Posts Tagged ‘Meditation’

Be still and know

Monday, April 11th, 2022
Christmas

The person who wrote a reflection on this line from scripture knew meditation. The reflection goes like this: Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am. Be still and know. Be still. Be. If we go into prayer with this, leaving a space between each line, we make Read more

Meditation

Monday, October 4th, 2021
meditation

Reading about meditation is not the same as doing it, but I have always found words helpful. Wise writings from the Church touched something in me that was formless yet real and was waiting to be acknowledged. I think that many of us start meditation after realising this world doesn’t meet our deepest desires. Human Read more

How I found peace in a Catholic church

Monday, March 29th, 2021
found peace

I’m not a Catholic. Unless you can genetically inherit religion I am most certainly not Catholic. My Irish grandmother was Catholic, but I think she had God whipped out of her by the nuns at Erskine College at age 13. She was one of the naughtiest girls in her year, and the reckless auburn-haired nymph Read more

Practice of meditation transforms violent prison

Tuesday, October 11th, 2016

Apodaca prison in Monterrey, Mexico, was the  the scene of a violent uprising in 2012 now it is a place of peace and stillness. A quarter of the 2000 prisoners, guards and management in the overcrowded prison regularly practise meditation It has transformed life in the prison. Suicides are down 40 per cent; there have Read more

Mindfulness leading to increased productivity

Friday, March 13th, 2015

Since I started meditating two years ago, my practice has been shamefully sporadic. When I do manage to stop what I’m doing and sit down, device-free, I find following my breath to be a relief from—and a contrast to—what happens at work. But as David Gelles observes in his new book, that contrast is dissolving, Read more

When the word was silence

Friday, December 19th, 2014

In a suburban Wellington dining room 10 people sit silently. Condiments pass across the table at the raising of an eyebrow or flick of a finger. One diner sees a neighbouring table’s empty water jug and rises quietly to fill it. A mix of religious and non-religious, the group had never met until a month Read more

The art of attention

Friday, May 31st, 2013

It starts with the slightly awkward heave — leg up and over the seat, feet locating the stirrups — and the indrawn breath that says ‘Let’s go.’ This is a new discipline for me, this stationary bike, and I make sure to pace myself. I tip from side to side, easily and rhythmically, with a Read more

Children learning the art of meditation at school

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

At Holy Cross School in Mirimar, Wellington, meditation is seen as another way for children to feel calm and closer to God. It is one of a number of Catholic schools in New Zealand that has adopted the practice of teaching Children to meditate Principal Celeste Hastings said the school had introduced meditation so children could learn Read more

Meditation reduces heart attacks and strokes

Friday, July 8th, 2011

Meditation halves the rate of heart attacks, strokes and the rate of death according to a nine-year scientific study. The results published in the Archives of Internal Medicine provide hard data from the first long-term randomised clinical trial of its kind on the topic. “These findings are the strongest documented effects yet produced by a Read more