In this edition of Ask the Expert, Angela Wilson, a senior Kripalu faculty member and Project Leader for the Institute for Extraordinary Living’s Frontline Providers program, answers questions about the health benefits of meditation, the best time to meditate, and more. Does meditation have any actual health benefits? What does meditating do for my parasympathetic [...]
Meditation
Discover ways that meditation allows you to stop, breathe, and pay attention to both your inner world and your active mind.
Not Too Tight, Not Too Loose
by Tresca Weinstein, guest blogger There’s a well-known story about a sitar player (in some versions, it’s a lute player) who was discouraged with his meditation practice and went to the Buddha to ask for instruction. “What happens when you tune your instrument too tightly?” the Buddha asked. “The strings break,” the musician replied. “And [...]
Posted on December 31st, 2012 by Thrive in Meditation
Balancing Act: A Conversation with Jack Kornfield
Meditation Lets Us Look Inside Ourselves to See the Whole World
Jack Kornfield, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, author, and one of the most well-known teachers of Buddhism in the West. He’s a founding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and Spirit Rock Center in California. Here, he talks about meditation, his signature loving-kindness practice, an upcoming Kripalu retreat, and why he loves to teach.
What’s at the core of the trainings you teach? The trainings are centered in equanimity and balance—it’s the training of the heart and mind to stay balanced. I teach a series of steps for equanimity, beginning with reflections on the vastness of time and changing circumstances, ever-changing winds of gain and loss, praise and loss, pleasure and pain. Training has to do with reflecting on the value of keeping a peaceful heart and envisioning others with compassion. We realize that people can love enormously, and that you can’t love on behalf of someone else; we try to understand the limits of love. It’s also using a series of deep intentions: May I live with peace in the joys and sorrows of the world. May you find peace.
Dirgha Pranayama: Three-Part Breath [VIDEO]
Larissa Hall Carlson, Kripalu Yoga teacher and Ayurveda specialist, shares a Dirgha Pranayama practice to bring you to a calm, relaxed state.
Body Scan Meditation for Relaxation [VIDEO]
Larissa Hall Carlson, Kripalu Yoga teacher and Ayurveda specialist, shares a body scan meditation to bring you to a calm, relaxed state.
Posted on December 11th, 2012 by Alyssa Giacobbe in Meditation
‘Tis the Season to Meditate
Forget about enjoying the holidays: More and more, the majority of us just want to make it through. Which is why a meditation practice—proven to counter stress, beat depression and illness, keep energy levels up, and help encourage better sleep—can come in especially handy this time of year. The best part: You don’t need to invest a lot of time or commitment (and, unlike most everything else this season, it’s totally free). Angela Wilson, MA, Manager of Evidence-Based Yoga Curriculum for Kripalu’s Institute for Extraordinary Living, offers the following tips for practicing on-the-go mindfulness: no quiet room, dimmed lights, or mat required.
Posted on December 3rd, 2012 by Janna Delgado, BFA, RYT 500 in Meditation
Joyful Meditation for the Holidays
The following heart-based meditation comes from the Institute of HeartMath, in Boulder Creek, California, and is a wonderful technique to redirect the mind and replace negative emotions with positive ones.
First, get your body in a comfortable, relaxed position and focus on breathing slowly and rhythmically, so that the length of your inhalations and exhalations are about the same. Find a breath rate that feels sustainable for you. Next, bring your awareness to the center of your chest and imagine your breath flowing in and out of your heart center. As you continue to breathe in and out of your heart, remember a time when you felt a positive emotion such as gratitude, joy, or love.
Think about being with loved ones, a beloved pet, appreciation for the good things in your life. This associative memory generates a positive emotion. If you can’t recall such a memory, then simply imagine a positive feeling moving in and out of your heart as you breathe. If your mind wanders, gently return to the positive feeling, allowing the sensations of gratitude, love, or joy to flow with your breath. Continue to circulate this heartfelt feeling for a few breaths, or even for a few minutes. Then pause to notice the effects of the practice.
Yoga Time-Out [VIDEO]
Larissa Hall Carlson, Kripalu Yoga and Ayurveda specialist, shares a breathing practice to bring you to a calm, centered state.
Posted on November 8th, 2012 by Larissa Hall Carlson, RYT 500 in Meditation
Meditation on the Breath [VIDEO]
In this video series, Larissa Hall Carlson, Kripalu Yoga and Ayurveda expert, shares her expertise in a guided meditation on the breath.
Meditation in Action
How meditation can help you be a better friend.
Meditation has long been celebrated for all it can do for us, among the benefits: lower blood pressure, reduce stress, help us sleep, and even possibly help us lose weight. But a recent study also found that meditation might help us be better friends and partners. Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta found that many participants who had practiced eight weeks of meditation showed significant improvement in their ability to identify the emotions of people in photos based on their expressions. That is, they were more in tune with the feelings of others.
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