I believe Yoga and Meditation are effective tools that can be adapted and integrated into our daily lives to help us discover a greater sense of meaning, fulfillment, and purpose.
As a yoga teacher, I wish to demonstrate a better way of living and handling our mental, physical, and emotional health than we currently do.
I invite you on this shared journey, filled with introspective discussion, guided meditations and unique guests to explore our shared human condition and to experience life with more clarity, greater depth, and less resistance.
Discussing Meditation and Explaining Vipassana - Wise Discourse Vol 1 ft. @AousPhoto
In June, I attended a 10 day silent meditation retreat at a center just north of Toronto.
During my time, I had no access to my phone, was prohibited from speaking to others, had nothing to read, no where to write, no music to listen to, discouraged from any physical exercise while being asked to meditate for upwards of 10 hours a day.
It was a profoundly intense experience.
I sit down with my friend Aous to talk about this Vipassana experience (loosely translated as Mind Purifying or Purification of the Mind)
There's a lot of great stuff discussed throughout this episode and Aous offers a great perspective about what meditation and mindfulness can mean for the average person.
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SHOW NOTES
https://torana.dhamma.org/ -- Vipassana center, just north of Toronto
TIME-STAMPS
00:00-20:33 - Introducing Meditation and Vipassana, what a practice can look like, my mind-set leading up to the retreat
20:33 - 38:48 - Daily Course Schedule - discussing wake-up, meditation schedule, food
47:55 - The Possibility of Quitting
58:58 - The Five Precepts
66:00 - Introducing MBSR - Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and Choice-Points**
76:26 - Opening The Heart
84:30 - Day 11 - Closing Ceremonies
14 Jun 2023
Quiet the Mind, Open the Heart - Vipassana
Sharing my thoughts before heading out for my 10-day Vipassana/Silent Meditation Retreat.
Over the course of the next 10 days, I will be disconnected from the outside world, with no access to phone. I will be observing noble silence - no talking, reading, writing, exercising, listening to music. Meditating 10 hours a day for 10 days.
Now, let us begin,
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27 Mar 2023
Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Space - Meditating on Our Interconnection With Nature
"The whole cosmos has come together to create you. You carry the whole universe inside you. That is why, to accept yourself and to love yourself is an expression of gratitude" - Thich Nhat Hanh
Our daily lives come with stress and anxiety that unnaturally separate our connection to our bodies and one another. The quality of our life depends on how deeply we can connect with the elements of the natural world.
In this meditation, we will connect with the elements of Earth, Wind, Fire, Water and Space to better understand the lessons that nature is meant to teach us.
Although this meditation can be practiced sitting down, it is a great practice to explore while you are outside. To help you better notice how these natural elements exist both within us and outside of us.
Come back to this session whenever you need to reconnect with the flow of the natural world
Now, let us begin,
Follow, ask questions and provide feedback on Instagram @NirvanaWithNav or email me at NirvanaWithNav@gmail.com
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2 Feb 2023
When Was The Last Time You Had Fun Trying Something? The Concept of "Beginner's Mind" And a 10 Minute Guided Meditation
In Japanese Zen Buddhism, there is a term known as Shoshin, which translates to Beginner's Mind and refers to a paradox - The more we know about a subject, whether through knowledge or experience, the more likely we are to close our minds to further learning about it.
In a society where most individuals attempt to cultivate an "expert's mind", we fall into the trap of closing ourselves off to growth and improvement by getting "stuck" in habitual and limiting patterns of thinking and doing.
In this podcast I break down the qualities that make up that mind of a beginner, certain actions we can take in our daily lives to cultivate those qualities and then a guided meditation at the end in which you can hopefully apply the mind of a beginner to a practice of sitting and breathing, as if it were being done for your very first time.
Now, let us begin,
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24 Jan 2023
Observing the Magic of the Present Moment - 15 Minute Guided Mindfulness Meditation to Ground Down and Reconnect
In a world where we are constantly overwhelmed with anticipation of the future or exhausted by being made to dwell on our past, the present becomes a gift in which we can connect to our deeper selves as an integrated and unified organism.
This 15 minute guided mindfulness meditation will help you cultivate stillness, silence, peace and ease by connecting you to your senses and grounding you into the present moment to experience a deeper level of awareness
Come back to this meditation whenever you need to reset and reconnect with yourself in your busy life
Now, let us begin,
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19 Dec 2022
Breathe To Feel - 10 Minute Guided Meditation To Connect With Your Body
A Meditation of love and gratitude towards the body with an aim to express care and affection for our body.
Our organs, such as the lungs, the heart, and the liver work diligently over many decades, but how often do we take the time to show them any attention or compassion?
By simply breathing consciously and putting ourselves in touch with all the different parts of the body, we come to feel and understand how we can bring ourselves peace and joy.
By bringing in love and gratitude, we can go out into the world mindful of our place within it, aware of our connectedness to all beings, of our interdependence, and of our oneness.
You can practice this exercise seated or lying down to relax, waking up in the morning or before going to sleep. Whenever you need a few moments to connect with yourself, this meditation is available to you.
Now, let us begin,
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5 Dec 2022
The Key to the Mind is Meditation - 45 Minute Guided Stabilizing and Contemplation Meditation
Today's session is a two-part meditation that I had the opportunity to practice and learn about at a Buddhist Meditation Centre while traveling through India.
The first, Shamata, otherwise known as stabilization or single-pointed-mind-concentration meditation, is practiced by training our mind to come back to observing a single object, the breath, in order to cultivate a mind that can become sharp, stable and calm.
The second, Contemplation, is practiced by observing our minds without judgement and an open heart so that we can bring in more love, compassion and inner peace to our life, and then be able to offer those qualities to whomever we meet on our way.
I hope these two techniques offer you a glimpse into the value that meditation can provide to our daily lives in order to manage stress and our well-being
Now, let us begin,
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26 Aug 2022
Listen To Your Body, Because If You Don't, Who Will? A 15 Minute Guided Body Scan
If you’re like most people - you probably spend a lot of time living OUTSIDE your body, thinking of future and past - imagining, contemplating, comparing, abstracting, or otherwise, being preoccupied with your thoughts.
Today’s meditation is a mental exercise designed to release tension and cultivate awareness of the moment-to-moment experiences of the body using a technique called a body scan.
I will guide you through a methodical approach to bring awareness to all parts of the body with the intention of helping you have a fully realized “in-the-body” experience.
Now, let us begin,
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22 Jul 2022
10 Minute Guided Meditation - The Lotus of Your Heart
If Meditation is like a flower, then our mind is the garden, our thoughts and emotions become the seeds and it is up to us whether we harvest flowers or weeds.
In this short, 10 minute guided meditation, my hope is to demonstrate meditation as an effective tool that can be integrated into our daily lives to help us discover meaning, fulfillment, and purpose - helping us to take charge and regain control over our sense of self.
My goal is to help you cultivate a small part within you that can notice what's happening, so that even with 99% of you is overwhelmed, 1% of you remains grounded in compassion and awareness.
Now let us begin,
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29 Mar 2021
Who is the You that lives behind your eyes?
When you look into a mirror, who do you see? who do you ALLOW to be seen? If you create the space, the mirror can see through you, it can see you at your most naked, your most raw, your most vulnerable. However, we often limit and hold back our selves as a result of shame, by casting judgment on who we see, on what we see, we rather have feelings about our feelings than to actually feel what we are feeling.
It is easier for us to treat others the way we would like to be treated than it is for us to treat our selves how we would like to be treated.
Today, I'll answer a question on Meditation, recommend a few books and then let's take a look at the relationship between Vulnerability, Selfishness and ultimately Happiness to better understand how we sometimes get in our own way as a result of our egos and how to better relate to our souls.
So take a deep breath.
Create a sense of calm comfort in that space between your ears.
And let's begin.
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Explore Further on my blog https://theextrovertedintrovert.ca/
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13 Feb 2021
Think Of Yourself As Dead
A brief Q&A from to address some questions about meditation and psychedelics and then a free thinking tangent to discuss the dilemma of living life presently.
Today we look at the origins of Stoicism, the belief that becoming a clear and unbiased thinker allowed one to understand the universal reason (Logos) - which originated nearly 500 years after The Buddha and grew organically and independently of any influence from Buddhism.
So take a deep breath.
Create a sense of calm comfort in that space between your ears.
And let's begin.
Follow and ask questions and provide feedback on Instagram @NirvanaWithNav
Explore Further on https://theextrovertedintrovert.ca/
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26 Jan 2021
You Are Right Where You Should Be
It's easy to forget about the here and now. It's shocking how easy we can let an emotion - a momentary ripple in in time, impact our feelings and subsequently our lives.
We've all suffered. Most of us are probably still suffering to one degree or another. What takes work to understand is how to suffer well, how to not let that suffering affect us but rather how we can learn to love the difficulties in our lives in order to learn and grow to become better versions of ourselves so that we can better handle the inevitable - more suffering.
This episode covers the circumstances of that first seed that was planted in my mind so that I could work to become that better version of myself.
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Explore Further on https://theextrovertedintrovert.ca/
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For those wondering - the song mentioned in this podcast is Right Where You Should Be by Quinn XCII, Ashe, and Louis Futon
13 Jan 2021
How to sit quietly, in a room, alone
Overthinking leads to misery but we fear the silence of our own existence - yet without silence there can be no sounds - this is the dilemma we must understand when it comes to the many dualities of life.
We must learn to deal with our stressors, anxieties, fears and despairs in order to adapt to our environment.
We have been learning for millions of years - we learned how to turn stone into tools, we learned how to wake and migrate across the globe and we've learned wonders of the universe and now it's time to learn Nature's simplest yet subtlest gift of all - the breath - and how we can use it to our advantage to cultivate peace and happiness into our every day lives.
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Explore Further on https://theextrovertedintrovert.ca/
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30 Dec 2020
Being Grateful for 2020
This year has taught us to appreciate everything we have, but that has been challenging at times.
Let's dive a bit deeper into this idea of being grateful and understand how to apply it to our daily life.
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Subscribe on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts - Apple Podcasts TBA
Stay tuned for weekly episodes in 2021.
21 Dec 2020
Nirvana - Now not later.
In this episode, we're going to break down a common misconception - that Nirvana is something in the distant future, and begin to understand how it can be achieved in this very moment with some space, silence, and understanding.
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