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YOGA SHALA
WELCOME TO SOUL PAGES
The Amandari journal
Reflections on Mindfulness & Yoga
from past classes
for your inspiration
Finding balance in this crazy world: Changing your world by the way you look at it.
I’m sure we all have moments when life feels “crazy out of whack”. There are times when we feel out of balance, surrounded by conflict...
5 min read
Not always so - what to do when things don't go our way.
(this article is about 3 or 4 mins read) Sometimes it’s a chance remark that provides me with a theme for meditation or yoga. Last week...
5 min read
Happiness is a habit - or are we hard-wired for happiness?
Sometimes it’s difficult to pin-point exactly what meditation does for us. We know it’s good for us. We might read all about the...
5 min read
Meditation should be easy - Tilopa's 6 Nails.
I read something earlier this week about Meditation. It said something along the lines of: Meditation isn't about being intense. ...
4 min read
There is and there is not - it's all the same.
(Based on a haiku (the full poem is here) and including a paraphrasing of Suzuki-Roshi’s talk dated August 15th, 1971 at the Zen Mountain...
3 min read
Haiku
The raindrops patter on the bamboo leaf, but these are not tears of grief; This is only the anguish of him who is listening to them. The...
1 min read
Mundane Mindfulness
Of course we know, and it will come as no surprise, to hear that our meditation sitting is not supposed to be rooted in expectation. If...
5 min read
Meditating across Time and Space - Mantra and "The Cloud of Unknowing"
I bought something on the internet a little while ago. Because I had to pay postage to get it here, to make the postage fee worthwhile,...
6 min read
The Face I Had Before the World Was Made - The power of Koan Meditation
Koan meditation practice is an incredibly strong, amazing, visceral practice. It’s the kind of meditation that goes straight to the core...
5 min read
Chocolate or Fame? Why am I here?
(This article is adapted for a meditation class and based on a teaching by Lama Thubten Yeshe, entitled "Make your Mind an Ocean". The...
4 min read
Make your Mind an Ocean
This article is taken from Tricycle, a Buddhist website, where the article was entitled "Your Mind is your Religion". Which, in turn, is...
9 min read
Our Stories - meditating on Samskaras
A little while ago I felt myself so-o dragged along by one of my old, old stories. Before I knew it I was really feeling quite fearful,...
4 min read
Anicca: Who am I? Am I my body? Or am I my body and my mind?
Who am I? Am I my body? Or am I my body and my mind? Or am I more than the sum of my parts? Is my body mine? In Zen we learn about the...
6 min read
Equanimity - what is it, actually?
We talk a lot about equanimity in meditation. It's 'one of those words': we all kind-of-know what it means, but are maybe a bit vague...
3 min read
This Being Human is a Guesthouse...
Mindfulness is a uniquely human experience. The fact that we can know what's happening in our head at any given moment, without getting...
3 min read
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