Spiritual Development
Meditate Like a Rock: The Way to Spiritual Maturity
I was meditating the other day and thinking about the four noble truths of Buddhism: 1) Life is suffering. 2) We suffer because we’re attached. 3) The cessation of suffering is attainable. 4) The way out of the suffering, the path, includes practice. I went over this in my heart, in my mind, in my experience,…
Read MoreHow to Develop Compassion: The 5 Stages of Loving Kindness Meditation
I’d like to share with you the 5 stages of Loving Kindness (Metta) meditation. Practicing these traditional Tibetan Buddhist meditations will help you learn to open your heart and develop your compassion. Stage 1 – Loving Kindness For Yourself Stage 2 – Loving Kindness For a Good Friend Stage 3 – Loving Kindness For a…
Read MoreA Powerful Meditation Practice Can Improve Everything That Matters
In the Hindu tradition, they talk about how siddhis emerge after one begins a process of deep meditation and awakening. Siddhis are special abilities and capacities, the equivalent of charisms or “gifts of the Spirit” in the Christian sense. In the Letters of Paul, in the New Testament, he talks about how different gifts of the Spirit were emerging in…
Read MoreThe Unique Brainwave Entrainment Technology of the Profound Meditation Program 3.0
Brainwave entrainment represents a way of using technology to take our meditation and our spiritual practices into territory that has previously been very difficult, if not impossible, for us to venture into. My inspiration for creating the Profound Meditation Program 3.0 was not about just adding binaural beats or isochronic tones to music, using conventional audio entrainment methods to create…
Read MorePracticing Meditation to Wake Up and Find the Meaning of Life
I have kept up my meditation practice for these past seven and a half years first of all because, neurologically, I didn’t want to slip back into life-threatening depression. But also, I just didn’t want to live my life according to my own ego conditioning, my traumas, and my often false stories about the reality…
Read MoreDigital Shaman ~ The Story Behind Vision Quest
With the introduction of VisionQuest, Eric Thompson, creator of iAwake Technology’s products, puts on squarely the mantle of what I believe is one of his true callings to our world: Digital Shaman. Until I wrote it out I didn’t realize how much it seemed… apt. I see a shaman as a person who is a bridge between…
Read MoreIntroducing VisionQuest: A Journey into Shamanic Consciousness
The idea behind VisionQuest is to help facilitate the desire to transform one’s life through receiving a deeper insight into what is holding one back or what is necessary for moving to the next level. Shamanic journeying is a different way of gaining knowledge and wisdom than what is generally accepted here in the West, where we…
Read MoreMeditation and the Butterfly Effect: Why What We Do Matters
I was thinking about our ambitions and our egos recently and how, as time goes by, as we struggle to do our inner work—our meditation, our contemplative practice, and our prayer work—the ego starts to shape itself into a functional, helpful form. Of course we know that the end purpose of all things is not…
Read MoreiAwake’s Biofield Technology and the Energy of the Golden Mean
The energy of the Golden Mean, is one of the key ingredients in iAwake Technologies’ new Energy Alchemy Series. This energy band has an interesting history for a number of reasons. One is that it turns up at all of the genuine spiritual pilgrimage sites, which are famous for people having profound, brief awakenings, or…
Read MoreFacing the Depths in Our Meditation Practice: Here Be Lions
Last Sunday, I was sitting doing my meditation, and I noticed how my ego really wanted to avoid going deep. There was a strong signal: No, no, no. Let’s stay on top. Let’s think about anything rather than surrendering into the depths. I’ve noticed the same thing with my students and clients, that oftentimes there’s a…
Read MoreEnergy Alchemy: Digital Energy Medicine Meets Bio-Energetic Entrainment
iAwake Technologies’ new Energy Alchemy Series consists of three different tracks: Anahata, Meditative Ocean, and WorldSpirit Remixed. What each of these have in common is that they all include both the “Energy of the Golden Mean”, and the “white energy band, also known as “white light.” I explained briefly about these energy bands in my recent blog “Introducing iAwake’s…
Read MoreWhy Do We Stay With Our Meditation Practice? The Dialogue Continues
John: We left off last week’s discussion with Zen practitioner and psychotherapist Alexander Leuthold just after Alexander remarked, “One point is how we come to do a meditative practice, but the other point, which has become more interesting to me in recent years, is the question, why do we stay with the practice? Alexander: Yes, people…
Read MoreIntroducing iAwake’s Energy Alchemy Series: Biofield Tech Takes Center Stage
The inspiration for the Energy Alchemy Series is all about the biofield formulation. Using biofield technology in different ways helps us to connect with the deepest parts of ourselves and helps us to wake up. For me, the biofield technology itself has become a very beautiful, profound, invaluable support and friend in my meditations and in my daily…
Read MoreProfound Meditation in a Troubled Land: Practicing in Honduras
My wife Pam and I recently returned from a very powerful trip to Honduras, where we had been invited to stay with some very dear friends. As we got on the plane on the way there, I was talking to my older brother who is an international security expert, and he said, “You know what? Honduras…
Read MoreA Profound Meditation Practitioner On Practice, Zen, and More
John: Today we’re having something very cool: a dialogue with Profound Meditation practitioner Alexander Leuthold, who is calling from Germany. Alexander, would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, how you use the Profound Meditation Program, and how that experience has been? Alexander: John, I remember we met in Bremen, in Germany. You gave a…
Read MoreMeditation and the Physical Transformation of the Brain: Part III
One of the really important structural changes we see due to long-term meditation occurs in the middle prefrontal areas of the brain. In recent blogs, I have discussed what scientists are learning about the structural changes in the thalamus, the left prefrontal cortex, and the parietal lobe. Here I will discuss the findings regarding the…
Read MoreGo Deep, Get Dog: Contemplative Spiritual Practice
A number of years ago when I was working as a therapeutic wilderness guide, a friend of mine, Corey Alexander, told my group and me this story. He said he had been at a Lakota sacred ceremony and afterwards they traditionally have a meal. In the Lakota tradition, dogs are considered sacred food. So, as Corey…
Read MoreMeditation and the Physical Transformation of the Brain: Part 1
One of the key structures in the brain that has been found to be physically changed through long-term meditation is the thalamus. Long-term meditation also affects the prefrontal cortex, the parietal lobe, and the middle prefrontal areas, but here I will focus on the changes to the thalamus and their implications. The thalamus is a…
Read More7 Insights into Obtaining Profound Emotional Freedom
Insight #1: Every emotional experience, including anxiety, has two components: The story which seems to give rise to the emotional experience. The energy behind that experience, the stream of sensation accompanying it. We often get so caught up in the story that is attached to our emotions, that we unwittingly magnify the energy behind such experiences, and in reality…
Read MoreBattling Burnout, Addiction, and Depression with Positive Psychology
I just got off a Skype call with my wife Pam and a colleague of ours from South Africa, Guy du Plessis. Guy is a brilliant man, and he’s written a number of papers on Integral Recovery, which is one of the things that I’ve been involved in—applying Integral theory and practice to the disease of…
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