Know that We are Connected

“Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.”

~ Lynn Ungar

Practice in Life, Practice in Stillness, Friendliness ResistanceDaron LarsonMarch 20, 2020pandemic, poetry, Lynn Ungar, connection, holiness, commitment, humanity, solitude, compassion, stillness Comments

They Can Be Both

“An open question people are asking about meditation apps is: If you’re outsourcing attention to the technology itself, is it really attention that you’re developing as a skill for yourself?”

~ Rebecca Jablonsky

Practice in Stillness, Practice in LifeDaron LarsonApril 21, 2019technology, compulsion, meditation, Rebecca Jablonsky, ethnography, anthropology, society, complexityComment

An Inherent, Trainable Capacity

"Meditation practice supports mindfulness, but meditation is not mindfulness; meditation merely helps train the mind to be in a mindful state."

~ Manuel A. Manotas

Myths & Misperceptions, Practice in Stillness, Practice in LifeDaron LarsonFebruary 9, 2018Manuel Manotas, mindfulness, meditation, attentionComment

If These Clouds Could Talk

What does it mean to let our thoughts drift by like clouds?

Shifting our awareness from what our thoughts mean to how they fluctuate is an attentional exercise that develops liberating abilities over time.

Observing the movement of clouds can provide a glimpse into how we can relate to mental activity more objectively, but it oversimplifies things when the analogy is taken too literally.

Practice in Stillness, Practice in Life, Notice Flow, Clarity, EquanimityDaron LarsonNovember 16, 2017flow, impermanence, thought, mind, attention, thinking, metacognition, analogyComment

You are Not Your Thoughts

"You are the awareness of your thoughts. You are not your thoughts. You can let your thoughts happen. Just know that the real you is the awareness."

~ RuPaul

Practice in Stillness, Practice in Life, Hear In, See In, Clarity, EquanimityDaron LarsonOctober 28, 2016Dan Harris, meditation, thoughts, thinking, concentration, clarity, equanimity, awareness, practiceComment

Rest in the Unrest

An attention exercise on the theme of rest barely disguised as a poem.

Notice Rest, Clarity, Equanimity, Practice in Stillness, Practice in Life, Don't Try, Noting & LabelingDaron LarsonApril 20, 2016rest, relaxation, insomnia, poetry, mindfulness, attention, paying attention Comment

More Mysterious

"When you penetrate a mystery, it doesn’t become less mysterious. It becomes, if anything, more mysterious."

~ Stephen Batchelor

Equanimity, Practice in Stillness, Practice in LifeDaron LarsonJanuary 16, 2016Stephen Batchelor, mystery, On Being, habit, paying attention, wonder, awe, confusion, doubt, Hiroshi Sugimoto, memento moriComment

Don't Try To Be Mindful

What keeps us holding out for these perfect, comfortable lives that we imagine? And how can training your attention help address these habits?

Beginning, Practice in Life, Practice in Stillness, Don't TryDaron LarsonDecember 10, 2015TED, mindfulness, attention, paying attention, practice, training, exercise Comment

So Simple We Don't Want to Believe It

“The trouble with explaining this work is that it is so simple that we don’t want to believe it."

~ Trudy Goodman

Practice in Stillness, Practice in LifeDaron LarsonSeptember 30, 2015Trudy Goodman, mindfulness, practice, training, awareness, exercise, focus, choiceComment

Watching Experience

"This is my daily practice: watching each experience rise and fall within me, like waves in the ocean, while the world goes on doing what it will do."

~ Jillisa Hope Milner

Notice Flow, Practice in Stillness, Practice in LifeDaron LarsonSeptember 26, 2015Jillisa Hope Milner, video, practice, impermanence, wave, senses, gratitudeComment

Familiarity with One's Own Mind

"The implication here is that every moment of your life becomes an opportunity for changing your worldview and facilitating a sustainably healthy mind."

~ David R. Vago, Ph.D.

Beginning, Practice in Stillness, Practice in LifeDaron LarsonAugust 1, 2015David Vago, Psychology Today, psychology, research, mindfulness, meditation, neuroscienceComment

Heat, Steep, Sit, Drink

The simple act of honouring one’s need for time and space, between the competing parts of our day, is age old.

Practice in Stillness, Practice in LifeDaron LarsonApril 9, 2015time, pause, ritual, home, psychotherapy, relaxation, rest, mindful eating, eating, The School of LifeComment

Contemplative Fitness

"What I propose is that we take the concept of physical fitness and just move it over wholesale into the realm of the benefits of meditation....It seems to me that now, with the way we understand the benefits of meditation, we're pretty much where we were in the 1960's with physical fitness."

~ Kenneth Folk

Practice in Stillness, Practice in LifeDaron LarsonApril 4, 2015Kenneth Folk, practice, meditation, mindfulness, contemplativeComment

The Beautiful Fragility

Let it come closer, let it engulf you if it must.
Until there is no division between self and sadness.
Until you cannot call it sadness at all.
Until there is only intimacy.

~ Jeff Foster

Feel In, Equanimity, Practice in Stillness, Practice in LifeDaron LarsonDecember 31, 2014sadness, feelings, emotions, equanimity, discomfort, joy, self, intimacy, vulnerabilityComment

Benefits Before Mastery

Mindfulness meditation is extraordinarily simple to describe, but it isn't easy to perform. True mastery might require special talent and a lifetime devotion to the task, and yet a genuine transformation in one's perception of the world is within reach for most of us. Practice is the only thing that will lead to success.

~ Sam Harris

Beginning, Myths & Misperceptions, Practice in StillnessDaron LarsonDecember 15, 2014mindfulness, practice, skill, Sam Harris, meditation, transformation, waking up, paying attention, awareness, thinking, papañcaComment

Anderson Cooper Learns to Love Silence

On a mindfulness retreat, Anderson Cooper puts down the microphone and learns to love silence, as well as life without a cell phone.

Exhilarating, Luxurious, and Urgent

"In an age of acceleration, nothing can be more exhilarating than going slow. And in an age of distraction, nothing is so luxurious as paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still."

~ Pico Iyer

Notice Rest, Practice in Stillness, Practice in LifeDaron LarsonDecember 8, 2014Pico Iyer, stillness, home, travel, paying attention, pause, mindfulness, TEDComment

Two Inches Away

"The only way I've found to try to keep my balance in a globe permanently on the move—and ever more cluttered with stuff—is to step out of the world on a regular basis, and to step back from my life, so as to see what's truly inside them. Otherwise, I can feel I'm standing two inches away from a vast and constantly shifting canvas, terminally unable to make out the larger picture."

~ Pico Iyer