As you no doubt have already noticed, Deconstructing Yourself is undergoing a design change. We’re very sorry to see the Miro go, but we’re hoping that this new layout will make it easier to… Read More »Deconstructing Yourself Reconstructed!
by Michael W. Taft I remember how painful boredom used to feel as a teenager. It was crushing. New television shows, movies, and music just felt like rehashes of old ones. New people reminded me… Read More »Freshness
Meditating over the years, I have experienced the pain reduction effects of meditation personally. This applies to the discomfort of illness, the soreness or sharp pains of injury, or even extremely chronic pain. Shinzen Young’s… Read More »Meditation and Pain Reduction Link Found
In November, I spoke about the history of non-dualism at the Science and Non-duality Conference, in San Rafael. I decided to give this talk because although a lot of people talk about nondualism, Advaita, and… Read More »Nondualism: The History of an Idea
by Michael W. Taft I was in Paris recently, and visited the Rodin museum. I’ve always loved his work, and some of the best pieces are at this gorgeous 18th century hotel-cum-museum. In the garden… Read More »Concentration: Light as a Feather
by Michael W. Taft Have you ever been so involved in doing something that the rest of the world just kind of went away? Or time slowed down and even your sense of self disappeared?… Read More »How to Enter a Flow State: Finding the Goldilocks Zone of Peak Performance
I remember as a teenager, feeling that the Monty Python joke “my brain hurts” was talking about me. It was clear to me that my biggest problem in life was my own mind. I was… Read More »Deconstructing the Self with Mindfulness Meditation
by Michael W. Taft Yesterday I was deep inside a website, working on a project that took my full attention. Just as I was getting really focused, a neighbor busted out his leaf blower and… Read More »Concentration and Silence
Want a nice meditation bench but don’t want to shell out the cash? No problem. You can build one yourself with this meditation bench DIY. Meditation benches are a tradition in Japanese Buddhism. The are… Read More »Meditation Bench DIY — How To
by Michael W. Taft Recently, I found a meditation retreat center in rural Massachusetts. Its super-affordable price included a room of my own, and delicious, organic hippy food. As I was moving to a new… Read More »Downtime for the Stone Age Brain
by Michael W. Taft In the last three articles, I wrote about concentration as an iterative process, the activity of listening, and the skill of breaking things down into smaller, manageable pieces. In other articles… Read More »Concentration: Why Bother?
by Michael W. Taft You may think that you are too busy to practice meditation. But there is nobody who doesn’t have a spare minute here or there to be mindful right now. Even in… Read More »6 Ways to Be Mindful Right Now
A good friend of mine recently returned to school. As an adult learner, he set a goal for himself to do the best job possible, to ace every class he could. As someone with slight… Read More »Concentration: The Hammer