One of the most common questions that come up for beginning meditators is something like: “although I want to establish a regular daily meditation practice, I start out great at first but then after a while it fades away. What can I do?”

Actually, it isn’t all that hard to establish a lifelong habit of meditation, but it does take a little time to build it up.

By following these five easy steps, our meditation practice will gradually become an effortless habit. Guaranteed!

“Are you insane?” was one of my first thoughts on this melancholic and allegedly spring morning. My alarm was set early so that I could drag myself out of bed in order to deliberately sit and do nothing.

This five minute video is the first part of a fascinating skype conversation between Elizabeth Namgyel and Erric. Elizabeth describes compassion as a radical expansion of self. Then she gives some tips about how we can begin to cultivate this expanded sense of self.

Not long ago, I fell in love with a beautiful woman. Gently, we became a bit closer. She rejected me, right at the moment, when I was SURE that we had just opened up for each other, and I thought I could FEEL the love she also had for me. At first, my mind reacted with complete disbelieve. It told me that this must be some kind of error. Something within her must have closed down, she might be just not able to face the love and affection for her. When the rejection was confirmed, it really hurt. I was left with the pain of feeling cut off something really precious. And I couldn’t escape facing some of my deep-rooted believes around love and relationship. Which turned out to be a great opportunity for development.

Here’s more from my What Meditation Really Is Skype with Vincent Horn, co-founder of Buddhist Geeks. We discuss first how technology can support contemplative practice. In the second video we speak about some of the exciting challenges and opportunities when bringing scientists and contemplatives together in the same room. Enjoy!

This video features Sogyal Rinpoche “hot off the press” from his Easter Retreat at Haileybury College in the UK. At his playfully provocative, incredibly pithy and insightful best, he is teaching children and adults the key points of meditation practice.  Best would be to find your cushion and then press play, but you do not want to miss this one!

Is meditation really for everybody? Aren’t there a lot of good reasons never to meditate? Seems like all we do on this blog is go on and on about how great meditation is. To remedy this one-sided approach and bring a bit of balance to the blog, I’ve painstakingly compiled a carefully researched list of the top ten reasons never to meditate. Please feel free to add your own reasons in the comments section.

We make assumptions all the time. My mother used to call it ‘jumping to conclusions.’ It means that we perceive what is happening based on what we think, rather than what is. Sometimes it might be the same, but when we get it wrong, we can make a real mess of things. For instance, if we decide to spread bad rumours about the friend who was whispering about us because we’re sure that’s what she was doing to us, that surprise birthday party will probably never happen and we’re likely to lose a friend as well.