Well here it finally is. Daniel Goleman's talk from the Wisdom of Awareness Retreat with Sogyal Rinpoche and Tsoknyi Rinpoche, June 2011, Garrison Institute, New York.

He talks about important meditation research findings, the implications and future possibilities. Interesting stuff, plus Dan is fun to watch. If you are like me and have trouble watching long videos on the computer download the mp3 podcast version of talk and listen the audio on you ipod or any other mp3 compatible device.

A couple of months ago I wrote a series of blogs that explain how to begin to integrate meditative awareness, the state of non-distraction, into daily activities. Here everything is brought together so that you don’t have to go searching through many different posts.

I have been more of a lurker these days than a blogger. Right now, there are over 500 people here in Lerab Ling for the What Meditation Really Is retreat with Sogyal Rinpoche. One of the retreatants will be blogging about her experiences as she goes through the retreat. It is her first time at Lerab Ling and she only recently met Sogyal Rinpoche.

Sogyal Rinpoche inspires us to begin the day by integrating our practice, even at the breakfast table!

I just got back to France after giving a couple of talks in NYC and then attending The Wisdom of Awareness retreat in Garrison.

The retreat was led by Sogyal Rinpoche and Tsoknyi Rinpoche and had guest speakers: Patrick Gaffney, Dan Goleman, Tara Bennett-Goleman and Sharon Salzberg.

Have you been trying out taking meditation mini-breaks throughout the day? How is it going? Did you plan to take a few mini-breaks during the day but only remembered once? Did you at least have the intention to try? If so, that is great!

Too often we belittle the progress we are making in meditation, rather than appreciating it. We immediately go for the dissatisfaction, focusing on all the ways we come up short, rather than appreciating what we were able to accomplish. No wonder we can so easily lose interest in meditation!

(this is a part of a series of blog posts on how to integrate meditation practice into our daily life)

Having goals are an important part of life. We are often times obsessively motivated to meet goals, especially if the goal is one we picked. From meeting a good friend for a cup of tea at three, to planning what to get for dinner or saving for a vacation, we spend most of our life making plans and working towards enacting the plan or goal.

In the previous post in this series, I mentioned how it’s helpful to have a trigger to remind you to take a meditation mini-break during the day. Here is a list of three things you can try:

Really Integrating Meditation during the Day: Developing the Habit

Even though we may want to take meditation mini-breaks throughout the day, often we get so caught up in our daily routine that we simply forget. Therefore, we need a way to remind ourselves to take a meditation mini-break.

(This post is the second installment in a series of about integrating meditation into daily life.)

As mentioned in the last post, as a meditator, we should take lots of meditation mini-breaks throughout the day. But often it seems hard to switch gears between our involvement in daily activity and slowing down enough to meditate.  So here are some steps we can take that will help us create the meditation habit during the day.