Is the Dharma at risk from Western culture?

architecture buildings city cityscape

Ever since coming across this path and taking it seriously, I’ve been steeped in the message that certain elements of the Buddhist faith are more compatible with Western society than others. These elements should be liberated from their benighted contexts and brought to a Western audience. 

I very much went along with this. Both in my own practice, and when I started to teach, I did so against this Western Buddhist backdrop. I questioned whether bowing to statues and monks was really necessary, whether chanting the words of the Buddha was appropriate, and more or less disparaged any ritual I came across. Mind you, I had been disparaging rituals for decades at this point, so it had become something of a personal habit. 

Whereas for a long time I kept to the commandment about not charging money for sharing the dharma, even that has recently gone out the window, as I too need to pay rent for the meditation space.

Continue reading “Is the Dharma at risk from Western culture?”

Monday Morning Love: Start your week with meditation in 2023

Join us in starting the week out right. Rise early and focus on self-care, through practicing love and attention. We use metta, mindfulness, and other types of meditation.

Each Monday morning at seven thirty, take the first and most important step towards mental, emotional, and perhaps even physical health by checking in with yourself and connecting deeply.

From that starting point, it is easier and more effective to work on a healthy world, if that’s what you want to do with your week.

Guidance provided in English and Dutch.

The schedule:
7:30 - 7:45 welcome
7:45 - 8:30 meditation
8:30 - 9:00 transition time
9:00 - 9:10 doors close

Price: € 10 — pay after the session
(however lack of funds should never be a reason to skip a meditation – just give whatever you feel is appropriate.)

Location:
Demkaweg 11 Utrecht. An office building in Utrecht Zuilen. Ring the bell for “Yogapoint” and I’ll buzz you in. Signs marked “Yogapoint” inside the building guide you to the meditation room.

Complete your registration below. Looking forward to sitting together.

    Your name (required)

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    Upcoming sessions:

    No mindfulness?! Please check back later...

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    Space for extra comments, questions

    Nosebleed Metta

    I have often thought that the world could be divided into two types of people. The ones who have trouble practicing kindness towards themselves, and the ones who experience difficulty practicing it towards others. I happen to be among the latter, which has advantages and disadvantages. 

    The major advantage being that at least I don’t beat myself up over stuff. Instead, my default position is to look for someone to blame, which keeps my inner life nice and tidy. Of course, it happens sometimes that I am confronted with the fall-out of something I did wrong, and I will have to look inside for answers, and for apologies. But I am not the kind to assume by default that things are my fault. There is inner confidence that I’m generally capable of doing what is best for whatever problem is encountered, and that the intention is there to do good, and that that is all I can do. 

    The disadvantage is that I am somewhat prone to view the outside world as hostile, whereas it may very well be me that is hostile. By expecting the world to fail me, I will rather lash out at my surroundings, than examine where I might have contributed to any bad outcome. 

    Continue reading “Nosebleed Metta”

    True Alchemy: Pain Transmuted Into Pleasure

    Would you like to be free from pain?

    Learn:
    * how to get a tooth filled without needing a pain killer
    * how to live with anxiety without reaching for the benzos
    * how to discover the pleasure that is inherent in the painful

    Alchemists famously sought to turn base metals into gold. In fact, this can be seen as a metaphor for turning everyday events into divine encounters. By changing one’s perception of reality, reality adjusts itself accordingly. Continue reading “True Alchemy: Pain Transmuted Into Pleasure”

    Rediscover your personal love affair with life

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    Dear friend,

    As you may know, living well is not about avoiding the pain of life. It’s not about resisting that which is already here. In fact, living well is about being fully present for each moment you are given. This way, your life becomes one big love affair. A love affair with both the highs and the lows of life, for they all have their place.

    One way to start becoming fully present is by practicing mindfulness and metta. In Inward Meditation’s ten-week introductory course, we work at gradually deepening your mindfulness and metta practice, both by doing formal meditations and through your day-to-day life, however it is. Week by week, we gently experiment with these dimensions of being human, culminating in the rediscovery of that aspect of yourself that is not impacted by any experience.

    Join this course to acquaint yourself with a radically different way of being. To reacquaint yourself with who you truly are, and have always been, beyond all the drama that daily life can make us believe is essential to us. In fact, we sometimes go through life convinced that our anger, anxiety or depression are essential features of ourselves. But they are not, and you can be convinced of that fact by the evidence of your own direct experience.

    If you’ve previously taken a course in mindfulness or meditation, participating in this course can also be beneficial. Each time you delve more deeply into these rarely visited realms of being, your picture of reality becomes just a little bit more clear. The result? More happiness, a deeper connection to the items of your life that are important to you, and more freedom to choose your own responses to life’s beautiful challenges.

    Rediscover your personal love affair with life. Join the Inward Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation Course.

    With much love,

    Merijn de Haen
    Inward Meditation

    What Did The Buddha Really Teach?

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    Assuming the historical person existed[1], he taught a LOT of things[2], so the title to this article may be somewhat misleading. As I needed to get your eyeballs into the first paragraph here, I’ll specify what exactly I intend to tell you about. I would like to limit the scope of this article to a brief outline of his prescription on how to attain the end of suffering. Many Western practitioners of buddhist meditation would agree that these teachings form the core of his message. They are considered to be quite revolutionary, not just in its proper historical perspective, but even when judged over the known history of the human race.

    In a way, his teachings can be understood to be a civilizing message to the people of Northern India in the fifth Century BC. But with a twist. In our general Western understanding, civilization is a cooperative effort, undertaken by larger groups of people. The inner lives of the individuals themselves, meanwhile, enjoy a sense of autonomy from social strictures, as evidenced in the saying “Die Gedanken sind Frei.” You cannot be held liable for thoughts you’re having, and nor can you, save for a few outlying categories of speech, be prosecuted for exercising your right to expression. The individual’s duties end where the inner life starts, and that way of thinking has given rise to the world we see around us today.

    Starting not from the question “how can we do things better collectively” but from the question “why is there suffering”, The Buddha takes the inverse approach, saying next to nothing about how to run a civilisation, or how to relate to the cosmology that may or may not surround a person. He focuses with laser-like precision on what happens inside the individual. What processes make up the mind of a person, or to use a contemporary analogy, their operating systems. From truly understanding these processes and how they work together, the Buddha says, a person’s immediate surroundings would change, leading naturally to a wiser, more compassionate, less aggressive way of relating to oneself, to eachother, and to the world around the society of “Noble Ones.”

    Fletchers bend arrows,
    Carpenters bend wood,
    The wise fashion themselves

    This excerpt from the Dhammapada, an early[3] buddhist collection of pithy sayings, neatly sums up what the Buddha regards as the most important work for a wise person to perform: to fashion themselves. Themselves is occasionally rendered as “their minds”, making the distinction clearer still. So, how does one go about fashioning themselves?

    To learn about the mind, sit down and observe it. As a good scientist, you take care to control the environment, finding a place where you will not be disturbed for a preset length of time, and then focusing your mind on a single object. Whatever that object happens to be is not all that important, although traditionally the breath has received a lot of attention. If the mind wanders off the breath, bring it back, over and over again, until you get so absorbed in it that you fuse with the breath. This is called mindfulness [of breathing]. Drop the meditation object, and you’re left with mindfulness [of whatever you experience in this moment]. It is an open, clear, receptive and equanimous presence that helps you to quickly determine what is going on in your mind at any particular moment. From that determination, choice arises – accompanied by the first glimmers of freedom.

    What the Buddha really taught, then, is a method for emancipating yourself from the ingrown habits of your mind, chiefly among them the habit to become identified with some category of being[4]: gender, age, race, culture, religion, sexual orientation, or whatever. It is a way to make your mind more wieldy and more malleable, and eventually to direct it toward tasks that your strategic self deems important, rather than being hampered by unidentified, usually fear-based, presumptions of limitation. The goal is to take the mental faculties that we develop in meditation into our daily lives with us, so that our lives as we live them day to day become vehicles for developing an ever-greater depth of wisdom.

    So what about Nirvana? (Or Nibbana, in the language of the early buddhist texts.) In my opinion, Nibbana has been over-conceptualized into a “state” that can be reached through practice. It both is, and it isn’t, and both renderings are ultimately unsatisfactory[5]. For the purposes of this article, rather than Nibbana being some discrete end state (like the christian notion of Heaven), Nibbana can best be understood as a verb. Whenever you’re letting go of a thought, that is you nibbana-ing. The more you are able to let go of, the more nibbana-ing you’re doing, and the freer you become. After a certain point, the habit of nibbana-ing has become so ingrained that becoming identified with anything now is more of a choice than something that automatically happens to you. This does not mean that you’ve reached the end goal, because you never know what might be around the corner. Indeed, regarding Nibbana (or anything, really) as the end goal of meditation is tantamount to missing the point. Part of what you let go of is striving, and striving for some future (non-) experience, like some concept of Nibbana, is not so different from other kinds of striving. Being completely at ease with your experience, however it unfolds, that is the essence of the practice, not having no experience at all.

    Did the Buddha teach anything more than that? Of course he did; I’m just shopping selectively in the sumptuous catalogue of buddhist scriptures. Early buddhist texts are filled with deities, lots of metaphysical stuff going on, lots of hagiography. Lots of repetition, too. There is also the assumption that what is right for a monk is not accessible or attainable for a lay person. There are stories of incongruous harshness, of incredible austerity, and of an overwhelming capacity for love. There are rules, regulations, and ethical guidelines for both the community of monks and nuns, as well as for lay people. There are intimate, sweeping descriptions of Nibbana. Later buddhist texts sometimes become even more metaphysical, crossing over into mystical terrain.

    Nevertheless, this emancipatory core of the teaching remains intact, relatively unscathed, throughout the millennia and the diverse splits that have occurred within buddhist centers of learning. Methods, background and metaphysics may vary, from tradition to tradition, but this search for freedom from suffering remains a central tenet.

    So, should you be a buddhist? Hell, no. Buddha wasn’t a buddhist. Apart from questions whose answers will probably always remain shrouded in the mists of time, it is quite possible to read his prescriptions in a non-dogmatic, non-religious, non-metaphysical kind of way. In fact, in a few passages, the Buddha appears to invite you to do just this. To say that it is unwise to take anything on faith, to investigate all phenomena with a mind that is as clear and uncluttered as possible. That to attempt this is to join the ranks of the wise. That openness could inspire one to become a buddhist, but one should be forewarned that religious communities generally tend not to embrace these niceties for long. Any group has its particular in- and out-group dynamics, and communities of Buddhists are no exception.

    Some people look for teachers to parent them ever so slightly. There may be all sorts of reasons for this, but it has never been my proclivity. My advice is to be brave. Your life is a grand adventure, and far too short to take anything on faith. Seek out your own truths and experiment with different practices from across the spiritual, self-help, mystical, religious and philosophical spectrum. Closely related to the buddhist teachings, not so much in geographical location as in the freedom it aims for, are the teachings of Stoicism. There has been a recent surge in interest for what the stoic philosophers have had to say, and they appear to have a number of wonderful practices that may benefit your day-to-day happiness. Also closely related to the Buddhist practices outlined here are several meditation schools that are associated with (philosophical) Hinduism, such as Advaita Vedanta, Tantra, and Yoga. All four of these schools of thought and practice are highly developed, situational and complex, and it would be my suggestion to take your time investigating them in turn, really delving into their backgrounds.

    You can read a little more about Stoicism here. For a slightly more in-depth treatment of the buddhist remedies for the ailments of life, click here.

    The Buddha’s teachings have something for everyone. The items that I’ve casually lifted out of the corpus of canonical literature may not be central to everyone’s experience of Buddhism. And that is exactly the beauty of coming to terms with these interesting human legacies. Allow yourself to be informed, but don’t settle for dogma any more than you have to.


    1. It is hard to find definite proof of the existence of someone who purportedly lived and taught some 25 centuries ago. As it appears that the development of script had not reached the area we now call Northern India, and wouldn’t do so for at least 200 years, we have no contemporary primary sources to fall back on. Nevertheless, the circumstantial case for the Buddha’s existence is substantial, following a two-pronged vector. In the first place, the later Mauryan emperor Ashoka – a Buddhist convert – left a number of written sources pointing to a teacher called Buddha who taught near the places that are mentioned in the Pali Canon. The second piece of circumstantial evidence revolves around the political geography of Northern India around the time of the life of the Buddha. The suttas speak at some length about which ruler from what clan ruled what kingdom and for how long. It seems hard to fake this kind of thing at later times, given the relative dearth of written sources extant in the area. Lots of open questions remain, of course, such as how authoritative the earliest buddhist texts should be considered to be, seeing as the effort to memorize his speeches was only undertaken at the end of the Buddha’s life and 40-odd year career. Another unanswerable question is whether there could have been a number of teachers, all working in the same relative tradition but with some individual differences. These are all very interesting questions, especially to religious history professors, but they have little relevance for the subject at hand here, nor do they tell us anything about how these sometimes dense teachings were operationalized.

    2. Early buddhist canonical literature is made up of the three baskets (tipitaka) of the Buddha’s discourses, the ethical rules for monks and nuns and the buddhist higher philosophy, which is generally thought to be a somewhat later development yet may still be considered to be part of early buddhist teachings. It is estimated that the entire English translation of the authoritative Pali Text Society takes up 12000 pages, in 50 distinct volumes. And then there is the enormous amount of commentary that has been written over the past few millennia by scholars of Buddhism. These people have traditionally been monks that devoted most of their time to understanding the words contained within the tipitaka.

    3. As Buddhism is a huge container term, attempting to link different religious, philosophical and practice traditions, spanning much of the globe through a period of over 2000 years, those interested in understanding its intricacies generally delineate specific “schools” within its ranks. The first split scholars are aware of is the doctrinal “schism” caused by the teachings that would later be called Mahayana teachings. As this has happened so long ago, there isn’t much clarity on either side of the argument, except that it may have been between traditionalists and modernizers. More traditional scholars and practitioners may have felt that the canonical corpus should remain limited to words actually spoken by the Buddha, and to some extent the classification of those words into the corpus of buddhist psychology. Whereas the modernizers may have held that even if the teacher was this divine perfect being, their message could still be improved upon, or at least adapted for new times and cultures. It’s important to underline that neither side is around anymore, although their intellectual decendents are. Early Buddhism is now taught in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, whereas the Mahayana schools – and there are many – can be found throughout East Asia. The Vajrayana tradition of India, China (Tibet), Nepal and Bhutan makes up a more recent offshoot from Mahayana. The latest development is the Western migration of the Buddha’s teachings, and the consequent syncretic, and secularizing movements. It is therefore (in light of the note) interesting and enlightening to note that there is no one voice of the Buddha. Having been dead for so long, the teacher has become an emblem of gravitas, a mouthpiece of truth, however a particular scholar, practitioner or politician chooses to interpret that concept. Speaking, then, to the larger goal of this article, finding out what the Buddha actually taught becomes a process of teasing out – with great sensitivity – not just what set his message apart from his cultural surroundings, but also to determine how these things may be relevant for contemporary life.

    4. Although, really, a practitioner would say that gender, race or whatever is not something you are, it is something you do, as in something you identify with. Race, gender, sexual orientation etcetera then are not properly categories of being, but ones of doing, as most everything really is.

    5. The “state” of not being identified with anything can be referred to as Nibbana. With the practice of nibbana-ing, this state shows up more often in your life. But really, this is also not exactly what appears to be meant by it. Generally speaking, whereas realized beings are still able to access the senses and their perceptions, and are still susceptible to pleasure and pain, there is no more longing for an end to pain or an appetite for chasing pleasure. Also, there is no more delusion about which is which. This seems an unsatisfactory conclusion because it would likely render these people completely defenseless, as well as completely anhedonic. If this is what Awakening leads to, it seems reasonable to object that it’s a miracle that Buddhists have stayed in business for as long as they have, as no-one I know would want any part of it.

    Free Meditation Sessions at Inward on Tuesday Nights

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    All summer long, the Tuesday night meditation sessions at Inward will be offered on the basis of “dana”, which is a Buddhist concept that roughly translates to “giving something without expecting anything in return.”

    Normally priced at € 10, these weekly mindfulness meditations can be instrumental in maintaining your inner balance, resulting in more calm, happiness and self-knowledge throughout the week.

    There is the opportunity to make a donation, though none is required or expected.

    To join the Tuesday night meditations, RSVP here or by messaging Merijn directly. We meet at our usual venue, Werf5, which is located on the Oudegracht aan de Werf 5. We start at 8 PM.

    See you there!

    Mindfulness for scientists

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    This article will survey the benefits of mindfulness practice for scientists. Through embracing the knowledge that mindfulness fosters, you can become smart about how and where to exercise your intellectual abilities, thereby further honing that skill. This way, practicing mindfulness results in happier lives.

    OK, so let’s jump right in. What is mindfulness? Is it a fuzzy, hippy practice that dovetails with free love, cannabis and incense to make you Big Lebowski-like detached? Is it a flight from reality into a non-threatening space of non-judgement, non-competition and so-called “freedom”? Is it a semi-religious practice, weakly associated with the radical fringe of spirituality that believes in aliens, angels and conspiracies? Continue reading “Mindfulness for scientists”

    Is mindfulness meditation necessary?

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    The short answer is no.

    For starters, we might question what mindfulness meditation is necessary for. Are you looking to reach enlightenment, to obtain temporary relief from life’s suffering, or to experience beauty, love or the mystery that transcends the self? Peace and relaxation? Meditation can be relevant for all of these pursuits, but it’s valid to say that for most people there are quicker ways for learning to relax, such as yoga or other bodily activities. Continue reading “Is mindfulness meditation necessary?”

    Notice what happens when a desire is fulfilled, when anger is a factor in your life, or when anxiety is practiced

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    (This is part 4 of a four-part series on experiencing happiness and freedom in your day-to-day life. Parts 1, 2 and 3 can be found here.)

    Being mindful, not just of the quality of the immediate happiness that results from a desire’s fulfillment, but also of what surfaces when that happiness fades can help you hold your desires lightly. Yes, a fulfilled desire can create happiness, but it is a dependent, nervous sort of joy that has the tendency to fade quickly and leave you wide open for new desires to come up to start the cycle all over again. In a way, you can compare it to an addiction. The search for your “fix” is often fraught with unhappy, tenacious striving, worry and all-consuming ambition, whereas the ultimate rewards are meagre and quick to die off. Often, you need to step out of this all-too-familiar cycle to see it for what it is: bondage.

    Continue reading “Notice what happens when a desire is fulfilled, when anger is a factor in your life, or when anxiety is practiced”

    Practice love using heart-opening practices, such as metta meditation

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    (This is part 3 of a four-part series on experiencing happiness and freedom in your day-to-day life. Parts 1 and 2 can be found here.)

    When contemplating love, we tend to immediately think of romantic or erotic love, with its attendant pitfalls of possessiveness, dating strategies and self-doubt. Love, however, is a multi-faceted thing. The Ancient Greeks famously identified seven different types of love, ranging from love for the self to a universal love for all beings. It may help to view each of these types as facets of the same awesome phenomenon, each with its specific pitfalls.

    Continue reading “Practice love using heart-opening practices, such as metta meditation”

    Practice attention and awareness through mindfulness

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    (This is part 2 of a four-part series on experiencing happiness and freedom in your day-to-day life. Part 1 can be found here.)

    Yes, mindfulness. Far from being one of the things that you need to be doing in order to be happy or free, mindfulness is actually a very potent way to gain observational data on what your mind is doing from moment to moment.

    Continue reading “Practice attention and awareness through mindfulness”

    Wisdom, love and compassion in other spiritual traditions

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    You may know Inward meditation center as a place where we practice buddhist and stoic meditations. We attempt to deepen our mindfulness and broaden our friendliness to ourselves and others in everything we do, say or intend, without succumbing to the temptation to get tied down by the results of our practice. We try our best, which really is all we can do.

    This way of living helps us to develop wisdom and harmony, but also to LIVE from that place of wisdom and harmony. The practices we do – mindfulness and metta meditations, negative visualisation, gratitude and practicing mindfulness in daily life – aim to further the experience of wisdom and harmony, even (or yet precisely!) when we tend to experience disharmony and are enticed by simplistic judgements.

    But that does not mean that Buddhism or Stoicism are the exclusive sources of wisdom, compassion and love. Continue reading “Wisdom, love and compassion in other spiritual traditions”

    The difference between mindfulness and flow

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    This happens to me about once a week. When talking to someone, that person will say: “Oh yeah, mindfulness… I do xxx and that is meditative to me.” This “xxx” part can be anything from running to gaming, through coding to sex. Often, the implication is that to this person, practicing mindfulness is unnecessary; after all, sometimes, when they do xxx, they’re “in the moment”.

    But this is false equivalence. The assumption is that practicing mindfulness is somehow pleasant or relaxing. A contemplative version of smoking cannabis or drinking alcohol. Continue reading “The difference between mindfulness and flow”

    Towards True Minimalism

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    Minimalism has become a thing. The objects you own can be a burden, as well as an asset, and getting rid of the clutter can help you soar free, unbounded by the ties that bind. Or so the idea goes. Consequently, some people now profess to owning less than 100 items, while others are able to eke out a living helping unfortunate hoarders to declutter their lives.

    But is it true that we are bound by our material possessions? Perhaps this unfreedom is just another story we tell ourselves, just like the story that accumulating possessions will be sufficient to make us happy. Continue reading “Towards True Minimalism”

    Happiness: You Can’t Get There From Here

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    For most of recorded history, wars, famines and epidemics were a given. Suffering and death were an integral part of life. Infant mortality was rampant, with parents constantly hedging their bets, seeing as their children were the only pension fund they had.

    Now, for most humans in the West, things are much better. We haven’t seen war, famine or epidemic in over 70 years.

    Having taken care of our survival needs, our heads now turn to the pursuit of happiness, famously enshrined in the American constitution. Continue reading “Happiness: You Can’t Get There From Here”

    The vipassanā of culture – seeing collective suffering for what it really is

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    In the South-East Asian Theravada tradition, vipassanā meditation opens the practitioner up to “reality as it truly is”. Reality thus experienced is impermanent and changing from moment to moment. Treating reality any differently – as if it were stable – generates suffering, or dukkha. Investigating this dukkha yields the insight that cherished identities are mere fabrications of the mind. Continue reading “The vipassanā of culture – seeing collective suffering for what it really is”

    Some Thoughts on Spiritual Experiences and Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness

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    The mystics of the world have known it for millennia: ordinary consensus reality is not all there is.

    Whether they meditated their way to a spiritual opening or selflessly devoted their lives to the service of this one thing that’s bigger than themselves. Whether they stumbled across it haphazardly or deliberately set out in search for it.

    Whether they subsequently taught their techniques to others or chose to keep their experiences private, their lives were enriched to the point that ordinary, day-to-day worries were rendered irrelevant as a (renewed) connection was made to the mysteries surrounding our existence, leading to states of expansive joy, love and general well-being.  Continue reading “Some Thoughts on Spiritual Experiences and Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness”

    Exploring the human hierarchy of desireneeds

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    Humans want certain things. Things that hold the promise of making us happier than we are at present. The promise of a better, more fulfilling life. The things we want can be material, they can be social, and they can be developmental. The social desire to be respected, common among insecure people, is an example. Wanting to be able to do karate can be seen as an example of a developmental desire.

    Nevertheless, this promise of a better, more fulfilling life seldom works out the way we think it does. Generally, getting an outcome we want leads to the arising of a new desire or need. We are rarely satisfied for long, and tend to either look down upon our past acquisitions or conquests, or take them for granted. Most people spend their lives travelling towards destinations that, on arrival, don’t seem quite as worthwhile as previously imagined. Continue reading “Exploring the human hierarchy of desireneeds”

    True mindfulness starts with love

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    Mindfulness. To some, it’s the greatest human invention since agriculture. Others fret that mindfulness is an ill-defined and modish term that no-one truly understands. Yet others shrug and say this too shall pass. One thing seems certain, mindfulness is here to stay.

    In popular culture, mindfulness has been described as “the heart” of buddhist meditation, a “sacred pause” or just plain “awareness”. More formally, mindfulness is defined as the act of “paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally”.

    Whereas the intentional attentiveness to present-moment phenomena seems straightforward enough, it’s the non-judgmental aspect of this practice that appears to most confound people. Yet, perhaps for this very reason, it has been my experience that this element of mindfulness practice tends to hit home the hardest. Continue reading “True mindfulness starts with love”

    10 Life Skills for Applied Mindfulness

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    One of the benefits of regularly visiting a church is that you get to hear ancient wisdoms. Truths that are familiar to some degree, but that require practice to keep their beauty alive. Generosity, neighbourliness and humility are examples of “Christian” values that can get left by the wayside in the bustle of our everyday lives. That’s why it’s so important that they get mentioned every now and again. Continue reading “10 Life Skills for Applied Mindfulness”

    Mindfulness, self-awareness and self-mastery

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    So you’re stressed out. You’ve found out that relationships don’t come easy to you. You’re sick of your job and you want to do “something else”. Congratulations! You’ve just taken the first step towards greater self-awareness.

    Naturally, your sleepless nights aren’t over yet. Your relationship is still somnambulant. Your horrible job has not magically become fun overnight. But you know that things could be different. And that is step 1. Continue reading “Mindfulness, self-awareness and self-mastery”

    Mindfulness for emotional processing

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    Have you ever noticed how isolated you can feel when you’re afraid. Or sad? Or angry? And how you can feel connected to the world when you’re joyous or loving?

    Emotions colour your perception. If we would plot perception on a linear scale, from closed and isolated to open and connected, emotions such as fear, anxiety, sadness and anger would logically end up on the isolated end of the spectrum. While joy and love would edge to the connected end. Continue reading “Mindfulness for emotional processing”

    Meet Your Tindering Mind

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    Once you start observing how you react to whatever passes by in meditation you might become aware of the near constant swiping left and right that your mind is involved in.

    “This is fun/feel good/nice so I want more of it”, or “unwanted, yuck, ouch, ewwww, be gone!” Your mind is continually engaged in gauging whether something is desired or not. The desired stimuli are preferred and the undesired ones get pushed away. Continue reading “Meet Your Tindering Mind”

    Buddhist view of mind

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    According to Buddhists, humans have six senses instead of the usual five. Mind is regarded as the sixth, cognizing thoughts, judgements, memories, plans and emotions.

    For Westerners, it is an unusual way to describe the mind. I’m not saying it’s the only right way to view it. Nevertheless, there may be something to be gained by experimenting with this perspective. Continue reading “Buddhist view of mind”

    Mindfulness, death, and the meaning of life

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    Mindfulness of death makes you happier, more grateful and gets you in touch with the magic and mystery inherent in each moment.

    Humans are prone to wonder about the meaning of life. What other animal looks up at the stars to ponder his place in the Grand Scheme of Things? It’s the eternal question that keeps plaguing man, while at the same time opening his eyes to the wondrous beauty that is inherent in life. How silly man is, knowing somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind that the answer is exceedingly simple: the meaning to life is death. Continue reading “Mindfulness, death, and the meaning of life”

    Introduction To Meditation course starts October 5

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    Every month, Inward Meditation Center hosts a four-week introductory course to acquaint you with meditation, and this October is no exception. On Monday October 5, at 8:00 PM, we kick off our fifth Introduction To Meditation course.

    In this course, we introduce the three components of a balanced meditation practice: concentration, mindfulness and friendliness. Each week, you are given home work that consists of both “formal” and “informal” meditations. This way, you’ll get hands-on experience using a variety of methods that can help you enhance your life. At the end of the four-week course, your “meditative toolbox” will be filled with great techniques that can last you a lifetime. Continue reading “Introduction To Meditation course starts October 5”

    The difference between mindfulness meditation and insight or vipassana meditation

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    Many people are becoming familiar with meditation these days. It helps them with perspective-taking, becoming more compassionate and less focused on avoiding painful stimuli. It’s only natural for people who derive benefit from something, to start examining what more is out there. In the vicinity of mindfulness meditation, it turns out, actually there is quite a bit to explore. One of the first places people look when starting their exploration is the field of buddhist meditation. Continue reading “The difference between mindfulness meditation and insight or vipassana meditation”

    Welcome to Mindfulness & Metta meditation Utrecht

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    Mindfulness and metta meditation Utrecht is a meditation group that focuses on practicing mindfulness meditation in a non-religious, non-devotional and non-dogmatic way. We respect and recognize the traditions that have brought mindfulness and metta meditation to our attention. However, we do not think that all ingredients of these Eastern tradtions are necessarily suitable for us and our time. To us, mindfulness meditation is a way to practice concentration, learn to see deeper into our experiences and develop wisdom. In metta meditation we develop loving kindness, not just for the world and people around us, but also for ourselves. Continue reading “Welcome to Mindfulness & Metta meditation Utrecht”