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  • Tricycle Community 7 comments

    Meditation Month, Day 27: Drowsiness Paid Member

    Posted by Emma Varvaloucas on 27 Feb 2012
    I am very good at falling asleep. This is probably because I am almost always tired. And I'm never more tired than when I meditate. Especially if I meditate at the end of the day, I'm so excited to have 5 or 10 (or if I'm lucky, 20) minutes of nonactivity that I'm immediately in relaxation mode. As soon as I relax, I'm drowsy. As soon as I'm drowsy, my head and body begin to pitch forward; a few minutes after that, I'm lucky if I'm not dead asleep. My mind during meditation: My body during meditation: More »
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    Meditation Month: Practicing Patience Paid Member

    Posted by Rachel on 15 Feb 2012
    I consider myself to be a very patient person. I'm patient with my friends, my family, my colleagues—I'm patient while waiting for a red light to change, and patient when the bank representative puts me on hold for 13 minutes. But I'm not patient with myself. If I do not learn something quickly, or I do not consider myself to be "good" at an activity, I throw in the towel almost immediately (it's why I don't play tennis or pool). This desire to improve by leaps and bounds has been challenging during meditation month. I expected that the more I sat, the easier it would get—actually, I thought the more I sat the better I would get at sitting. But so far it has been a roller coaster of good days, bad days, and worse days. More »
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    Meditation Month: Day 9 Paid Member

    Posted by Sam Mowe on 09 Feb 2012
    There is only one way to walk in New York City: mindfully. Actually, let me back up. You don't have to walk mindfully in New York, but if you don't you're roadkill. (In fact, the main reason that you should walk mindfully is because so many people don't.) Most of the time you have to be prepared to move quickly, to avoid other walkers, taxis, bicyclists, or a crazy person. At other times you need to exercise patience—waiting for the next subway or slowly shuffling through a bottle neck situation at Grand Central during rush hour. Either way, if you find yourself walking in New York, Peter Doobinin had some good advice in today's Daily Dharma: More »
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    Meditation Month: Broken Glass Paid Member

    Posted by Rachel on 08 Feb 2012
    Last night I broke a glass in my apartment, and as I was cleaning up the mess I realized that this was the third or fourth glass that I've broken in the past few weeks. As I was picking up the shattered pieces I realized that I've been moving through the world with a huge division between my body and my mind. My mind goes in one direction while my body operates as a disconnected entity. I bump into things, drop objects, and spill coffee. I was flipping through Tricycle Teachings: Meditation and I came across the excerpt from "Full Body, Empty Mind," an interview with meditation teacher Will Johnson: More »
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    Meditation Month: Day 6 Paid Member

    Posted by Emma Varvaloucas on 06 Feb 2012
    The Monday blues have hit meditation month—at least they have for me. I spent the weekend researching Milarepa, the famous Tibetan poet-yogi, because of a journalism assignment. You know, this Milarepa...   ...the one who went through agony just to receive basic Buddhist teachings from Marpa, and then, when he got them, stayed in solitary meditation for years. When his food ran out, he ate nothing but the nettles that grew outside his cave (which is why he is often portrayed with green skin) until he became fully awakened. More »
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    Meditation Month: Day 2 Paid Member

    Posted by Sam Mowe on 02 Feb 2012
    Last weekend, my 20-year old brother and I meditated together in my studio apartment in Brooklyn. We sat down, side by side, on cushions that have seen better days. To get started, I read aloud from the "Breathing Meditation" chapter of Sharon Salzberg's Real Happiness, and then we listened to the first track of the book's accompanying CD. We crossed our legs, closed our eyes, and sat there breathing. It was my brother's first time meditating."I could get into that," my brother said afterwards. "I've always been hyper-aware of my thoughts, but the non-judgmental awareness is a whole other thing."My brother would appreciate today's Daily Dharma, which offers advice on non-judgmental awareness. It comes from "The Refuge of Sitting" by Narayan Liebenson Grady: More »