Category: Stillness
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The reasons some people dont stick with a meditation practice (and why others do).
This paper looked at factors affecting meditation persistence in a population of 953 people in the United States (via online surveys). The authors framed “persistence” within two categories: the number of lifetime practice sessions and current practice frequency. The authors of the paper found that people who were first exposed to a meditation practice through…
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Fox Sleep by W.S. Merwin.
It has come to our attention that you are simply NOT reading enough poetry. So now you have homework…. Find a quiet time. Make yourself a cup of tea or coffee. Perhaps some cake. Relax. Slowly read through this poem by WS Merwin. It is long…..but stay with it. You have not read stuff like…
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Its official: meditation is good shit
This study just published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) examined the long-term effects of a regular mediation practice on the gut microbiome structure. The authors performed gene sequencing on fecal samples of 37 Tibetan Buddhist monks comparing them with those of 19 non-meditating local residents. The gut microbiota can influence the brain and profoundly…
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Amanita muscaria, a VERY interesting mushroom
You may have seen these little guys around your local area. The fruiting bodies (the part above ground) often emerge from their mycelial mat in the vicinity of trees (such as pine, oak or and birch) after a period of rain. In Australia, Aminata muscaria (or the Fly Agaric) is an introduced species that is…