Happy Mind: Meditations from the Ancient World to Modernity

Each of us experiences negative feelings of one kind or another, and for most of us, these feelings are present far more often than we would like. (NOTE: It is best if you have a specific feeling in mind, or memory of an experience that generates that feeling, to work with). These feelings come an endless variety of flavors. For you it could be anger, sadness, loneliness, fear, anxiety, shame, or...

Your heart is the place your emotional self expresses love. When you feel loved by someone, it glows and you can feel the love and the joy and the completeness coursing through your whole body. When you are feeling rejected or unloved, your whole body aches in response. Your heart is the seat of love in your body. And love is the closest we can come to experiencing heaven in this body of ours. The...

The heart generates its own electromagnetic field. It is estimated that this field is 60-100 times as strong as the brain's electromagnetic field. It is also thought that the brain contains its own set of neurons. With the heart's field extending a meter or so from the body, a mother's brainwaves have been shown to synchronize with her baby's even when they are a few feet apart. There are many mys...

There is an old saying that home is where the heart is. But like many old sayings, there are many layers to this phrase. It doesn’t just mean that we can be happy and safe and at rest (i.e. at home) where our loved ones are. Home can also be understood as our true nature or our true self. In this sense, we can see why the heart has played the role throughout the ages of the bridge to the mystical...

Because of its bridge-like connection to the numinal or non-physical dimension, the heart has been thought of throughout the ages as the ruler within us. Today, we are going to invite our reluctant ruler to help us access our higher self.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We don't notice our breath most of the time. Yet it sustains our life each moment of each day. So take just a few minutes today to notice and appreciate your breath. (NOTE: This is a 10 minute version of the Grateful for my Breath guided meditation) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We take our breath for granted. We don't even notice it most of the time. Yet it holds the key to accessing our higher self. Many an ancient master has said there is another plane of existence that our life force inhabits alongside the physical dimension we are all so familiar with. The breath is a symbol for this life force. In ancient China and India they used words like qi or prana to describe...

Many an ancient master has said there is another plane of existence that our life force inhabits alongside the physical dimension we are all so familiar with. The breath is a symbol for this energy or spirit self. In ancient China and India they used words like qi or prana to describe the life force that bridges the world of form and this other dimension. We can take advantage of this deep-seated...

Throughout history the breath has been a symbol for life. It is a symbol not just of life in the sense of a physical body breathing and being alive; it also represents the life energy or life force (we could also call this qi or prana). We can take advantage of this deep-seated symbolism and use your breath refresh or activate your connection to your spiritual self. Listen now to do just that. (NO...

This is a simple meditation designed to connect you with a teacher you work with today in a non-intellectual fashion so that you can access their teachings in a different way. NOTE: It is the first part only of the longer Grateful for my teacher guided meditations. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With the very best teachers, just being around them feels good. And even reading a true master’s words, when those words are truly understood (or, to use the words of the Diamond Sutra, are “received and retained”) will put you in the frequency of happiness and love. But 'receiving and retaining' a master’s teaching isn’t a straightforward exercise. Which is part of why this podcast exists: to hel...

We all have teachers. Some are ancient masters who have long been dead. Some are with us today. Some we know well, some we’ve never met. Some don’t even know they are our teachers (any parent of a small child or a teenager can attest to that!). Our teachers hold a special place in our development as people and on our path to self-mastery. So today we are going to thank them. And because of gratitu...

We all have so much to be grateful for. Yet we rarely take time the time to be grateful for all the things we do have. Use this opportunity to be grateful for all the many gifts you have been given. (NOTE: This is a 10 minute version of the Grateful for my Gifts meditation.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We all have so much to be grateful for. Yet we rarely take time the time to be grateful for all the things we do have. Use this opportunity to be grateful for all the many gifts you have been given. (NOTE: This is a 30 minute version of the Grateful for my Gifts meditation) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We all have so much to be grateful for. Yet we rarely take time the time to be grateful for all the things we do have. Use this opportunity to be grateful for all the many gifts you have been given. (NOTE: This is a 20 min version of the Grateful for my Gifts meditation) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

(One hour version). You are strong, beautiful and loved. But you probably don't feel like this all of the time, or even most of the time. Why? The primary function of your body and your mind is to keep you alive and create copies of your genes into the next generation. It is a highly efficient, capable entity finely crafted to achieve these goals. So when you suffer, whether from physical or emoti...

You are loved. It may not feel like that right now, but it is true. You have to recognize that any time you don't feel loved, anytime you are suffering, you are the one creating this experience. You have some belief that is preventing you from releasing the suffering and feeling loved. Your beliefs then manifest as your experience. But you get to decide what your beliefs are. So why not change the...

You are strong, beautiful and loved. But you probably don't feel like this all of the time, or even most of the time. Why? The primary function of your body and your mind is to keep you alive and create copies of your genes into the next generation. It is a highly efficient, capable entity finely crafted to achieve these goals. So when you suffer, whether from physical or emotional pain, this is t...

You are loved. It may not feel like that right now, but it is true. You have to recognize that any time you don't feel loved, anytime you are suffering, you are the one creating this experience. You have some belief that is preventing you from releasing the suffering and feeling the love. Your beliefs then manifest as your experience which then confirms your beliefs as being true! But you get to d...

You many not feel it, but you are beautiful. If you don't feel incredibly beautiful right now, you have some belief that is preventing you from seeing this truth. But you control your beliefs so you can shift your beliefs and this, in turn, will change your experience not just of this moment but of your whole life. But it takes practice. Lots of practice. Let's do that now in a simple but powerful...

You are beautiful. You may not realize it but it is true. If you don't feel incredibly beautiful right now, you have some belief that is preventing you from seeing this truth. But you control your beliefs so you can shift your beliefs and this, in turn, will change your experience not just of this moment but of your whole life. But it takes practice. Lots of practice. Let's do that now in a simple...

This is a simple but beautiful and powerful technique to bring a positive mindset into dominance. The intelligence of your emotional and physical self is excellent at generating the feelings and movements to keep you alive in the primitive and dangerous settings that life developed in over the last few million years. Unfortunately, it isn't well-adapted yet to the relative safety and comfort of to...

The intelligence of your emotional and physical self is excellent at generating the feelings and movements to keep you alive in the primitive and dangerous settings that life developed in over the last few million years. Unfortunately, it isn't well-adapted yet to the relative safety and comfort of today's world. So we have to do the work to train the brain to adapt to this new environment. You ha...

The primary function of your body and your mind is to keep you alive and create copies of your genes into the next generation. It is a highly efficient, capable entity finely crafted to achieve these goals. So when you suffer, whether from physical or emotional pain, this is the way that you know to change course. This is how you keep yourself alive. The organisms and people in our distant past th...

When we talk about forgiveness, we are not talking about allowing ourselves to be treated badly or giving ourselves permission to act badly towards others. We are talking about taking control of our emotional well-being; about achieving self-mastery. But how do we do that? The complexity of our minds rivals that of our universe. And like the cosmos, our minds follow certain rules. Burned deep into...