breathe deeply, trying to focus on slowing my heart rate as well as my mind but I find it more and more difficult to do and my mind dashes off onto something else after only a few seconds.

Can anyone help, or suggest anything I might try?

Thanks! Oh, and Happy New Year to you all

happy new year everyone and welcome to mrscadwallader, lovely to have you with us under the tree for the new year...

mrscadwallader I so empathise with your situation and will wait with bated breath for anyone with good advice

for me I just try not to beat myself up when the monkeymind comes...when meditating I continue to just let myself become aware of it and try to gently bring my concentration back to whatever it was I was meditating on - the breath, metta whatever...of course more often than not (especially these days) I'll slide off back into monkeymind before you can say "symian brain" but it helps not to catsigate myself. I also find the more and more regularly I meditate the easier it is to find my focus

good luck

I had an emotionally challenging xmas, a beutiful new year . On NYE I attended my first "threefold puja" at the FWBO and thoroughly enjoyed the space for reflection and silence on that evening - felt rejuvenated in a tiny but important way - walked out of the centre to a gorgeous full moon and felt relieved and ready for the new year to come. Then I was fortunate enough to spend a few hours yesterday with the ever lovely Katie123 comparing (amongst other things - much to the chagrin of the lone male diner next to us I am sure) life notes, book recommendations, plans for this years retreats and other celebrations. We tried to do kiddie things in museums during the day but quickly gave up and sensibly arranged to meet later for dinner unencumbered by pesky children. We are grown so wise Katie

metta to all and has justabout had her baby yet??? what day is c-section scheduled for again?

XXX

ps in a more consumer related vein and to make PFS feel better about her xmas hoarding I would like to report that I got a lovely combi meditation timer courtesy of funds from my father and a gorgeous 3 wick huge neroli candle to meditate with (though has spent most of the hols downstairs keeping me cheery night and day!)

now I just need to find time to sit a bit more...

Hi Justabout - we haven't 'met' but congratulations on the new arrival! I'm sorry the delivery was difficult but glad to hear you'e recovering well. Take it slowly!

Hello all you gorgeous girls
WELCOME to baby Justa!!! Lovely news. I am sorry it's been a tough time, and wish you a speedy recovery, and that the latching on gets easier !
Mrs Cad, it's really lovely to have you join us. I am reading the book that the other girls on here first recommended WAY back at the beginning of the original thread, 'The Mindful Way Through Depression' (Williams, Kabat-Zinn, Segal and one other author i forget now) and completely concur with them that it is potentially life-transforming. I wonder whether you might have time to get hold of a copy? It's not necessary at all to be Actually Clinically Depressed to benefit from it, i hasten to add, though some of us on this thread have indeed suffered from full-blown depression. most of us recognise the states of mind you describe, though, and i have certainly had my own battles with overwhelming stress, insomnia and despair over the last few years. so we all feel for you, i can say that with utter conviction. worth a try, i reckon. very good wishes to you.
Am going to put the tykes to bed and come back to chat some more! X

...so. kids in bed. major milestone tonight: DS has agreed to finally have the ears of his soft toy comforter elephant amputated and thrown into the log burner tonight for a ritual sacrifice! meaning that he can no longer dip the ear of said elephant into a glass of water, or run it under the tap each night, then suck the resulting bacterial swamp for 12 hours until he wakes up again
..i may be in for a long, long, broken night...

anyway i was going to say that i have been very erratic with the old meditation practice over the xmas hols, given constant changes in routine, people visiting, visiting other people etc. but i did have a lovely sit this morning, as DS sucked his ellie's stinking ear in bed beside me, looking out of a london window at the BT tower, magnificent against a grey and tangerine dawn sky, flashing purple at regular intervals throughout. it was a very strange and futuristic scene, but beautiful!

it was such a huge treat to meet up with peanut too, we were giggling on the way out of the sushi restaurant that we had subjected our neighbour (a young fresh-faced student type, who was on his own and had been seated beside peanut with no-one else around us at all, quite the cosy threesome, in short!) to our entire life histories - as peanut said he must have been wiping the sweat from his brow as we finally, finally got the hell out of his life and went to pay our bill

am glad you got to a quaker meeting PFS! that's great. i am still in a bit of a quandry - keen to deepen my commitment to a buddhist path, still hampered by my geographical location. will just have to hope that something is set up in my locality this year sometime - it is apparently in the pipeline...

mango, i think your approach is excellent, i will try to adopt your strategy in order to bring mindfulness into my life more effectively...still struggling...

love to you all, and back soon

k xxx

way hay!!!!!!!!!!!!!! justabout - CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! a little boy - beautiful. Hope the latching on sorts itself out and you have a nice gentle (every whim pandered to) sort of recovery. Delighted to hear your news.

XXX

I'm just wandering in to say hello and goodnight as I'm shattered after a busy week at work. It's been lovely reading your recent posts. (Katie and PB - I hope the poor young man in the restaurant has recovered from eavesdropping on your conversations!!)

I want to write a looooong post about all the whirly mess that's currently going on in my head atm about religion but I'm too tired to be coherent. In brief - does anyone else suffer from this problem of trying to find the perfect religion but always feeling dissatisfied when nothing quite "fits" IYKWIM. When I think about this issue I feel like my head is a washing machine on a full spin - nothing makes sense.

Anyways hope you've all being having mindful experiences in the snow!!

Off to sit on my lovely new cushion in search of peace and clairty and then to soak in the bath XX

fluffy - of course i know that feeling! the mental washing machine one, i mean! even though the buddhist path has come to mean so much to me, i still haven't found the right one, and i still can't quite let go of some aspects of the christian tradition (perhaps because of cultural familiarity, but not just because of that). and it's taken YEARS of churning through various washing cycles to even get THIS far!!!
btw fluff i am planning a trip to The Urban Centre I Believe To Be Yours Or At Least Near You soon for some culture. please say you'll meet up with me and show me around xxx and peanut and anyone else in the vicinity too it goes without saying! x
bookwise, have finished 'the mindful way thro depression' - excellent, have now started 'everyday blessings' about mindful parenting by the kabat-zinns. so far have only got thro the intro but it seems potentially a valuable resource. if only to get me to the stage of considering my kids, at all times, an 'everyday blessing'
on the downside, meditation remains erratic. i can't believe there was a time when i was managing two sits a day. who WAS that girl??! she's gone! she need to get her ass back here immediately!
back soon everyone, have a lovely evening
x

Katie - thanks for the message of solidarity regarding the washing machine brain!

WOnderful news that you may be coming to an Urban Centre Near Me-(this sounds so ridiculously furtive I feel like Iris Robinson and her teenager!)

It would be great to meet you and PB if she's free.

count me in - love mysterious urban centres me!

when? Katie email me and tell me what's what

am having a relatively calm weekend. Kids ill but we are coping. Poor DD2 due to start in reception tomorrow and still quite poorly. Think will bring her abyway for the half day.

went to a spa thi smorning with some friends and did quite a lot of being in th emoment there - breathing - doing some TNH guided meditation etc...was lovely

will be sitting tonight at 10 under the tree...anyone else?

hello girls!
yes, i will be under our tree too at ten! went quaking this morning, which was lovely. a nice break from, er, doing not much at all in front of the fire at home - feel like this hibernation has been going on for weeks now! still there are definite perks - like getting some reading done!
peanut and fluffy - that's great!! i think we would have a fab time together. okay - let's talk detail! i can get away quite easily on fridays, but not sure whether you two girls work that day? train time about two hours i reckon, for me, an hour for you peanut. definitely do-able sometime ( i love train journeys, so any excuse ). if a weekend day is easier for you both then that's fine, i just need to negotiate with DH (but mountain biking is his thing, so he owes me a couple of weekend days, i'm pretty sure)
back soon xxx
by the way peanut, my combi timer broke within 2 months, and i kept meaning to mention that to you in the lead-up to xmas - i hope you have better luck with yours! DH never fails to bring it up as an example of a completely spurious outlay of cash which was proved to his total satisfaction to have been even more spurious than even he thought it would be !

Wooppiee - we've got a date. I only work 2 hours on a Friday (9 - 11) but will happily take leave so we can have a proper chat/ catch up.

I normally pick DD up from school at 3ish but she can go to after school club as a "treat". ANy Friday is good for me.

Have no idea how to "CAT" - so email me on the following address: [email protected]

Shall try to join you under the tree at 10.