Meditation Notes

How to Meditate 1 - Sitting

2008-04-01T11:01:41Z

A very good 10 minute introductory video on how to meditate in the Vipassana style.

Please visit the site for more

Medition Improves Memory

2007-06-13T11:46:17Z

A new meditation study has found that daily meditation can improve memory in individuals with memory complaints. The study, which doesn’t elaborate on the kind of meditation practice involved, found “dramatic increases in blood flow… to the region of the brain associated with learning and memory.” This area is the first to decline [...]

Please visit the site for more

Stay Young by Practicing Zen Meditation

2007-06-11T11:58:45Z

Another report on the anti-aging effects of meditation; this time specifically related to Zen: Zen meditation, a Buddhist practice, is centered on attentional and postural self-regulation and scientists believe that its regular practice may affect the normal age-related decline of cerebral gray matter volume and attentional performance observed in healthy individuals.

Please visit the site for more

Three-by-Three Exercise

2007-06-07T11:58:08Z

In Being Zen, Ezra Bayda introduces a meditation exercise called Three-By-Three, in which you bring three different sources of sensory input into awareness simultaneously, and maintain awareness of all three for three full breaths. You then continue on, using different collections of sensations, physical, visual or auditory, for each round of breaths. This practice allows [...]

Please visit the site for more

Meditation Instructions - Bhante Vimalaramsi

2007-06-05T09:52:09Z

In this video Bhante Vimalaramsi discusses Vipassana meditation and Loving Kindness meditation. It contains some good general instructions that can be applied to both styles of meditation.

Please visit the site for more

Meditation Keeps You Youthful

2007-06-03T06:10:50Z

An interesting recollection from Paul Wilson about one of the physiological effects of meditation: retaining youthfulness. I have read, from another source, that 5 years of in-depth practice can take up to 12 years off of your biological age.

Please visit the site for more

U of T Mindfulness Study

2007-05-28T11:18:19Z

The Toronto Star reports on two Buddhist researchers from the University of Toronto who asked a group of meditators to keep a Mindfulness Diary in which they rated “their meditating behaviour as soon as they open their eyes and stop practising.” They found a huge amount of variability in the responses, but discovered [...]

Please visit the site for more

Interview with Lou Reed

2007-05-25T11:52:20Z

Beliefnet has an interesting and unexpected interview with musician Lou Reed about his latest album, Hudson River Wind Meditations. Reed has quit smoking and taken up tai chi and meditation. On the form of meditation he practices, he says ‘My original meditation was taken from an herbalist acupuncturist named Dr. Shelly Peng. The [...]

Please visit the site for more

The Meaning of Zazen

2007-05-24T11:21:02Z

In this follow-up video, Gudo Nishijima explains the meaning of zazen. He gives more practical advice on sitting (”it is necessary for us to practice zazen two times a day, at least.”) and delves into some of the scientific understanding of meditation that has been uncovered in the 20th and 21st centuries. .

Please visit the site for more

How to practice Zazen

2007-05-22T05:30:05Z

In this video Gudo Nishijima, a zen meditation teacher in his 80s shows the proper way to practice zazen. What I find interesting about this video is the amount of time he devotes to the purely practical instructional aspects of sitting. Unfortunately the camera is not mounted perfectly horizontally, so Master Nishijima is [...]

Please visit the site for more