TLDR: Some of us take to meditation like fish to water and, at some stage, want to further stretch that mindfulness muscle through formal instruction, an extended retreat, and group practice. This article contains a list of short meditation retreat options (a day or less) for anyone looking to explore their practice or to find a meditation community.
Before we go on – if you’re a beginner to meditation who is figuring out questions such as ‘Why meditate?’, and ‘What is Buddhist meditation?’ – we have the perfect article for you! Meditation 101 contains a toolkit of FAQs, apps, and other resources that are tailored to someone just starting out on their meditation journey!
For those with meditation experience, we’d like to offer a reflection by ‘Yellow Pages Monk’ Ajahn Jayasaro:
“Why meditate? In fact, other questions should precede this one. Why take refuge in the Triple Gem in the first place? If one has true faith in the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha, what choice is there other than to follow the path that he revealed to us?
The Buddha taught the best way to live our lives as human beings. The teachings are a call to action, not inaction….”
1. JOYFUL GARDEN SANGHA: DAY OF MINDFULNESS (Last Sunday of each month, 10am – 4pm, Open to all)
Image: Google
About Day of Mindfulness by Joyful Garden Sangha
Day of Mindfulness (DOM) is a mini mindfulness retreat in the tradition of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and Plum Village, facilitated by Joyful Garden Community of Mindful Living (Joyful Garden Sangha). It is organised usually on the last Sunday of each month. Occasionally Joyful Garden Sangha may host special events and practices too.
When an event is scheduled and open for registration, you will see it on this page. You can also join their mailing list, or follow on Facebook to be notified. Seats are filled rather quickly.
What to expect
The practice of moment-to-moment awareness in a group setting. Discover how the application of mindfulness to eating, moving, singing, listening, and more, could transform your everyday experience.
What to pack
A vegan lunch of your own, and a jacket or scarf in case it gets cold for you.
2. DAYWA: DAY OF PRACTICE A.K.A DOPE (First Saturday afternoon of each month – Open to Commune Members only)
Photo: DAYWA
About Day of Practice (DOPE) by DAYWA
The DOPE retreat format was created by organisers behind the Dhamma Assembly for Young Working Adults (DAYWA), in order to give its members a taste of what a formal retreat could be like. The retreat format adopts many practices from the Thai Forest tradition and also encourages sharing and learning between practitioners from the various Buddhist traditions.
Recommended for: Meditators interested to explore the Thai Forest practice, and to connect with other youthful practitioners.
How to register
This event is open to those in the DAYWA Commune Members only i.e. you will need to have attended at least 3 DAYWA events in a year, to join the Commune and sign up for DOPE practice.
What to expect
Chanting in Pali, reading and discussion of Early Buddhist Texts, guided and non-guided sitting meditation practice.
What to pack
Bring your own meditation cushion if you would prefer to use that. Lunch is usually organised before the practice commences, it would be optional to join for that.
3. BUDDHIST FELLOWSHIP: MEDITATION TEACHINGS AND EVENTS (Monthly line-up)
Image: Buddhist Fellowship Website
About meditation teachings at Buddhist Fellowship (BF)
Buddhist Fellowship’s (BF) weekly Sunday Services regularly feature meditation as part of its programme, often in the Theravadin traditions and with reference to early Buddhist texts such as the Annapannasati Sutta. BF also organises meditation courses and retreats with visiting monastics from time to time, so do look out for that.
Recommended for: Meditators looking to explore Theravadin traditions and early Buddhist texts.
How to register
Stay tuned to Buddhist Fellowship’s social media, such as Facebook and Telegram, for announcements.
What to expect
Experienced monastics and lay practitioners sharing their own practice and offering guided meditation experiences.
Palelai Buddhist Temple’s resident monastic community (Sangha) leads two meditation sessions on a daily basis at the Meditation Hall on the 3rd floor of the main Chedi building (go up the staircase from the central Arahants’ Hall).
Recommended for: Meditators who are familiar with Thai Forest practices.
How to register
No need to register.
What to expect
No instructions are provided, meditators of all levels are welcome to join the sit quietly behind the Sangha. A short blessing will be given at the end of the session.
What to pack
Simply bring yourself, with an open heart and mind.
5. DHARMA DRUM SINGAPORE: MEDITATION GROUP PRACTICE (Weekly, Wednesdays & Sundays)
Image: Dhamma Drum Singapore
About meditation group practice at Dharma Drum Singapore
Dharma Drum Singapore (DDS) promotes Chinese Chan Dharma Drum Buddhism based on the principles and methods of Dharma Drum Mountain founded by Master Sheng Yen. DDS regularly offers meditation group practice on Wednesdays evenings (7.30pm – 9.30pm) and Sunday mornings (9.30am – 12.00pm) that are open to the public, and conducted in Mandarin Chinese instruction.
Recommended for meditators who are interested in Chinese Buddhism and detailed meditation instruction.
How to register
Registration for each practice session opens 1 week before. Dharma Drum Singapore uses the Eventbrite system. If you use the Eventbrite App on your phone, registration will be easier and faster.
Please find on this page the link to register for the specific session that you are attending.
Please do not attend the session if you are feeling unwell. If you are unable to attend, you can also cancel your Eventbrite order to make room for others.
Simply bring yourself, with an open heart and mind.
6. KONG MENG SAN PHOR KARK SEE A.K.A. BRIGHT HILL TEMPLE: SHORT-TERM TEMPLE STAY, SELF PRACTICE, MEDITATION COURSES (Short-term temple stay available to Males only)
Image: Forum Architect which designed the new meditation hall
About short-term temple stays at Kong Meng San Phor Kark See
Amid the chaos of today’s hectic pace, have you taken a moment to calm your inner thoughts? If you desire a deeper understanding of yourself and wish to embark on a journey of self-discovery, consider immersing yourself in a short-term temple stay at Kong Meng San Phor Kark See a.k.a Bright Hill Temple. This allows you to embrace a peaceful, detached lifestyle, allowing yourself to explore the deep corners of your mind.
Recommended for: Meditators of all levels, given the variety of formats.
How to register
For self practice at the Prajna Meditation Hall, there is no need to register.
For Relaxation & Mindfulness Meditation courses, please follow the page or write in to:
For short-term temple retreats, these are open to healthy Singapore male citizens, between the ages of 17 and 60, that are able to commit to at least one month to a year of retreat. Detailed application instructions here.
What to expect
Kong Meng San Por Khark See Monastery offers a zen and peaceful environment to deepen your cultivation.
The short-term temple stay programme is currently being refined – enquire via email to find out more.
The Relaxation & Mindfulness Meditation courses are a helpful introduction to body scan relaxation techniques. You may access a preview of the type of guided meditation provided by Venerable Kwang Sheng here.
What to pack
A jacket or shawl, as one may find the air conditioning strong at certain venues in the monastery.
7. ONLINE RETREATS & OTHER RESOURCES
In the post-Covid era, online retreats have become a popular option offered by local and overseas monasteries, who have adapted their technology to broadcast teachings and retreat instructions.
Here are some online channels which you may be interested to follow to find out more:
As our list of retreat options is non-exhaustive, for each Buddhist tradition and/or temple that you feel drawn to, it is a good idea to check out their website and/or social media to find out if they are offering formal instruction or group practice settings.
TLDR: When getting sufficient sleep, the following 3 practices helped me to almost entirely overcome drowsiness in sitting meditation: (1) keeping my eyes open, (2) using mala beads, and (3) silently or audibly reciting the Buddha’s name, the names of the Triple Gem, or the Buddha’s qualities.
My Past: Frequent Drowsiness Made It Hard To Stick to a Regular Sitting Meditation Routine
After discovering Buddhism during my university days, I was enamoured by the wisdom of the teachings, but one thing frequently hindered my sitting meditation practice.
For many years, my sitting meditation was beset by frequent bouts of overwhelming drowsiness. On many days, unless especially well-rested, I usually fall wholly or partially asleep after a few minutes. Surprisingly, I often felt drowsier during sitting meditation than afterwards when trying to fall asleep.
For many years, this drowsiness hindered my attempts to stick to a sitting meditation routine since I would nod off after a few minutes.
Change 1: Keeping Eyes Open During Sitting Meditation
Learning this, during my sitting meditation, I let my eyes rest on a point on the wall, floor, corner, or dim light source such as a lamp. This helped to reduce some drowsiness, although it wasn’t until combining this technique with the other two techniques below that things significantly improved.
Change 2: Mala beads To Help Focus
Wanting to explore Buddhism more deeply but having limited options where I lived, I resolved to study in India to learn more about the subcontinent where Buddha was born.
After much planning and financial saving, I hopped on a plane and the adventure began. My time in India was extremely insightful and life-changing. Furthermore, while exploring Dharamsala, India, the ubiquitous mala beads for sale there constantly called my attention to them. Having purchased a string of 108 beads, the next phase of my journey to overcoming drowsiness began.
As Master Sheng Yen teaches and I have experienced:
“…the deliberate action of the fingers moving the beads may serve as a quick reminder to focus on the recitation, should the mind stray. The functions of reminding and counting complement each other…”
At that time, I used the mala beads with a Tibetan mantra. As I used the mala beads more and more with the mantra, I found that the mala beads helped my mind to stray less often. I also found that the sensation of mala beads on my fingers was easier to focus on, and more stable than the breath, which was more subtle and harder for me to follow.
Moreover, even if trying to focus on breathing, the beads were still helpful by providing an additional anchor point.
If my attention strayed from the breath, it could drift to the sensation of touching the beads instead of wandering off.
As I continued to practice the mantra with the mala beads, I further discovered that the fingers’ movement also helped keep my mind more active, especially if moving them quickly. Between the improved focus and more active mind, my drowsiness further diminished.
Change 3: Silent or Audible Recitation of The Buddha, The Triple Gem, or His Qualities to Rouse Energy and Grow Faith
In SN46.51, the Buddha provides another helpful piece of advice:
And what is the lack of food for the arising of unarisen sloth & drowsiness, or for the growth & increase of sloth & drowsiness once it has arisen? There is the potential for effort, the potential for exertion, the potential for striving. To foster appropriate attention to them: This is lack of food for the arising of unarisen sloth & drowsiness, or for the growth & increase of sloth & drowsiness once it has arisen.
Although keeping my eyes open and using mala beads with a mantra had been helpful, a piece was missing.
For many years I had difficulty rousing energy reliably, which as mentioned above is important to reduce and prevent drowsiness.
Regarding modern teachers, I discovered the Thai Forest teacher Ajahn Anan’s teaching about mindfulness of the Buddha:
Knowing that it is hard, we need to firmly set sati to the task of guarding the heart and bringing it to calm. If we are going to practice samādhi in this way, we need to keep “Buddho” constantly with us.
Whether we are standing, sitting, walking, lying down, or whatever else we might be doing, we have to keep the meditation word “Buddho” always in the heart.
As time went by and I learned and experienced more and more joy and the other benefits, my faith in Buddhism began to grow and grow, which consequently fueled the arising of mental energy and exertion during sitting meditation, overpowering the drowsiness.
What Things Are Like Now
Having practised like this, combining all 3 of these changes for over a year, although I sometimes still feel drowsiness, it doesn’t overwhelm me like it did before.
Now that sitting meditation contains so much more alertness, energy, and joy, maintaining a regular sitting meditation routine has become much easier and more enjoyable.
Keep your eyes open and stare at a point on the wall, floor, corner, or dim light source such as a lamp.
If doing a type of meditation that can be counted, including breath-counting or mindfulness of the Buddha, try using mala beads. See these mala bead usage instructions from Dharma Drum for more information on how to use them.
Find a meditative practice that rouses energy and joy for you.
This article is the final part of two instalments, edited from Sister Sylvia Bay’s Dhamma talk fortheGlobal Buddhist Conference in December 2023. Part I can be found here
TLDR: Having discussed the challenges of sustaining mindfulness, Sister Sylvia explores two key conditions to cultivate continuous mindfulness: contentment and kusala (Pali translated as ‘skillful’) mind states.
Mindfulness is a mental state, no different from those you are more familiar with such as anger, pride, fear, worry, joy, faith, gratitude, compassion and so on.
Like all mental states, it will arise in the presence of the right and necessary conditions.
“When this exists, that comes to be; with the arising of this, that arises. When this does not exist, that does not come to be; with the cessation of this, that ceases.”(SN 12.62 Uninstructed).
What does this verse mean? The presence of mental conditions will lead to other mental states arising.
If I ask you to feel fear right now, you may not be able to do it.
Because you are surrounded by people, in bright lighting and loud noises. The ‘necessary’ conditions for fear to arise are simply not there.
Perhaps you can still trigger some fear if you successfully ‘talk’ and convince yourself that something is frightening here. But even then, whatever smidgeon of fear you can summon with herculean effort will not last.
So what are the essential conditions for our mind to stay mindful?
Let’s flip it around and ask ourselves a different question, ‘what are the things that cause us to be so distracted?’ It goes back to what we had earlier said: kāma, bhava, vibhava taṇhā (craving for stimuli of the external and internal world).
Therefore, it makes sense that a key and necessary condition for mindfulness to arise with spontaneity and ease, must be some kind of ‘withdrawal’ from the shiny, busy, colourful world.
I’m not talking about becoming a hermit and retreating to the high mountains or the deep forests. That is escapism and may not work if your mind still has a yearning (remember bhava/vibhavataṇhā).
I’m talking about moderation and contentment. We can’t be mindful of here and now, or of just being, when the mind is full of ‘stuff’.
What stuff? The ‘stuff’ out there and the thoughts we construct. As long as we keep allowing ourselves to just indulge, enjoy, give free reign to desires and chasing, we are feeding the subconscious habit of craving.
The more craving we have, the more thought construction there will be, and the more elusive is mindfulness. Just look at our own thoughts. They are all driven mostly by shades of desire and craving.
Moderation and contentment will mean much less thought constructions. Therefore, if we are serious about cultivating mindfulness, we must learn to make do and be more easily content.
As Buddha had taught, learn to observe “body, feelings, mind and Dhamma” “keen, aware, and mindful, (and) rid of covetousness and displeasure for the world.” (AN 4.274)
We learn not to hanker after or seek solace in external sensuous objects: our handphones, personal electronic devices, music, computer games, and food. We learn to trim our to-do lists.
Learn not to keep filling our life with activities. Learn not to need constant company and chit-chats. Learn to be comfortable with solitude and quiet alone time. Learn to be comfortable doing nothing.
I am not talking about being a couch potato and while away time fermenting in front of the TV, binging away. I really do mean not doing anything and just being aware, mindful of the body, breathing, and being content.
Another condition helpful for effortless mindfulness is presence of kusala (wholesome/skilful) mental states.
The regular mind is typically filled with the more akusala (unwholesome/unskilful) types of mental states, underpinned essentially by lobha (greed) and/or dosa (anger). [We shall set aside moha (delusion) because it is less in your face so we are usually not as aware of their disruptive impact.]
Akusala mental states are powerfully gripping and trigger strong emotions which make experiences memorable and unforgettable.
Lobha is insidious: while less intense than dosa, its effects are lingering. You try forgetting that delicious plate of char kway teow. The unpleasant sensation of longing may be mild, but it’s persistent. It’s like a mild itch in your heart that constantly annoys and won’t go away.
Dosa is emotionally more impactful and hugely unpleasant but once it hits a high, the diminishing effects are obvious. As long as you don’t inject fresh narratives to fuel the anger, high emotions will fade.
Nonetheless, once your mind is seized by these two mental drivers, equanimity and mindfulness are lost.
In contrast, kusala mental states are very pleasant, calming, steady, and settling. All kusala mental states will yield some measure of mindfulness. The stronger the kusala mental states, the steadier and more settled the mind.
What are some of these supportive kusala mental states?
Faith – relatively easy to cultivate with a simple ‘ritual’ performed with understanding and mindfulness.
Contentment and gratitude – both mental states are symbiotically intertwined. When one is content, one feels grateful. With gratitude, one feels joy.
Other kusala mental states include kindness and compassion, love, friendliness, generosity, and so on.
All powerful kusala mental states will trigger the release of wonderful feel-good neurochemicals such as dopamine, serotonin, endorphin and oxytocin that actually help with settling the mind and boosting mindfulness.
Wise Steps:
To experience effortless mindfulness in daily life will require fundamental shifts in our habits and choices.
We must learn to moderate desires, become more easily content, become kinder, be more giving, be warmer and nicer
When the 2Bs (be content, be kusala) are a natural part of you, your mind will settle into a general sense of effortless mindfulness.
Editor’s Note: This article is the first part of two instalments, edited from Sister Sylvia Bay’s Dhamma talk for the Global Buddhist Conference in December 2023.
TLDR: Mindfulness is an elusive aspect of Buddhist practice that many beginners find it hard to nail. Sister Sylvia acknowledges the challenges and offers three explanations on its impediments.
Arousing mindfulness in itself is not that difficult. Most of us, even when we were new to it, probably would not have much difficulty. The challenge, if any, is sustaining mindfulness.
In this article, my reference to mindfulness is both the practice of mindfulness in a dedicated meditation sitting as well as mindfulness in daily life.
The Difficulty of Mindfulness
First, mindfulness in a meditation sitting: we sit, and focus our attention on a meditation object e.g., breathing. We settle mindful attention on the breathing. Mere moments later, attention drifts.
We will try again. Focus.
Bring mindfulness to the breathing and again, attention drifts.
Random thoughts intrude. Sounds beckon.
We experience bodily discomfort. Mindful attention just does not stay put. Sounds familiar? Should this persist, we will feel discouraged and demoralised.
The more we try, the more dukkha we feel. A ‘meditation’ sitting becomes a vicious cycle of aspirational hope, valiant effort, disappointment, dejection, maybe apprehension (about sitting again), even aversion.
We may even give up and we have regrets.
Next, mindfulness in daily life – that is even harder.
We may experience sporadic and periodic momentary mindfulness in daily life: five minutes here, six minutes there.
Unfortunately, for the most times, it’s just that, sporadic and periodic.
Why is mindfulness so hard?
I offer three explanations. You may have your own unique circumstances, but the following are the generic ones.
1) Mindfulness is not a habit for the mind to stay put
Our regular mind is easily distracted. I suspect this tendency is genetic. It is programmed into our genes to make sure that humans survive as a species and proliferate. Our genes are not particular whether or not we are happy but we must live on and multiply.
So subconsciously, we are constantly on the lookout for ‘danger’. We may no longer be living in a dangerous world, but our genes are still stuck in primeval times. (That’s why we are still afraid of the dark and we are easily startled by loud and sudden unexplained sounds.)
Subconsciously, we are sensitive to perceived ‘threats’ and are primed for fight or flight.
The question is what are these threats in our time and space?
Here in Singapore, a modern, economically advanced, stable, secure and peaceful land, where is the threat?
‘Threats’ are perceived. They may or may not be real but if your mind says they are there, they are.
In our world, ‘threats’ are anything that we perceive might diminish our pleasure, eat into our resources (time, money, space), and undermine our sense of well-being. At the same time, we are also on the perpetual lookout for ‘gains’, for the opportunity to consume, improve and enjoy more.
Hence, our mind could not stay put for long. It must constantly guard against threats (unpleasant and/or painful experiences) and seek out opportunities (for pleasurable and pleasant experiences).
Mind will flitter from sensual objects to sensual objects in the external world, drawn or repelled by sights, sounds, smell, tastes and touch. Then it drifts inwards to review, replay, plan and construct.
This random zig-zagging and flipping-flopping between worlds is incessant. While seemingly draining, this is what keeps us alive and going, beyond death, into the next birth. This is saṃsāra.
This is the habitual reality of our regular, untrained and uninstructed mind.
Some of us are so used to it that we cannot even begin to conceive how a mind can stop zipping and settle quietly into the present, content with the here and now.
2) Too many desires
Now, the first explanation and the second are not the same. 1 is genetic. 2 is conditional arising and habits built over time.
Most of us have consciously or subconsciously developed and nurtured a constant stream of unrelenting wants and desires. We have an enormous appetite. Every new delightful or painful experience feeds desires and breeds more wants.
The Buddha had broadly categorised the world’s vast spread of infinite desires into kāma taṇhā (craving for sensual pleasures), bhava taṇhā (craving for becoming) and vibhava taṇhā (craving for non-becoming).
Kāma taṇhā is the craving for the world of pleasurable senses (i.e., world without pain and unpleasantry): beautiful sights, alluring sounds, mesmerising scents, mouth-watering tastes, comforting and soothing touches.
Bhava (becoming)and vibhava (non/not becoming)taṇhā – they refer to our internal mind-made world: the mental constructs of the past and plans for the future.
When we want to relive an experience, it is bhava taṇhā. When we want not to relive an experience or in extreme and rare cases when we wish for life to end, it is vibhavataṇhā. Our world within can be even more ‘real’, more convincing, more gripping than the world without.
All these taṇhā are intensely distracting.
The Mind cannot settle and mindfulness cannot arise when our mental cauldron is bubbling with desires.
The more intense the desire, the hotter the cauldron boils and churns. The more crowded that cauldron, the more clouded the mind. How can the mind settle? Mindfulness does not stand a chance.
This third explanation on the topic is about lacking correct knowledge of how the mind works and how mindfulness arises.
Many of us hold assumptions about what is ‘correct’ mindfulness practice. We may think that our struggle is about insufficient practice, not enough experience or not knowing the right steps to trigger mindfulness.
Let’s explore two of the more common wrong views.
a. A common wrong view is we do not have enough practice and/or experience.
If we think our problem is this, our ‘solution’ is likely to be to ‘sit more, sit often, sit longer’.
We grit our teeth and force the mind to stay put on the object of focus. If the mind persists in drifting, we double down on concentration effort and maybe smack the mind a bit to force compliance. Stay up the night, if necessary. Sit on a hard floor with no back support.
Is this assumption correct? Well, yes and no.
Yes: certainly developing a daily habit of sitting at a particular time and a particular spot can wire the brain to get itself ready for a dedicated sitting.
At the anointed time and space, you feel a draw to the meditation space. If your meditation object is breathing, and you are familiar with it, that familiarity can spill over to daily life; mindfulness will arise spontaneously whenever you happen to be aware of breathing.
But it can also be a NO because time (when you sit) and space (where you sit) is just form. By themselves, they are not enough to overcome some of the mental conditions that vex many a regular mind such as worry, restlessness, agitation, uncertainty and scepticism, regrets, distractions and so on and so forth.
In fact, if despite your best efforts, sustained and effortless mindfulness remains elusive, you will end up frustrated, demoralised, dejected, and even helpless. This is ‘spiritual’ dukkha (as opposed to mundane and material dukkha).
You may spiral into a vicious cycle of trying to sit, being disappointed, feeling stressed and eventually giving up. This is when people start to sit less, from daily effort to alternate days, to only on the weekends, and eventually only at retreats.
b. Another common assumption why sustained mindfulness is elusive for us is we don’t know the ‘right steps’.
If you think so, you are likely to say, we need to get the SOP (Standard Operating Principles) right. We seek out meditation masters to learn ‘properly’.
We obsess about when to sit (morning, evening, before sleep, after meals), where to sit (on the floor, on a chair, in a quiet room, in meditation hall), how to sit (full lotus, half lotus, no lotus) and where to park mindful attention (on tip of the nose, before the face, on the stomach, on the chest).
We seek out renowned meditation teachers with the hope that they can teach us something special to steady the mind and settle mindfulness. We go for endless retreats because it is only there that we can focus and experience mindfulness.
These are all good to have but not essential.
If the mental conditions are right, the mind will naturally steady and settle; it will be a breeze. There is no need for extraordinary efforts.
Wise Steps:
Recognise that our minds are distracted by default;
Understand the three different types of cravings and how they arise in our minds; and
Check our practice for wrong views on cultivating mindfulness.
Wholesome Wednesdays (WW): Bringing you curated positive content on Wednesdays to uplift your hump day.
Facing a dark cloud in your mind? It could be one of the five hindrances disrupting you from becoming the person you wish to be or leading you away from happiness. Today we explore two resources to help us overcome these forces that hold us back.
1. 5 Hindrances to Avoid Daily 2. 5 frenemies you might meet in meditation
5 Hindrances to Avoid Daily
cr: Unsplash
Summary
Shi Heng Yi, headmaster of the Shaolin temple in Europe, shares in a Tedtalk about the five hindrances. He shares in-depth about the hindrances and their drawbacks. He introduces RAIN meditation as a way to deal with these states of mind.
“What it is that you dislike, it wouldn’t make it a pleasant journey. Unless you let go of this ill will, you will not complete this journey”
Wise Steps
Which of the five hindrances affect you most in daily life?
Practice RAIN meditation by Tara Brach to disassociate ourselves from difficult states of mind that may arise in day-to-day life.
Kyle, HOL’s writer & Rainbodhi Singapore’s Founder, shares about the five hindrances and how we approached them in meditation. Using very personal stories, he brings the hindrances to life during his meditation retreat. Meditation is not as easy when we have to sit with negative thoughts, but it makes it worthwhile when we understand ourselves deeper.
“You are your teacher. Looking for teachers can’t solve your doubts. Investigate yourself to find the truth – inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important.”
Wise Steps
How often do we meet difficulties in meditation? How do we approach them? Do we pause to understand what conditions led to that state or do we quickly push them away?
Keep watch in your mind and avoid states of mind that blame others for your lack of peace.
