Tag Archives: Meditation

Daily Buddhism, Ethics

Raising Buddhist Children

1 Comment

A reader recently wrote:

Hi Brian,

Glad to see the blog posts are back up. I’m eagerly awaiting new podcasts. Wished your book was an audio book.

I’m emailing today to ask: how do you raise my 5 year old buddhist? I think he’ll benefit tremendously from meditation and his mind hasn’t been packed with my family’s Catholic tradition. When do you get a kid started? How do I start him?

Thanks again for all your work on the website.

My Response:

First, I should point out that The Five-Minute Buddhist’s Buddhism Quick Start Guide is available as an audio book, as well as paperback or eBook for all major platforms. The big books may be coming someday, but there’s no schedule for that yet.

Now on to your real question. I don’t have any children, but have taken a bit of time to think through this. Hopefully, we’ll get some advice from someone with experience in the comments below the post.

I don’t know if there is an especially good time to “start” a child on Buddhism other than right now, as soon as you decide that you want your child to learn about it. The best way to “get into” any religion is to simply live with it from day to day. Let your child see you meditate, and hopefully, they’ll want to join in if they see mommy or daddy doing it.

I remember at that age, my grandparents gave me at least one big book of Bible stories, and I know I really enjoyed that book, not realizing that I was being indoctrinated as well. It’s not subtle, but storybooks not only help teach your child to read, but also instill whatever values and lessons are inside those stories. After a quick search on Amazon, here are a few that I found that look promising:

All four of those are very highly rated, but there are dozens of similar titles available.

Another thing to consider is whether or not you want to indoctrinate (that’s an ugly word) your child into Buddhism, or allow them to make their own choices like you did. I don’t know what your path to choosing/accepting Buddhism was, but if you’re like most Westerners, you came here from some other religious background. You may want to simply live your life as a Buddhist and be a good example for your children without pushing them either way. That’s up to you, but it’s a point to be considered.

There are a lot of opinions on this. The topic has come up before here {LINK} in relation to discipline, but the comments after the post are definitely worth reading.

If you have an opinion or advice on children and Buddhist parenting, please post it in the comments or email me.

 

Daily Buddhism, Meditation, Video

Andy Puddicombe: All it Takes is 10 Mindful Minutes

Today, just a quick video.

 

Announcements, Daily Buddhism, Meditation

The Five-Minute Buddhist Meditates: Getting Started in Meditation the Simple Way

Hey guys, just q quick note to let you know the new book is out. If you enjoyed “The Five-Minute Buddhist,” then this one takes up right where the other left off. If you noted that the first book didn’t get into meditation too heavily, it’s because I thought the subject was a little too big for that one. 

It’s available for the Kindle immediately, with Nook and Paperback being available early next week.

 

The Five-Minute Buddhist Meditates: Getting Started in Meditation the Simple Way

By Brian Schell, October 2013

ISBN-13: 9781493571765
Publication date: 10/24/2013
Pages: 74

Amazon Link: http://t.co/PMGcU6T6PF

A jargon-free, plain language introduction to the basic concepts and styles of meditation and real-world applications. There’s no mystical mumbo-jumbo involved, just useful tips that will help you incorporate short, easy-to-follow meditation sessions into your daily life.

We’ll cover Buddhist-inspired meditation methods, such as Watching the Breath, Conceptual meditation, and Loving-Kindness meditations, as well as an overview of many other forms.

This book can be used as a companion book to the original Five-Minute Buddhist or read as a standalone book. No previous knowledge is required.

Chapter List:

1 Introduction/Foreword
2 Why Meditate?
3 Types of Mediation
4 First Steps
5 All That Buddhist Stuff
6 Next Steps
7 Involving Meditation in Your Life
8 Further Steps
9 Conclusion
10 Resources and Links

Daily Buddhism, Meditation

Local Buddhist Groups & Sangha

A Reader Wrote:

Over the last week or so, I’ve been listening to the Daily Buddhism podcase.  I started with 0, and now I’ve made it to 23.  The Four Noble Truths, 8-fold Path and 5-Precepts helped me tremendously to determine what is basic.

This morning, I reached out to a local Buddhist community I found online;  I plan to attempt a teaching session in a few days. I confess, I was a little taken aback by the chanting videos I saw on their web site.

Also this morning, I made it to episode 20 in your podcast teaching.  You discussed that Tibetian Buddists chant in the Tibetian language.  This was revealing.

I live in the Dayton, Ohio area as well.  Is it still true that the only local community is Tibetian?  I realize I’m listening to content from 2008. (Your story about the wind storm and subsequent power loss took me on a trip down memory lane.)
I’m hoping to hear another more ‘Zen-type’ group has surfaced in the last 5 years.

My Response:

I’ve included below a list of the groups/organizations I know of in the area. Be sure to note that I’ve not been to any of these, except Gar Drolma, and that was several years ago. I’m not recommending or endorsing any of these. There are probably others in the area that I don’t know about. If I’ve missed one, please post details in the comment section.

Also consider the Internet. There are many other great websites and podcasts out there pertaining to Buddhism and Meditation. Books, magazines, and videos are also available. Do not be afraid to “Go it alone” if your community doesn’t have what you want. Don’t ever feel that you need to go to some group that believes things that you don’t. Having a good Sangha (Community) is important, but in modern times, a Sangha doesn’t have to be local. It’s my opinion that there are many modern, and completely legitimate)  substitutes for “Going to church on Sundays.”

But anyway, to answer your question:

The Dayton Area has a few Buddhist places now that weren’t around when I posted all that. Here’s an updated list:

Gar Drolma (Tibetan)
1329 Creighton Ave. Dayton, OH 45420 | (937) 252-2220
http://www.gardrolma.org

Soka Gakkai International (Soka Gakkai)
4700 Wilmington Pike, Kettering, OH. 45440 | 937.433.0097
http://sgi-usa.org/sgilocations/results_list.php?showonly=US&tab=US&distance=20&state=WV

Dharma Center of Dayton (Ekayana)
425 Patterson Road, Dayton, Ohio 45419  | 937-750-5416
http://www.rkina-dayton.com

Zen Fellowship of Dayton (Zen)
8690 Yankee Street, Dayton, Ohio 45458
http://www.cincinnatizencenter.org/zfd.html

 

Daily Buddhism

When Meditation Isn’t Enough

8 Comments

A reader writes:

Hello I’m a fellow Buddhist, I do have a temper and stress problem and always have and have tried to work on it. I have suffered from anxiety since young adulthood, but recently after giving birth to my son have been affected with what doctors think is stress induced IBS. It causes me great pain when under stress (something inevitable with a toddler) and causes a handful of other problems. I can’t just leave to meditate, and I rarely get a minute alone time with the baby, and it’s becoming very confusing, stressful, and devastating to deal with. I know I can not control situations, only my reaction and response to them, but with the daily and constant pain I become unable to cope. I end up yelling or crying, getting upset at my husband when he gets home, or (as I am ashamed to admit) I get upset at my young son, who only does what he does out of pure innocence.

I am very torn, I’ve gone to many doctors, had many surgeries and tests, taken many pills and tried many diet changes. We have found nothing except the guess that it’s stress induced. I’m lost and not sure how to cope with this. I meditate at least once a day, but having to watch a toddler all day means I don’t get much time to relax my body to help with the pain. I was wondering if there is some sort of meditation I can do while still able to watch him, I practice walking meditation when my son is outside walking around, but inside (like cooking for example) I can not cope with tripping over a baby following me, chopping food, handling hot food, watching my feet for toys and brooms he’s gotten out, and trying to get the table set. The accumulative just kills my stomach, causes me to stress more, and gets me upset at someone in the house. I’m not sure how to handle this in an efficient way, and the only thing I really haven’t tried is coping with my sudden stress because I’m not sure how.

Meditation has helped with a lot of issues, but there is no kind that I’m aware of that I can do on the fly, while watching a baby, and doing whatever it is I have to do. I hope maybe you can give me some insight to what to do when this sudden pain causes me to become blind with anger and overwhelmed.

My response to this comes in three parts:

1) The first thing that popped into my mind had nothing to do with Buddhism. When I was little, my parents put me in a thing called a “playpen.” It was essentially a soft, safe “cage” for a child. It seems to me that these have gone out of fashion in modern times, as parents seem to have some aversion to not giving their child infinite freedom. If your son is continually under your feet and leaving toys around while you’re trying to work, then put him in the playpen for a few hours. Once it becomes part of the routine, he’ll come to enjoy it.

2) Another issue I see here is that you are never alone. Everyone needs some “me” time. Maybe it’s used for meditation. Maybe it’s to read a book. Maybe it’s to catch a nap, or a movie, or just to take a walk at the mall. You need time away from your children (and husband too) sometimes. This doesn’t make you a bad mother, it makes you human. The best solution is to get a babysitter to watch your child for a few hours a week. You don’t always have to get a sitter just for special events; get one to watch your child while you go for a walk. If money is tight, try to get a family member to help. You didn’t say anything about your husband trying to help; perhaps he needs to step up a little more. The important thing is to get away.

But since this is a Buddhist site, and not one on parenting advice, I’ll get onto the topic of pain:

3) IBS is a complex condition that has many potential causes and remedies, none of which are perfectly effective. From your letter, I assume you’ve tried various medications without success. That does leave various non-medicinal treatments that may help.

Exercise in general may help with IBS. More specifically to this site, you may want to look into Yoga. I’m told that the various positions, stretches, and exercises have been known to help in the affected areas. Again, this requires some free time on a regular basis.

Personally, I’m not big on pushing meditation as a way to manage pain. Various psychogenic maladies (those caused by the mind or stress) can be reduced through meditation, but for pain caused by actual physical problems, I’d prefer to be under a doctor’s care. The problem with IBS is that the causes are not entirely understood. You say in your letter that you think it’s stress related, so we can work with that.

The first thing I would do is work to get rid of so much stress. Meditation is well and good, but reducing your existing stress is far easier and faster, and probably more important at this stage. My first two points above address that issue to some extent. I get the impression that you want to take up meditation in order to allow you to deal with the growing stress in your life. It seems to me that you’re just trying to dig a bigger hole to fit more stress in. Your goal should be eliminating stress, not enabling yourself to deal with more of it.

Daily Buddhism, Reviews

Book: Natural wakefulness Discovering the Wisdom We Were Born With

Book: Natural Wakefulness: Discovering the Wisdom We Were Born With
By Gaylon Ferguson
Shambhala Publications, 204 pages, to be released April 14, 2009
Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1590306570/?tag=askdrarca-20

The beginning of this book explains that we are born “Awake” but quickly get mired down in the daily day-to-day work of living. This is just the way things work in the world. But, as Buddhists know, we can “Awaken” to reality and become Enlightened. In his book, Gaylon Ferguson focus on RE-awakening, or enhancing that natural wakefulness with which we all enter this world.


The book is clearly written with everyday English and a minimum of jargon, a feature of which I completely approve. He covers a large number of topics, and includes chapters on mindfulness of body meditation, mindfulness of feeling, awareness of the mind’s flow, seeing beyond hope and fear, and awakening from the nightmare of materialism and much more.

Gaylon Ferguson recieved training from the Tibetan Master, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and if you have read books by any of his other students, you will see much here that is familiar. The book is heavily focused on meditation and improving your meditation practice. There are quite a few meditation exercises and ideas that you can incorporate into your own practice.

There is a section at the end which explains the sources of many of the quotes used in the book. Not just the basic bibliography, but also some of the context, which was interesting. There is a short section of additional resources, most of which are tied in with Shambhala.

This is an excellent book to help you get more serious with your meditation practice. It’s probably not for the absolute novice at meditation, but if you’ve been sitting for maybe a couple of weeks (at least long enough to know how to start) and are running into problems, this might be a good next step. The author’s focus on learning to trust that we are already naturally awake is an interesting point of view with which to work, and he often emphasizes the importance and benefits of making the commitment to a regular meditation practice.

Daily Buddhism

Just Sitting or Just Goofing Off?

5 Comments

Phoned in question:

In Buddhism you are supposed to avoid clinging. I want to meditate right now, but I have work to do. Is it better to meditate now and let the work go, or do the work and let meditation slide for now? Is wanting to meditate instead of working a form of clinging?

Answer:

lifestyleI would rather meditate than work too. The real question is whether or not you want to eat and pay your bills. Simple, huh? No, of course not. Nothing is ever simple or cut and dried with these things.

Which is more important or more immediate, earning an income or escaping the cycle of rebirth and finding Nirvana? The trick is obviously to find a balance. In the East, at least in the past, one could give up worldly things and go live in the monastery or wander in the wilderness for a few years. For most of us in the West, and most in the East as well today, this is simply no longer an option. We have bills to pay, families to feed, and work that must be done. In most cases, it is the meditation that gets shoved off to the side or skipped when time gets short.

In fact, the single most common complaint I hear is “I just don’t have time to meditate.” I hear myself saying it sometimes, and you know what? It’s not true when I say it, and it’s probably not true for you either. No, you shouldn’t skip work to meditate, but I bet you could fit in a few minutes for meditation on a break or at lunchtime if you wanted. There are even more ways to fit Buddhism and meditation into a busy schedule at home. Skip that next episode of “American Idol” and meditate. TV is a choice, not a requirement. If you find yourself watching a lot of TV, you can save an hour a day by recording your shows and fast-forwarding through the commercials. Listen to podcasts (mine and others) in your car instead of music. The iPod has tripled the number of books I “read” every year by letting me hear audiobooks anywhere, and I used to read quite a lot even before that. There are hundreds of books on time management, and it’s not that hard to learn how to fit in something that you care about if you really want to do it.

I think the real problem is that many of us see “just sitting” as the same as “just goofing off.” This is not the case. Meditation is useful, healthy, and makes the rest of your life more mindful and more productive by helping to take out the mental garbage. MAKE time, you won’t regret missing an hour of TV once you get into the routine.

Daily Buddhism

Chanting and Prayer on Schedule?

Question:

Should meditations or chanting be on a daily schedule?…. like the way muslims pray in the morning/evening for example.

Answer:

Not technically like Muslims, no. Muslims have to pray five times a day at very specific times. Buddhists can meditate or chant at any time, there is no rule about when to do it. Monks do have specific times of day when they must do their chanting or meditating, but even then, that’s just a schedule set by the individual monasteries or leaders.

Laypeople get more flexibility. Everyone is different; I prefer meditating in the early evenings, while some prefer to meditate every morning. Whatever works best for you is best. when you are starting out, it’s probably a good time to experiment with meditation and learn what seems to have the best effect on you.

Once you do know when your optimal time of day is, I believe that it’s a good idea to try to do it at the same time every day if you can. You get used to the routine, and your body gets used to calming down when it’s time to meditate.

Announcements, Daily Buddhism

Being in the Present. Be Here Now.

Join us on our new Facebook Page! http://www.dailybuddhism.com/Facebook

Question:

I wonder if you can give me a pointer for following the path. My understanding is that we should be in the here and now as much as we can yet as a teacher I have to be aware of what I’ve taught so I can plan what I will teach next… this means I’m often not in the here and now… (I teach French and German at secondary school…)

Answer:

“Be here, now.” There is a lot to this simple phrase that goes way beyond planning for the future and remembering the past. There are two concepts important to this idea; time and place.

Time:

I don’t think ‚Äúbeing in the present‚Äù means you cannot think about the future or past. We all have to make plans and have certain expectations about the future, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Even monks, or abbots at least, have to make some kinds of plans, otherwise they couldn’t manage a monastery or organize any kind of dharma teachings. Actually, NOT planning for the future can cause no end to suffering; the current global economic crisis is proof of enough of that.

It’s fine to consider and plan for the future, just don’t get too attached to your plans. When situations change, be flexible, and adapt. Don’t get caught up in the plans, and don’t spend time worrying about them. As a teacher, you create lesson plans, possibly for weeks in advance. You also know that no matter how carefully you plan, things are going to come up that will derail your plan. You have to accept that in advance and take the surprises as they come. Don’t worry about changes and problems; expect them and deal with them as they arrive. Worry is a terrible distraction, and it’s unhealthy as well.
Place:

Place:

Are you present? Is your mind here, or is your mind elsewhere?

Whatever you are doing, be present and aware of it while you do the task. It’s more about your concentration than anything else. Being present means that you are focused on what you are doing. In your case, let’s say you are working on a lesson plan for next week. You’re thinking about next week, and that’s fine, you have to do that as part of the task. If, however, you are also thinking about the latest episode of American Idol, or what color to paint the house, or what you’re having for dinner, that’s not good. Your task at hand is making that lesson plan, and all the other ‚Äústuff‚Äù is a distraction.

Whatever you are doing in the present (time), be fully present (location), “Be here, Now.”

Basically it concerns focusing on the task at hand, thinking clearly and on one thing at a time without distracting thoughts. If you have twenty items that you are mentally dealing with at one time, you cannot be fully present. Clear your mind and whatever you do, pay attention to that and lose the distractions. Meditation is a big aid in mastering this, as you quickly learn to put aside distractions.

This idea also involves moving from moment to moment, taking each moment for what it is, not letting the past or future influence you in any way. This is another form of non-attachment.

Join us on our new Facebook Page! http://www.dailybuddhism.com/Facebook

Daily Buddhism, Meditation, Reviews

Review: Seeds of Kindness Beads

3 Comments

Loving Kindness BeadsReview: Seeds of Kindness Beads
By: http://www.seedsofkindness.biz

“May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be peaceful, may you be safe.”

A couple of months ago, I reviewed the book “The Gift of Loving Kindness.” In the introduction of the book, one of the authors mentions that she sells beads. When I contacted her for more information, she kindly sent along a sample set for review.

What you get: A string of Loving Kindness Beads, hand-made and strung together while the assmbler wishes loving kindness upon the new owner and the word in general. As we have already discussed, loving-kindness generally involves well-wishing for yourself, for others, and for the world, by reciting, “May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be peaceful, may you be safe,” in several variations. You will notice in the picture that there are four large beads, one for each step of the L-K meditation. Note that these are not mala beads, these are uniquey designed for the 4-step L-K “mantra.”

Along with the beads comes a nice little drawstring bag to keep the beads, but I noticed the bag has a “Made in PRC” (China) tag inside. There is also a CD which includes a walk-through on the ideas of loving kindness, use of the beads, and a 20-minute guided meditation session. The CD will be very helpful to newcomers to Loving-Kindness meditation.

Each strand of beads is unique and hand-assembled, and the ones currently on their website are priced between $45 and $90. Although it’s perfectly possible to do loving-kindness meditation without the use of beads, I can easily see this as an excellent gift. The accompanying CD makes an easily accessible introduction to L-K meditation, and the beads are something “real” to work with while meditating, which might make meditation more appealing to beginners.