meditation Archives | Page 2 of 8

How To Get Your Motivation Going

September 19, 2017 by Ed and Deb Shapiro Leave a Comment

We watched as an eager young CNN television reporter asked the Dalai Lama what was the first thing he thought of when he awoke in the morning. We thought that this revered teacher and probably the world’s most well known meditator would say something deeply profound or insightful, such as along the lines of vowing […]

Filed Under: awareness, happiness, inner life, joy, love, meditation, mindfulness, peace Tagged With: anger, awareness, compassion, fear, fearlessness, happiness, kindness, meditation, mindfulness, negativity, self-imrovement

Why We Look For Happiness In All The Wrong Places

August 29, 2017 by Ed and Deb Shapiro 1 Comment

Our search for happiness becomes ever more urgent in our increasingly crowded and competitive world. An article on the HuffPost stated there are “over 75 million Google search results for the term and 40,000 happiness-related books available for purchase on Amazon… And it’s not necessarily helping us to become any happier.” Maybe that’s because happiness […]

Filed Under: love, meditation, mindfulness, peace, presence Tagged With: awareness, compassion, happiness, inner life, joy, kindness, meditation, mindfulness, self-imrovement

Are You Here And Now? If Not, Where?

June 12, 2017 by Ed and Deb Shapiro Leave a Comment

Do you live in your head? In your body? In your emotions? In your desires? Normally, we spend our time either living in what-could-have-been or what-might-have-been or if-only, or in the expectation of what-could-be or what-might-be, anywhere but here, constantly in either the past or the future. This is like being in a dream as […]

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Are You Happier Today Than You Were Yesterday?

May 17, 2017 by Ed and Deb Shapiro Leave a Comment

We were in Thailand, attending a ten-day silent meditation retreat in the middle of a coconut grove. Every day Ajahn Maha Dharma Tan, a Thai monk, would come to teach, and each day he would ask us the same question: “Are you happier today than you were yesterday?” As he said this, a wide smile […]

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Mindfulness & Meditation: What’s the Difference?

May 8, 2017 by Ed and Deb Shapiro 1 Comment

“In any one day there are moments where there is nothing going on, but we link up what is happening from thought to thought without any space. We overlook the spaciousness that it’s all happening in,” Gangaji, from our new book The Unexpected Power Or Mindfulness & Meditation. Nowadays, mindfulness and meditation are often used […]

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The Unexpected Power of Mindfulness & Meditation

April 13, 2017 by Ed and Deb Shapiro 3 Comments

There is a sanity and brilliance to mindfulness and meditation, from awakening inner strength, kindness and fearlessness to inviting radical change. As an activist in a Chinese jail, Kiri Westby used meditation to maintain her peace amidst the hardship. Seane Corn used yoga and mindfulness to work with teenage prostitutes in LA. Play therapist Megan […]

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Finding Your Sanity in the Midst of Chaos

March 13, 2016 by Ed and Deb Shapiro 1 Comment

The question is, has the world gone nuts? It certainly looks like a lot of people are being driven by fear, hatred and greed. The protests in Chicago, the rising anger and animosity, is to the detriment of us all. Is it not time for some real sanity? Losing our sanity is about getting so […]

Filed Under: awareness, happiness, inner life, joy, meditation, mindfulness, peace, presence, Uncategorized Tagged With: anger, awareness, compassion, fear, freedom, happiness, meditation, mindfulness, negativity, tolerence

Will The Real Deepak Chopra Please Stand Up

February 5, 2016 by Ed and Deb Shapiro Leave a Comment

The great Swami Satchidananda always said that we only need to have faith the size of a mustard seed. Such faith proved itself to us in an unusual way. We were teaching a weekend meditation program in Plymouth, a fairly rural town in Devon, England. On the Friday evening an excited student told us that […]

Filed Under: awareness, happiness, inner life, joy, meditation, mindfulness, Uncategorized Tagged With: anger, awareness, compassion, fear, happiness, inner life, meditation, negativity, stress, wellness

Why You Can Never Have Too Much To Do

January 26, 2016 by Ed and Deb Shapiro Leave a Comment

Having too much to do is our most common moan. We get overloaded, overworked, over everything and don’t see a way through. Deb was just 18 when she attended her first Zen meditation retreat. “It was taught by a somewhat formidable Jiyu Kennet Roshi, a large Englishwoman in a floaty grey robe well established in […]

Filed Under: awareness, joy, meditation, mindfulness, presence, relaxation, Uncategorized Tagged With: awareness, compassion, inner life, meditation, mindfulness, relaxation, stress

What I Learned From David Bowie’s Meditation Teacher

January 15, 2016 by Ed and Deb Shapiro Leave a Comment

I grew up in London at the same time as David Bowie was becoming known there in the sixties. Bowie was only 17 when he met meditation and Buddhist teacher Lama Chime Rinpoche, who he studied with and remained close to. It was the first step for Bowie to becoming a world-class humanitarian who gave […]

Filed Under: awareness, happiness, inner life, joy, meditation, mindfulness, presence, Uncategorized Tagged With: awareness, compassion, freedom, happiness, inner life, meditation