Sogyal Rinpoche’s teaching children how "hanging loose" creates the feeling of meditation.

When my son was about 11 years old, he carted his Harry Potter book out to the backyard, spread out a blanket and announced, "I love my life."

I felt like I'd struck gold, hit pay dirt and won the lottery. What more do we want for our kids than to see them enjoying life's simple pleasures? In a world that is constantly pushing us to buy more, have more, do more and be more, it can be difficult to raise kids who feel content and grateful.

Here are some thoughts about how to raise children to enjoy and appreciate what they have.

This is the first of two videos where Tibetan Buddhist meditation master Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche discusses the essence of meditation. I find it especially inspiring how meditation helped him to overcome the panic attacks and anxiety that haunted him during his youth.

A dedicated Buddhist meditator, Michael Imperioli is probably much better known for his acting work, especially for his award winning portrayal of the mobster Christopher Moltisanti on the Sopranos.  I ran into him at a talk by Sogyal Rinpoche last June in Queens, New York.

Watch Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche talking about meditation and the importance of knowing and working with our mind.
An eminent and distinguished scholar, teacher and philosopher, and fully ordained Buddhist monk, Rinpoche is widely known as an ardent follower of Mahatma Gandhi, and a life-long campaigner for non-violence. Samdhong Rinpoche was the Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government in exile from 2001 - 2011.

The only time of day when I can usually fit in some meditation practice is in the morning after I get up and before I start my day’s activities. Usually in the evening I’m too tired to sit for more than just a few minutes. Practicing meditation in the morning works very effectively for me as long as one thing happens first: I actually get up.

I’m sure there are one or two of you out there, or reading this, who have struggled to wake up earlier to do a bit of meditation, and so to express my camaraderie with you, I wanted to share a few things that have helped me out.  Of course going to bed earlier is an obvious one, but here are a few others:

In his own unique way Jiddu Krishnamurti talks about the many concepts around the practise of meditation.

But be warned, he will not tell us how to meditate ... of course.

This is the third in a series of 5 posts on the history of meditation, adapted from Meditation- an In-depth Guide by Ian Gawler and Paul Bedson.
See here for the first and second part

Through the 1970s and 1980s many excellent books were published on meditation in general. In the therapeutic arena, Pauline McKinnon, an Australian patient of Dr Meares who had used his methods to recover from agoraphobia in 1983, published her own work based on his techniques, In Stillness Conquer Fear. My own first book, You Can Conquer Cancer, with its emphasis on meditation and cancer, was released in 1984. This was followed by my more specific books on meditation, Peace of Mind in 1987, Meditation—Pure and Simple in 1996, Meditation – an In-depth Guide, co-authored with Paul Bedson in 2010 and The Mind that Changes Everything in 2011.

At this same retreat with Yangthang Rinpoche that I wrote about before, we were all very impressed with the being of this amazing lama. It is quite moving to meet such a special human being, which is why I want to share it with you.