Oakville Zen Meditation
#84. Is there a good or bad meditation? 30NOV15.

  #1: Focusing mindfully* on your anchor (breathing)** and body*** is mind control.       #2: Focusing mindfully on your incoming thoughts is mind control.     #3: Focusing back on your anchor is mind control.         There is no good or bad meditation since the numbers of thoughts that are […]

Read More
#83. Dealing with annoyances during meditation.30NOV15

Like thoughts, annoyances and distractions are integral part of our meditation and we should not see that as failures. They are called weeds. They bother us all the time at different degrees and intervals. Your mind hates meditation and it is fighting back by sawing its weeds. They will break your concentration, make you restless, […]

Read More
#82. What screws us the most? 29NOV15

What screws us the most in life: Probably what screws us the most in life is the movie that our mind is making of it that is how life supposed to be according to our opinions, beliefs, values, judgments and expectations. Unfortunately we cannot be at the same time the producer, director, screen writer, music […]

Read More
#81. How Can I assess the quality of my meditation? 26NOV15

Good question but this question is a mind spam! Don't click on it by trying to judge your meditation or you will loose everything! Assessing the quality of our meditation is the most efficient way.... to quit; more than 80% of beginners do so after few weeks! Meditation is simple but quite demanding and very […]

Read More
#80. Entering our own shadow. 23NOV15

  Zen is teaching us that when we are facing a problem in our life it originates more often from our thoughts, opinions, beliefs, expectations and desires rather than from the outside world. Most problems come from our self-centered mind that we call our shadow.

Read More
#79. Kneading clay & quieter mind.20NOV15

  Kneading clay to make a beautiful and useful pot is hard work, patience, determination,  skill and experience but it's only the "nothing inside" this pot that gives us the use of the vessel. SO WHAT!.... you may ask. Open up your mind and empty it - somewhat - by dropping some of your cherish opinions, […]

Read More
#78.The “Don’t know mind”.16NOV15.

Few years ago my Zen Master Yangil Sunim asked me to study this obscure Zen saying: “Cultivate a - don’t know mind - and everything becomes clear as a blue sky” Then he added: “Don’t know mind opens the door to serenity and tolerance. It is the foundation of Zen practice. Work on this” Zen […]

Read More
# 77.Dealing with a restless mind.9NOV15.

  The purpose of this talk is to share with you the Zen perspective and not to convince you. What is a restless mind? Zen uses a colorful language to describe our mind and how we are slave to it: “monkey mind”, “thinking zombies”, “day sleepwalking”, “non-stop talking”, and “wild horse mind”. Our mind is […]

Read More
#76.Dealing with anger as we deal with flu.2NOV15

 The purpose of the following is simply to present the Zen perspective and not to convince. Desire, anger and illusions are our main poisons. Among our emotions such as guilt, fear, resentment, doubt, confusion and jealousy anger is probably our most common one. “Being angry” does not mean I am "this anger". Anger is not […]

Read More