Tag: mindfulnessmeditation

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Not Living A Half Life

Inspired by Khalil Gibran’s poem, this practice is about showing up for ourselves in the present moment instead of living following other people’s agenda and our to-do list which is often the case. Enjoy!

Not Living Half A Life (extract)

Half a life is a life you didn’t live, 
A word you have not said
A smile you postponed 
A love you have not had
A friendship you did not know
To reach and not arrive
Work and not work
Attend only to be absent
What makes you a stranger to them closest to you
and they strangers to you
The half is a mere moment of inability
but you are able for you are not half a being
You are a whole that exists to live a life 
not half a life.

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Dealing With Distractions

A thought easily produces a chain of ideas, intentions, stories, and next thing we know, time has passed. Life has passed. Sometimes we unwittingly shoot another arrow, for example, chiding ourselves for having certain thoughts.

Another trap is when a negative thought arises, we think “positively” to “neutralize”. That is helpful if the intention is to see a more realistic picture. It is not helpful if we’re adding thoughts that are potentially false and speculative simply to make ourselves feel better or to justify ours or other peoples’ actions. It’s a survival instinct.

An alternative response is to let thoughts be like water flowing in the stream instead of adding more. And if we choose to, mindfully directing our energy to thoughts that really matter and to be kind to ourselves for having thoughts. We look deep down to find what matters and what is true for us.

Inspired by Ryokan’s poem:

Keep your heart clear

And transparent,

And you will

Never be bound.

A single disturbed thought

Creates ten thousand distractions.

Guide: Noelle Lim

Duration: 22 minutes

Image credit: Yan Laurichesse, Unsplash

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Cultivating Presence

Cultivating presence by firstly paying attention with wholehearted, non-judgemental interest to the present moment, to ourselves or to the people we’re with. Part of this experience is to watch and let be our” baggage” often expressed in the need to react to unpleasant feelings. These reactions could range from avoiding, giving up to aggression. Here’s an invitation to let all that go by simply connecting directly with the present moment instead of living in the head, lost in thoughts.

Inspiration came from a poem by Taigu Ryokan, Zen master.

Yes, I’m truly a dunce

Living among trees and plants.

Please don’t question me about illusion and enlightenment

This old fellow just likes to smile to himself.

I wade across streams with bony legs,

And carry a bag about in fine spring weather.

That’s my life,

And the world owes me nothing.

To attend our meditation sessions live on Wednesday Pause, register according to your timezone here

Guide: Noelle Lim

Duration: 23 mins

Image credit: Chunlea Ju, Unsplash

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Sitting With Time

Practicing mindfulness helps us deal with impatience because it seems like it has a relationship with time – needing things now or yesterday. A practice might seem to take forever because our minds constantly need to be stimulated and “satisfied”. It’s this constant shifting attention, always searching, never resting, that keeps us in reactionary mode. So instead of perpetually seeking stimulation and getting lost in our thoughts and stories, the invitation is to engage with the present moment differently, and to be able to just sit with the passage of time.

The inspiration of this practice came from a poetry by Rabindranath Tagore.


The butterfly counts not months but moments,

and has time enough.


Time is a wealth of change,

but the clock in its parody makes it mere change and no wealth.


Let your life lightly dance on the edges of time

like dew on the tip of a leaf.

Guide: Noelle Lim

Time: 22 minutes

Image credit: akifyevasvetlana, 123rf

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Steady Mind Warm Heart

A meditation session “Steady Mind, Warm Heart”, essentially mindfulness, inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s poem If. Seems appropriate in light of Prince Harry and Meghan Markles’ interview with Oprah.

Guide: Noelle Lim

Duration: 23 mins

Image credit: Barbel Kobus, Unsplash

If (extract), Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you      

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,   

But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,   

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,   

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise.

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,      

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,   

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute   

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,      

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

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Appreciation

Take time off to appreciate ourselves, our inner experiences—thoughts, emotions and pain that we might be experiencing—and others even if we don’t feel like it. Inspired by Ram Dass’ writing on Trees.

“When you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees.

And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever.

And you look at the tree and you allow it. You appreciate it. You see why it is the way it is.

You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way.

And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree.

The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You’re too this, or I’m too this.’

That judging mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees.

Which means appreciating them just the way they are.”

Guide: Noelle Lim

Duration: 23 mins

Image credit: Yerlin Matu, Unsplash

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Just This Breath

A common meditation practice is to focus on the breath. In this session, we contemplate what it really means to do so – breathing, opening to life. Breathe away.

Inspired by David Whyte’s poem Enough.

Enough. These few words are enough.

If not these words, this breath.

If not this breath, this sitting here.

This opening to life

we have refused

again and again

until now.

Until now.

Guide: Noelle Lim

Duration: 22 mins

Image credit: Josh Couch, Unsplash

To register for our Wednesday Pause session at 12:30-1pm SGT on Zoom, please visit here

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No Expectations

Shaped by evolution, our minds are constantly busy scanning experiences and benchmarking it to some expectation to keep us safe and feeling pleasant. Here is an invitation to drop expectations to free up space in the head in order to truly hear ourselves and access our being.

This practise is inspired by Henri Nouwen, Catholic priest’s writings, “Only An Invitation”.

Duration: 23 mins

Guide: Noelle Lim

Image credit: Kim Davies, Unsplash

Only An Invitation, Henri Nouwen

Our world is so full of conditions —

demands, requirements, and obligations

that we often wonder

what is expected of us.

But when we meet a truly free person

there are no expectations,

only an invitationto reach into ourselves

and discover there

our own freedom.

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Only Kindness Ties Your Shoes

This Wednesday’s practise is about inviting kindness into our experiences, and is inspired by Naomi Shihab Nye’s poetry “Kindness”.

Duration: 23 minutes

Guide: Noelle Lim

Image credit: Andriyko Podilynk, Unsplash

Kindness, Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

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Emptying The Boat

Is there something that’s sitting on your boat that’s slowing your down? Causing you to crave or to resist? Causing unhappiness? Here’s a practice on letting go.

Duration: 25 minutes

Guide: Noelle Lim

Image credit: Natalya Erofeeva, 123rf

This is a recording of our Wednesday Pause sessions, 12:30-1pm SGT (4:30am GMT). Register here

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Stillness

Finding stillness in calm. Being still puts us in a state of not always needing to react and fix, and to simply let go.

Duration: 23 minutes

Guide: Noelle Lim

Image credit: Kote Puerto, Unsplash

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Cultivating Attention

Start the new year with the resolution to keep our resolutions haha. Here’s to cultivating attention and being intentional in directing our mental energy. With a focused mind and warm heart, let’s conquer the world!

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Something New Is Here

Our last meditation session for 2020, Something New Is Here, inspired by e.h.’s poetry. Hopefully 2021 will be kind to us. Enjoy and Happy New Year!

Take down all your troubles

And wrap up your regret

Tie them to the rays of light

The sun sheds as it sets

Whisper all that was

To fleeting seconds as they pass

But hold onto your hope

For something new is here at last

Beg your own forgiveness

And then grant it in one breath

Lay the year down softly

As it waits to face its death

Then sit with eyes turned skyward

As the night-time comes alive

All that’s been is over

And a new year has arrived.

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Meeting Anxiety

Here’s Episode 2, guided meditation on meeting anxiety as and when it arises, followed by a poetry read Vast Blue Sky. Hopefully this is not too rushed and gives you a sense of groundedness. You may continue to sit in silence after the recording ends. Enjoy!

Duration: 6 minutes

Instructor: Noelle Lim

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Hearing The Silence

The mind gets caught up in thinking and mental chatter. What if we paid particular attention to the silence, the pauses between thoughts? Like noticing the white, not just the black. Noticing calm, not just the chaos. Noticing the little pleasures in life, not just the problems.

This practice of Hearing The Silence is inspired by a session with MBCT teacher Trish Bartley. She referred to one of her favourite conductors, the late Claudio Abbado who when asked what was his favourite part, he said, “The silence that comes after the music.” Indeed.

May silence lead you home.

Instructor: Noelle Lim

Duration: 5 minutes

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