Insightful Articles on Buddhist Meditation

The historical Buddha’s teachings on how to work with mind through meditation practice have spread throughout the world. There are many traditions and types of Buddhist meditation, but all contain the essence of his teachings on how to work with the mind. Buddhist meditation is generally explained in two traditional categories, which in Mindworks’ courses we call mindfulness and awareness. Mindfulness involves training in focusing the mind on the present moment, which naturally changes our view and attachment to thoughts: we learn to let our thoughts come and go without judgment. Awareness meditation involves a further step of using the calm and clarity developed in mindfulness practice and applying it to unravel our emotional confusion and habitual patterns. Through awareness practice we understand how to see the world and our place in it in a much more spacious way, which leads to the twin Buddhist goals of wisdom and compassion.

In our meditation courses, Mindworks systematically presents guided meditations on both mindfulness and awareness practices. Mindworks founders and Mind Trainers all are deeply committed practitioners of Buddhist meditation, and have dedicated their lives to sharing with others the insights and benefits it provides.

Meditation Benefits for the Mind and Body

2022-11-20T19:47:41-08:00By Trungram Gyalwa, PhD|

Our minds and our bodies are connected. If we’re unhappy for an extended time, our bodies become weaker and more susceptible to illness. In the same way, when we’re physically run down, it adversely affects our minds. If you have a healthy, peaceful mind, your perception of the world reflects that. You make informed [...]

The Art of Letting Go

2023-03-12T21:55:38-07:00By Trungram Gyalwa, PhD|

Meditation and letting go: the antidotes to suffering Is it possible that many of the difficulties in our lives come from our reluctance—or our inability—to let go? Whether we’re aware of it or not, our minds are constantly roaming and zeroing in on what we want to acquire and what we want to avoid. [...]

Opening the Heart to Love

2022-10-24T20:23:02-07:00By Vinny Ferraro|

4 Heart Practices Meditation I think when I first came to practice, probably for the first couple years, I sat there and I thought about meditation. I thought that was what I was supposed to be doing. To imagine: what would it be like if I was meditating? It would probably be like this. [...]

What Is Mantra Meditation?

2022-12-26T16:39:59-08:00By Mindworks Team|

A mantra is a syllable, word, or phrase that is repeated during meditation. Mantras can be spoken, chanted, whispered, or repeated in the mind. Most mantra meditation techniques have two essential components: mindfulness meditation and mantra recitation or chanting. While this age-old practice is known to have Buddhist and Hindu roots, forms of “sacred word” [...]

What is Spiritual Meditation?

2023-03-12T22:01:48-07:00By Mindworks Team|

At its core, spiritual meditation is the mindful practice of connection to something that is greater, vaster, and deeper than the individual self. It may seem paradoxical, but the path to that connection passes through honest self-reflection. While there are many meditation techniques that look to increase spiritual awareness, they all require an attitude [...]

Does Meditation Make You Happy?

2022-11-20T19:42:56-08:00By Trinlay Rinpoche|

What do we all have in common? What motivates us? What is it that we’re all striving for? We’re all looking to avoid pain, difficulties and dissatisfaction. We all want to be comfortable and happy, and experience a sense of well-being in our lives. But most of us are looking for happiness in the wrong places. [...]

What Is Buddhist Meditation?

2023-01-16T10:06:06-08:00By Mindworks Team|

There are many forms of meditation and many ideas about what meditation is. While different spiritual paths may associate meditation with contemplation, prayer or other practices, Buddhist meditation is generally associated with mindfulness and awareness. Indeed, although there are a lot more forms of Buddhist meditation than you might think, they all have mindfulness as [...]

The Contemplative Approach to Compassion

2022-12-18T16:52:04-08:00By Lama Jampa Thaye|

How to develop compassion in a contemplative way, free from suffering The best approach to compassion is probably through love. Love takes us out of ourselves and opens our hearts to others. And when we develop love—the wish that others have happiness and the causes of happiness—we experience joy. With love, we become cheerful, resilient [...]

Overcoming Obstacles in Meditation Practice

2022-12-09T20:35:23-08:00By Mindworks Team|

The 5 Hindrances (Five Veils) to Meditation Practice Our meditation practice is rife with obstacles, even before we ever get to the cushion. The first obstacle we must overcome is that of laziness, also known as busy-ness. But even after having made time for daily practice, obstacles arise as soon as we attempt to focus. [...]

Contemplating Lovingkindness

2023-03-12T21:49:26-07:00By Lama Jampa Thaye|

The causes of happiness and the role of love in developing connections One of the main causes of happiness is in relationship and openness to others. So how do we get that? How do we move from a sense of self-sufficiency and a rather disregarding attitude to others to what I suggest is the route [...]

Does Faith Play a Role in Meditation?

2023-03-12T22:05:33-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Meditation Strengthens Faith When we have faith in something, we trust it completely. For many people, faith is reserved for the divine. It’s hard to place our complete trust in ordinary, imperfect people and things. But what about faith in meditation? Faith has a role to play in motivating us to practice and helping us [...]

Unleashing the Goodness of Mind

2022-04-30T19:42:25-07:00By Tsony Devroux|

Refine Your Mind's Qualities and Potential with Meditation Practice One beautiful thing about the mind is that it doesn’t have to be become anything else. You might think of it as a gold nugget that you’ve discovered. Let’s assume that you recognize it as gold even though it appears to be rather lackluster and ordinary. [...]

How We Benefit from Mindfulness of Feeling Tones

2023-01-29T20:05:00-08:00By Mindworks Team|

Mindfulness of Vedanā (Pleasant, Unpleasant, or Neutral Feelings) The Four Foundations of Mindfulness, from the Satipatthana Sutra, offer us instructions on what, exactly, we are to be mindful of while meditating. We begin by observing our breath and body, then feeling tones, our state of mind, and the nature of reality itself. Each of the [...]

Spiritual Materialism and How to Avoid It

2023-01-29T20:06:03-08:00By Mindworks Team|

What is Spiritual Materialism? (and How To Move Beyond It) Spiritual materialism is a term coined by the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1939-1987). He describes the term in his 1973 book, “Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism.” The phrase refers to a common spiritual pitfall, using our practice to boost the ego versus transcend [...]

Learn by Doing Nothing: Emotions and Thoughts in Meditation

2022-04-30T19:40:42-07:00By Tsony Devroux|

How do you practice being present in every moment of your life? Through meditation we learn that we can relate to our emotions with a more natural attitude. Once we’ve developed a meditative foundation of being present in the moment, the next step is to recognize that our emotions are not forced upon us. We [...]

Tonglen Meditation – How to Practice

2023-03-12T22:04:17-07:00By Pamela Gayle White|

Laying a foundation for active compassion in your meditation practice Tonglen is an ancient form of meditation that focuses on compassion: connecting with it, developing it, and learning how to apply it in everyday life. The practice centers on imagining that as we exhale, we are sharing the light of well-being and its causes with [...]

Lovingkindness and Compassion Meditation

2022-04-19T17:03:02-07:00By Bart Mendel|

How is lovingkindness different from love in meditation practice? In our culture, “love” is a loaded word. We usually think of love as a very positive emotion that should be cultivated, but most of the time it’s very conditional. In other words: I love this about you, but I don’t love that. Or I’ll love [...]

Buddhist Meditation Techniques & Practices

2023-01-16T10:07:25-08:00By Mindworks Team|

You probably know that the increasingly popular practices of mindfulness and meditation share Buddhist roots. But did you know that there are many different schools of Buddhism, each with its own meditation techniques and methods? This is because after the time of the historic Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, in the 6th century BCE, Buddhism spread [...]

Lovingkindness Meditation – A Daily Script

2021-05-14T11:31:16-07:00By Mindworks Team|

A simple and profound lovingkindness meditation to practice every day What is lovingkindness meditation? Often presented as a complement to mindfulness meditation, most formal, guided lovingkindness meditations are rooted in an ancient Buddhist practice called metta (which translates as lovingkindness). Here we’re going to focus on a meditation you can use to familiarize yourself with [...]

What is Zen Meditation? Benefits & Techniques

2021-05-14T11:31:16-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Zen meditation is an ancient Buddhist tradition that dates back to the Tang Dynasty in 7th century China. From its Chinese origins it spread to Korea, Japan and other Asian lands where it continues to thrive. The Japanese term “Zen” is a derivative of the Chinese word Ch’an, itself a translation of the Indian [...]

What is Selflessness?

2023-03-22T17:48:22-07:00By Julia Stenzel|

Developing a deeper awareness of selflessness through compassion When we think about our life, about our experience, who we are and how we interact, do we think that we are individuals? Or do we think of ourselves as being part of a greater whole? We probably think that both are true. Aloneness is undeniable; we [...]

Finding Your Mantra

2021-05-14T11:31:17-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Personal mantras explained: their use and benefits What is a mantra? A mantra is a word or phrase that is repeated to bring out its positive, transformative energy. Mantras can be as short as one syllable or as long as a paragraph. They can be repeated in one’s mother tongue or in their source language. [...]

Compassion Overcomes Fear

2022-12-26T16:40:50-08:00By Trungram Gyalwa, PhD|

Freedom from fear comes from lovingkindness and compassion Compassion is the foundation of all goodness. It’s beyond culture, beyond language, beyond religion, beyond time, and beyond space. It’s also beyond humanity because other species demonstrate this quality as well. No matter how fierce and aggressive some of them may be towards other species, they are [...]

Self-Esteem and Meditation

2021-05-14T17:21:44-07:00By Tokpa Korlo|

Discovering Genuine Confidence and Self-Worth through Meditation Self-esteem or self-worth come from knowing, unwaveringly, that you are who you are and that you belong. There’s a contentment, a confidence, not in an arrogant sense but an honest one. When you are at ease with your place in the world, there’s no need to compare yourself [...]

Meditation: Discovering the Gold Mine Within

2021-11-01T16:58:39-07:00By Trinlay Rinpoche|

All emotions are related to worries about the self. That’s ego: the fact that you are always concerned about your self. Take depression and fear, for example. These emotions arise due to a way of thinking or to a situation you’re dealing with. Is it possible for you to analyze the situation? What are the [...]

Noting Meditation Practice

2023-01-29T19:58:40-08:00By Pamela Gayle White|

How to use labels to make a busy mind more manageable Oh, those pesky thoughts. When we’re in deep meditation, thoughts, sensations and emotions can feel like the distant drone of bumblebees. They’re familiar and benign; we’re aware of them, but they don’t pull us out of our practice and sense of well-being. Often, however, [...]

What is Vipassana Meditation?

2022-01-08T20:27:03-08:00By Mindworks Team|

Vipassana meditation, also known as insight or awareness meditation, is best summarized by Socrates’s famous maxim “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” The goal of vipassana is to give us insight into the true nature of our experiences. 2500 years ago, the Buddha discovered that knowledge, insight and goodness are the only reliable [...]

Minding the Gap in Meditation

2022-08-19T11:11:47-07:00By Khaydroup Podvoll|

Discovering a Spacious Mind through Mindfulness and Awareness In this mindful journey that we’re on, we work with qualities such as resilience and tools such as disruption. In this context, disruption is about disrupting the graspings and fixations of mind. If we want to work with these unhelpful habits, the first step is to notice [...]

How to Meditate: Tibetan Buddhism

2021-05-14T11:33:53-07:00By Mindworks Team|

As Buddhist meditation and philosophy spread throughout the East many hundreds of years ago, they acquired the flavors of the lands where they took root. Today, when you look at some of the Buddhist meditation techniques of Japan, Indochina, Sri Lanka and Tibet, for example, there are certainly similarities, but there are also some notable [...]

Understanding Karma – Cause and Effect

2023-03-13T08:42:23-07:00By Bart Mendel|

Meditation on karma, motivation and result Karma is something that’s often totally misunderstood. When most people hear the word karma, they associate it with the idea of fate: “It’s your karma. There’s nothing you can do about it.” But the true sense of karma is exactly the opposite. Karma can change. If we want to [...]

The Meaning of Mindfulness and Awareness

2021-05-14T11:34:48-07:00By Mindworks Team|

Mindfulness and awareness are the foundations of meditation. But what’s the difference? If the term “mindfulness” is now part of the zeitgeist, “awareness” is somewhat harder to pin down. In the context of meditation, both mindfulness and awareness are essential. In fact, the journey to understanding the mind and how to work with it [...]