At his playfully provocative, incredibly pithy and insightful best, Sogyal Rinpoche is teaching children and adults the key points of meditation practice.

In this video, Sogyal Rinpoche explains that we are usually lost in the appearance of mind, our thoughts and emotions, instead of recognizing the essence or nature of mind.

Recently I've been taking to heart the connections between meditation and compassion. There are times in my meditation practice when I've found these sweet, inspired and clear moments - glimpses actually - where I can actually see how the suffering that I endure in my life really is due to my mind. And, with these glimpses I've begun to emerge from my claustrophobic "me" in realizing that we all suffer due to our mind.

In this video, Sogyal Rinpoche explains that we are usually lost in the appearance of mind, our thoughts and emotions, instead of recognizing the essence or nature of mind. Essentially, we are turned in the wrong direction. This is the root of suffering and dissatisfaction. But by turning our attention to the essence of mind itself and learning how to simply be, we can find true contentment.

The Wisdom of Compassion: Teachings with Patrick Gaffney in San Francisco

When I think of my list of great teachers that almost no one knows about, Patrick Gaffney is at or near the top. For those of you lucky enough to come to the Wisdom of Awareness seminar last June, you know what I am talking about as he was one of the speakers.

For most of his life Patrick has preferred to stay in the background. But he was the co-editor of Sogyal Rinpoche’s Tibetan Book of Living and Dying as well as an accomplished translator of Tibetan texts into English. Now, Sogyal Rinpoche is asking Patrick to teach publicly. Rinpoche has said of Patrick, “he is one of my oldest and closest students; and if anyone were to understand my mind or my work, it is him.”  Anyone who has seen Patrick teach before knows that he brings a clarity and depth of explanation to the teachings that can really transform our understanding.

In less then ten minutes, Rinpoche explains the connection between the mind, meditation and contentment.

In this video, from April 2005, Sogyal Rinpoche explains about how we can discover the source of true contentment. In less then ten minutes, Rinpoche explains the connection between the mind, meditation and contentment. This video is from the WhatMeditationReallyIs.com course.

When I become the Czar of Worldwide Words, I'm going to abolish the word "meditation."

Isn't that an odd way to start a blog on meditation? Gets your attention, though.

My post here will be written mainly from my role as a scientist, as a psychologist, as one of the founders of a relatively new branch of psychology, Transpersonal Psychology, although as a student of meditation and spiritual paths all my life, my perspective is "inside" and well as "outside."

As a field, mainstream psychology pretty much accepts the materialistic assumptions that dominate in most fields of science today, that only what is material is real, matter and physical energy. The physical matter and electrical and chemical processes of your brain are real, consciousness is nothing but a secondary derivative of those physical processes. From this perspective, all those things called "meditation" are indirect ways of controlling your physical brain's functioning, and so someday you won't have to spend all those (too often boring) hours sitting, because science will develop a pill that directly puts the brain in the best "meditative" state. "Spirit" or "spirituality," from the materialistic perspective, is simply old fashioned nonsense, superstition, and best dispensed with, as it interferes with our rational functioning.

Mindfulness probably means slightly different things in different traditions of meditation. At WMRI we usually talk about three principles for using an object, such as the breath, a candle or even the state of non-distraction itself, as the focus of our meditation.

1) Mindfulness – which is the pure knowing or awareness of the object.
2) Watchful Awareness – making sure that we are keeping our attention gently focused on the object
3) Abiding or Remaining Spaciously – It is said that we should ‘train in letting the mind remain’. We should remain in whatever we are aware of, be it:
—meditating with an object like watching the breath, or
—simply remaining in the state of non-distraction or pure awareness of the present moment.