We are – Buddhist thinking goes – locked into unhelpfully narrow views of reality, meta-trances imposed by the preoccupations and formulations of our conditioning and language and culture. The post Trances We Have Known and Loved appeared first on Jeff Warren.| Jeff Warren
We can start pretending, in a vaguely schizoid way, that existence / nature / whatever responds to our overtures, indeed, that the whole container is a 360-degree dance partner keeping time with your every move. The post Devotion appeared first on Jeff Warren.| Jeff Warren
If at the start it’s our own stress and unhappiness we work to address, at some point – if we’re genuinely opening – the direction of concern reverses. Energy formerly bound up in self-interest starts to get re-directed towards others. The post Activate Your Electric Love appeared first on Jeff Warren.| Jeff Warren
I wonder if our civilization is about to enter a New Age of Exploration. Except this time, since all the physical real estate has been chewed up, the terrain is internal. Not just our individual minds, but the mind of nature – the mother-sea mind, the great oceanic source of awareness that all contemplative traditions speak to in different ways. The post The Next Age of Exploration appeared first on Jeff Warren.| Jeff Warren
Buddhist teacher Shinzen Young refers to Three Fundamental States of Experience: Solid, Liquid and Gas. It’s sort of a metaphor and sort of not. Because it turns out that just as the material world can go through fundamental state changes – can have its particles rearranged to move from, say, ice to water to vapor (and back) – so can you. The post Solid, Liquid, Gas appeared first on Jeff Warren.| Jeff Warren
The meditation scene is littered with “spiritual bypassers” who shoot for transcendence because they can’t handle the world – and the self – they’ve inherited. This isn’t a judgement; people are in pain, and meditation can help with that pain. But it’s important to remember that some of the issues we uncover in practice can’t be healed by meditation only. The post Psychotherapies (healthy self before the noself) appeared first on Jeff Warren.| Jeff Warren
What does it mean to wake up? A lot of ink has been spilled on this subject, and every teacher in every tradition has a different way of talking about it, including not talking about it at all, which is probably the wisest tactic. The post Waking Up appeared first on Jeff Warren.| Jeff Warren
This primer is about the broad stages of spiritual experience that can happen to committed long-term meditators, with an emphasis on the challenges. Knowing about these - having a context - can help people move through them more quickly. The post Spiritual Terrains and Challenges appeared first on Jeff Warren.| Jeff Warren
A true story about almost losing one's mind. The post Fuck It appeared first on Jeff Warren.| Jeff Warren
Think about a time when you were most in the zone, most in flow – not only with some central object of concentration, but with the whole wide world around you. The post At the Still Point appeared first on Jeff Warren.| Jeff Warren
Do these modalities all work, or none, or only some? And what can a person realistically expect as they undertake these different practices? The post Transformation and Growth Without the Flapdoodle appeared first on Jeff Warren.| Jeff Warren
When it comes to meditation, the CEC has a split-focus: we explore meditation as a life skill, and we explore meditation as a transformative path. Although each may use the same technique, they involve two very different approaches and intentions.| Jeff Warren
If a practice is important to us, if it’s deepening our engagement with the world, if it’s teaching us about who we are, then you can be sure many of these basic skills are present and probably increasing. Understanding the skills is central to being your own life teacher, and to sharing practice with others.| Jeff Warren
Meditation and other contemplative practices seem to accelerate the aging-gracefully gradient. They are ways of thinning out in the prime of life - a kind of dying in the midst of the everyday. Then when death does come, there’s nothing to fear, for - as Bertrand Russel wrote - "the things we care for will continue."| Jeff Warren
Healing and growth, self-regulation and self-understanding — these are too idiosyncratic, too personal, too fundamental to depend on specialists-only. We also need to depend on ourselves and one another. In my mind, nothing will accelerate this more than recasting “teaching” as a creative social activity that any informed person can engage in.| Jeff Warren
When you live on a ship at sea, everything gets amplified in the narrow interiors: ruminations, moods, behaviors. Enter COVID-19, and the fact that many of us are stuck inside. Ping ping ping, go the signals. I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to get a clear picture of what I’m comfortable with, and what I’m not.| Jeff Warren
The most important element for sustaining a meditation practice isn’t what practice to do, or how to do it, it’s how to show up, day after day. It’s structure.| Jeff Warren
What a thrill it was for Jeff to be joined live by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello. They had an open and honest conversation about meditation and maintaining mental health in these wild times. Then Jeff led a short guided practice- with over 40k joining in from around the world. Amazing. Share this post:| Jeff Warren
A big post about ADHD and meditation – a resource for ADHD folks, as well as those who wish to guide ADHD folks in meditation – will appear here within the next day or two.| Jeff Warren
Forget dissolving my sense of being a separate self. I have two kids now. My boundaries are well and truly dissolved ("trampled" is probably more accurate). What I need now is stability and ground. I need good boundaries, not no boundaries. Here's a meditation to help with this - for everyone, especially parents!| Jeff Warren
To commemorate the 10th anniversary of The Consciousness Explorers Club, my friend Andrea Cohen made this beautiful 2-minute animation. The CEC is dedicated to the playful exploration of meditation, in a way that empowers participants and communities to be their own teachers.| Jeff Warren
A new musical collaboration with producer / DJ / sound wizard / friend Noah Pred. The idea of this 12-minute soundscape / meditation is to encourage listeners to adjust their consciousness from the inside, using music both as the object of meditation, and as a reflection of each real-time adjustment.| Jeff Warren
Back in my twenties, I had this idea of living life like an adventure story. So I did. Until I realized the ratio of fun to struggle was moving in the wrong direction. The fun was getting briefer and more desperate; the challenges were getting longer and more all-encompassing.| Jeff Warren
I knew parenting would be rewarding and challenging. I didn’t know it would be everything - like the life I had before, except now in 3-D, with the vanishing point always in sight.| Jeff Warren
What does the practice of dynamic care look like in real life? From protesting to sewing masks, from making documentary films to listening to records to exploring genealogy, in this article I showcase a range of creative practices, submitted by all of you. The community is the teacher.| Jeff Warren
“If someone says ‘Love in the Time of Corona’ one more time I am literally going to punch them." A post is about knowing when and how to meditatively engage with our anxiety and our discomfort, and knowing when and how to pull back and rest.| Jeff Warren
Sometimes I’m an idiot of a very particular type. When I see a person in any kind of hurt, I experience a seizure of compulsive helpfulness. I say the words, perform the gestures, provide the resources, and sometimes make the commitments I later realize are beyond my power to make and may not actually be that helpful in the first place.| Jeff Warren
