Videos hosted by Michael Erlewine

In recent years I have been learning to mix my mind (and dharma practice) with my life, so that they are more one than two. Meditation practice, as I endlessly point out in my blogs, is just that, "practice," learning the muscle memory and physical habit of meditation. And while that practice eventually turns into actual meditation on the cushion, there is no reason to restrict meditation at that point to any one place (like a cushion) or a particular time of day. We can learn to meditate wherever we are and whenever we can. The Zen Buddhists are skilled at pointing out how to bring meditation to the life path.

While the technique of meditation can be learned by focusing on a particular object (the breath, a pebble, twig, etc.), and usually is, it can be a problem later to separate the meditation from the object of meditation used for practice in the beginning. It is the old baby and bathwater syndrome.

Once we have actually learned to meditate, we can gently detach our meditation skills from our original meditation object (breath, twig, etc.) and bring those skills to bear on any and all objects, like: whatever we are doing all day long. And there are real benefits from doing so.

For one, we extend our practice from a session or two a day on the cushion (if that) to pretty much all day long, and thus log real time meditating, the kind of time we need to make progress. And the clarity of actual meditation, free of the trying of practice, is exhilarating to say the least.

So here I am in the middle of an extended learning process, not claiming to be an expert, but deep enough into it to enjoy sharing my experience with others and talking about it – comparing notes.

READING OR LISTENING

As my Facebook friends you know by now that I tend to try all kinds of things.

And I write it to be read, of course, but I also believe from questions that I get that some readers don't read it right, so for some of these blogs I am reading them out loud so that you can get the drift from hearing it spoken. Here are a bunch of short audio-blogs and videos on dharma and related subjects.

https://www.youtube.com/user/merlewine/videos