Morning Awakening Collin Donnell

Follow-up from the previous episode of why I feel like my meditation experience is better when my timer is inaccessible to look at and how my relationship to boredom has changed. I then discuss the author’s preface and chapter one of The Other Shore by Thich Nhat Hahn on interbeing and the meaning of emptiness.


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Today I talk about why I’ve started making my phone less accessible when I use it as a timer during meditation, and a new book I’m going to start discussing on the podcast called The Other Shore: A New Translation of the Heart Sutra with Commentaries by Thich Nhat Hanh.


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Last night I went to a meditation group where during the discussion portion we were prompted with the word “relax.” It got me thinking about what relaxing is, and how one way to look at it would be that relaxing is different degrees of letting go of the things that cause you tension.


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Today I talk about experimenting with counting when I am having trouble returning to my breath. I also discuss establishing a daily practice, how that went for me, and tips if you want to try to do it yourself. Lastly, my thoughts so far on The Buddha Before Buddhism.


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Feedback from the last episode about how there is no “perfect space,” but that’s okay. Learning to be gentle with yourself is hard, which I discovered yesterday trying to record this episode. It’s also hard to give yourself time to get comfortable with something new — like speaking extemporaneously about meditation on a podcast by yourself — but that’s just another chance to go easy on myself.


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In this first episode, I introduce myself and the show. I then discuss what it means to have the “perfect” meditation space and using distractions in your environment as a chance to use the practice instead of letting them derail it. Please send feedback and thoughts using the contact page on the website or to @awaken on Micro.blog.