A Fistful of Sand

In the English language the word “meditation” is thrown about in the most awkward places. The word itself seems to lack a cogent meaning. It’s a little like the word “love.” What does that mean? It means whatever the speaker or writer wants it to mean. That is the problem with words — they have no inherent meaning, we give words meaning and they mean whatever we say they mean, regardless of the listener or the reader. “Meditation” is used to describe the act of thinking deeply about some problem, daydreaming, listening to music, contemplation, mindfulness practice, yoga, prayer,  Buddhism, and Christianity. Usually, when a Buddhist meditation master asks someone if they meditate the response is “yes!” Later, after sitting we find out that they have never trained and what they are doing is thinking about something. Buddhist meditation is vast, but well-defined in its approach. Here we will discuss “mindfulness of the breath.” Much has been said about mindfulness meditat...

There is so much advise "out there" about food and diet that it can be mind boggling. Just to get an idea of the weird and wonderful world of diets, click here to see just a partial list of the varieties of culinary restrictive mayhem. We're not trying to replace the information here, we are merely attempting to bring to mind a sensible way of viewing the food we consume. For the purposes of health and meditation, a holistic view, the diet has to be right for you. No one can tell you what would be a perfect diet. If you're not eating it, it's not perfect. If it's killing you then it too is less than perfect. The food we eat will definitely "impact" us - no pun intended, or maybe there was... Food and the four primitive urges: There are four "primitive urges." We call them primitive because they are common to all species of animal. These are the desire for Food,  Sleep,  Sex (thank you Sigmund Freud for reminding us-a lot), and...