⚡️ Enlightening Bolts

🌄 The Inner Landscape of Beauty: I absolutely adore this On Being podcast episode featuring the late John O'Donahue discussing conceptions of beauty beyond physical appearance and glamour and more as a "rounded, substantial, becoming." ​Listen here.​

🧭 The Best Decision-Making Is Emotional: The primacy of facts over feelings is a myth. ​Read it here.​

🗣 Is Therapy-Speak Making Us Selfish? Boundaries are important. But our relationships require a touch more compassion than some online blueprints offer. ​Read it here.​

🎇 Image of The Week

I've featured several cloud formations over the years but none have been more jaw-dropping than this rainbow scarf cloud that formed in Asia. It doesn't look like it should be real but I assure you it is. You can understand more of the science behind this stunning natural phenomenon ​here.​

⌛️ Time Famine

I saw popular author and podcaster Tim Ferriss tweet this a few days ago:

That is the land of the lost, and we all become lost."

Then I listened to the On Being podcast episode (linked above) where John O'Donahue put it quite nicely:

These quotes paired nicely to remind me of the common affliction of time famine: the widespread feeling of not having enough hours in the day, the pervasive sense of racing against the clock.

When I find myself in this place I try to remember that the way out is counterintuitive. I shouldn't race faster to try to get more done to finally shore up time. Instead, I need to introduce more slowness, some space to pause.

Taking this time, even if it is just 20 minutes, helps me rebalance so that the seconds don't feel like they are ticking in fast forward.

It's not that there isn't enough time, it's that there isn't enough time spent occupying a space that nourishes the soul.

🚪 Reverence of Approach

Since I've been swimming in the words of John O'Donahue, here's another beautiful passage that strikes a chord in me:

"What you encounter, recognize or discover depends to a large degree on the quality of your approach. Many of the ancient cultures practiced careful rituals of approach. An encounter of depth and spirit was preceded by careful preparation.

When we approach with reverence, great things decide to approach us. Our real life comes to the surface and its light awakens the concealed beauty in things. When we walk on the earth with reverence, beauty will decide to trust us. The rushed heart and arrogant mind lack the gentleness and patience to enter that embrace."

🤓 Learn This Word

Sehnsucht: A German word that describes thoughts and feelings about all facets of life that are unfinished or imperfect, paired with a yearning for ideal alternative experiences.

⏳ From The Archives

A hand-picked classic HighExistence article.

​How to Deepen Your Meditation to Achieve Altered States of Consciousness​

In every meditation tutorial, at some point the author will tell you:

“There is no such thing as good meditation or bad meditation.”

Great.

Encouraging.

You can’t go wrong.

But…

Let’s be real for a moment.

This definitive “meditation rule” isn’t so black and white.

For example:

• What happens when your meditation stops resembling meditation?

• What happens when you’re going through the motions but instead of meditating, you’re really just napping in a semi-conscious twilight zone?

Or worse, you just read a “benefits of meditation” article and now feel that setting your timer for 20 minutes and simply breathing is gonna make you superhuman.

Not so.

Allow me to make one subtle but much-needed alteration to that old meditation maxim:

“There is no such thing as good or bad MEDITATION.”

Bad meditation is still meditation. But non-meditation, that’s bad meditation.

For example, if I told you there was no good or bad type of exercising, you wouldn’t go sit on the couch, watch 2 hours of TV and class that as exercise, would you?

(please say no.)

Exercising, broadly speaking, is good, but there is an effective and ineffective way of exercising.

Same with meditation.

But, let’s not get engulfed in the endless semantic whirlpool of moral meditation: good, bad, average…

The point is, there is no bad type of

meditation, as long as you’re actually meditating. You don’t judge the experiences and feelings you are having during meditation as “good” or “bad”; instead, you just focus your attention on actually doing the practice properly.

I’m going to assume you already have the motivation to set aside some time each day to meditate and you know the basics (this ultimate beginner’s guide will fill you in if you don’t).

This article is a meditators guide to meditation. If you’re a beginner, after reading this you’ll have a solid foundation as you progress; if you’re intermediate, you’ll learn how to deepen your practice; if you’re advanced, you’ll learn a few new tips and tricks to try out on your journey.

3 Ways You’re Ruining Your Meditation…

When you break it down, there are three main reasons why your meditation might suck:

1. Lack of preparation before practice

2. Your daily habits and attitudes are not supporting your practice

3. Not enough intensity of focus during practice

The first point is about what you do before practice; the second is what you do outside of your practice; the third is about the meditation process itself the how of focusing attention.

But before we get to the exact ways you can optimize these three core concepts let’s have a look at…

The Process of Meditation

The reason why your meditation doesn’t go deep, or is not clear enough, is lack of intensity which, is a result of not fully understanding the process of meditation. It is a form of torpor (laziness) or sloth, which is one of the “five hindrances” of meditation, according to the Buddhist tradition.

The mind has two main functions, ‘doing’ and ‘knowing’. The way of meditation is to calm the ‘doing’ to complete tranquility while maintaining the ‘knowing’. Sloth and torpor occur when one carelessly calms both the ‘doing’ and the ‘knowing’, unable to distinguish between them. – Ajahn Brahmavamso

Suppose you meditate by focusing on your breath for 10 minutes (600 seconds). Let’s visually represent your meditation as a square on a paper, filled with 600 dots. When you are about to start meditation, they are all blank.

​[Continue Reading]​

🎬 Endnote

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