Browse published articles attributed to Dr. Robert Puff, with full-archive search.
When you meditate, the key is to focus on your breath because that is the only thing happening right here, right now. You may have a mantra or prayer word; you may visualize or use a guided meditation; but the key to any meditation is to be in the here and now.
If you were to ask me, “What is the key, essential component of happiness?” or, “What is a fundamental element of happiness? my answer would be simultaneously simple , yet very complicated. Here, I’d like to explore the fundamental element of happiness. When we “get it,” when we understand it, when we live by it, we will be happy. What is it? What is the fundamental key to happiness? Though it may seem very easy, finding the key to happiness can be one of life’s most difficult and elusive tasks; yet it is possible. It is absolutely possible.
Synchronicity is actually related to probability. There are events that occur in life which have a small probability in life of happening, yet they happen. For instance you’re talking on the phone with a friend and you say something and they say to you, “I was just thinking that!” The chances of that actually happening are really small, yet it happens. Another example is perhaps you call a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while. You come across their number and you decide to call them and check to see how they’re doing.
When I was an undergraduate at university many years ago, my deep enjoyment and love for the works of William Shakespeare blossomed. I had the privilege of taking a Shakespearean class and then during one summer in my undergraduate years, I was able to travel through Europe inexpensively on a bike and a Europass to see the great sites. A memory I remember most is going to Stratford-upon-Avon and watching a William Shakespeare play. I don’t know where my passion and love for his plays comes from but it has been a deep part of my life. His writings have also taught me many things.
What are attachments? How can they cause us suffering and how can meditation help with our attachments? First, what are attachments? Simply put, attachments are anything that we need in order to be happy. “I have to have this or I will not be happy. Without this person or without this accomplishment, I will not be happy. I need it. I need it, period.”
In life we experience two main emotions: one is pleasure, the other is pain. They come and they go; they are a normal part of the human experience. But what happens is that our minds try to maintain the good and push away the bad. It’s a kind of tug-of-war where we say “I want this” and “I don’t want that.” This has the result of causing struggles in our lives.
Life is a dance between two intense emotions: fear and desire. We go back and forth between these two throughout our lives. But what we’re exploring here is what precedes and pervades life before desire and fear.
Who we are is very simple. We are the Supreme Reality. Everything comes from that and is a reflection of that. We are really like the sun and our lives that we’re experiencing right now are like the dewdrops that are reflecting the sun. Another way to look at it is to see life as a dream. We are dreaming this life. We are the dreamer of our lives. Our lives are being dreamed. Life is really just an extended dream and we are the dreamer, which is the supreme reality.
Who are we before anything else ever was? When we take away everything impermanent, who are we at our core? Although God may be the ultimate, our concepts of God are not. Though religion plays a beautiful role in this conceptual world of ours, it prevents us from God because it labels God. For instance, religion says, “God is good,” “God is benevolent,” etc. Labels cannot describe God or the ultimate. The ultimate is that which is before anything and everything else, including our concepts of God. In fact, God or the ultimate precedes any label or description. Throw Out the Conceptsr
This article is inspired by one of my listeners from the Netherlands. She is recently divorced and is rebuilding her life. She wanted some advice on how to build self-confidence again. I decided that in response to her e-mail I would like to address using meditation as a means to boost our self-confidence.
Where can you meditate? Do you need to have a quiet place free from all distractions and noises or can you actually meditate anywhere, anytime, any place? Many people live in crowded cities or areas where it’s busy. Does that mean that they can’t meditate? Is it possible to meditate even when there’s cacophonous noise all around you? I say it is.
A practical article connected into the broader SelfGrowth topic graph.
When we wake up to who we are, something happens. We stop identifying with our egoic selves because we realize they are impermanent and only that which is permanent can be who we are. We aren’t our bodies, we aren’t our memories, we aren’t our thoughts, we aren’t our feelings… We aren’t any of these things, so we stop identifying with them. What happens is that detachment develops. An aloofness or distancing from everything that occurs. We wake up to the fact that life is an extended dream and a relaxation is able to set in. It’s a sense of calm or a feeling that ‘all is well.’
Children love a routine at night when they are preparing for bed. Putting them to bed, reading them a story, singing to them; whatever the routine is that a parent may have, calms them and relaxes them. When children go on a road trip in the car they do so much better when they have something special with them that reminds them of home; a special blanket, a cd of songs that calm them and so on. My daughter has a special “blankie” that makes her feel safe and calm when she’s on a trip.
What are fears? Fears are something that we have created in our mind after, usually, having a negative experience. I say “usually” because fears cannot only come from our own experiences but also from those of others also. A lot of people have different fears. The main ingredient of fears is that they are created in our minds, reinforced in our minds and sustained in our minds.
Morning meditation is such a key part to our day. I want to look at it together and explore how we can make it a wonderful, transforming experience so that our day can go well each and every day.
Knowledge is one of the things that prevent us from awakening. Why? We think we know many things and knowing these things keeps us from being awake. To gain awareness we need to unlea what we know, or think we know. We need to let go of every piece of knowledge and just be. In the East they call it the way ‘neti neti’ which means ‘not this, not that.’ In the West we refer to it as ‘via negativa’ which means a way of nothingness.
Our culture, around the world, puts so much pressure on us to look good, to stay young, and to stay beautiful. Why? How does this impact us? There are many reasons why. One, from more of an evolutionary stance, is that being beautiful encourages people to procreate. Women who are younger are, of course, more able to have children so youth is seen as something that is desirable; this is natural and helps us have procreate around the world. If we had evolved in such a way to find elderly people to be attractive then we wouldn’t have as many babies and genes wouldn’t be passed on.
Perhaps the most important concept or discipline I can teach you is “Earnestness”. When I was younger, while I had been introduced to mediation, I wasn’t earnest in practicing it until later in life when I realized how mediation so closely related to my own growth as a person. For me, it was a process in learning how important meditation was to my life and my growth in life. I had to first realize that meditation was a good experience. I enjoyed it but, until I learned about how meditation was a basis for growth, I wasn’t earnest about it.
Many of us put a lot of pressure upon ourselves to achieve. When we don’t live up to our expectations, we are often very hard on ourselves. Furthermore, we have an incredible tendency to compare ourselves to other people. If we don’t live up to these imaginary lines of success that we have created in our heads, then we suffer. I want to offer an alte ative to this suffering, a lesson we can all learn, courtesy of my six-year-old daughter.
Have you ever gone through a day when you’re very, very busy and you have to get things done so even though you are hungry you just keep going and slowly that hunger sensation turns into a headache? I’ve seen this happen to my wife a lot when she’s busy and she just forgets about, or puts aside eating and a few hours later she gets a terrible headache. It can happen to a lot of us; we just get busy, we don’t focus on what our bodies are doing, and things go wrong. Our bodies and our minds are connected.
When it comes to living in the moment and being more enlightened, you might have some questions that you’d like answered. For instance, you might be saying, “Dr. Puff, how do I reach that point? Is there anything I can do to speed up the process of waking up and of having a life filled with the present?”
You may ask yourself, “What do meditation and eating have to do with each other?” The answer is that they actually have a great deal to do with each other. What happens in the day is that we tend to get so busy that we’re not 100% present with “what is” and we really miss out on wonderful experiences that occur throughout the day. This includes important moments in everyday life, like eating.
Let’s explore why we don’t meditate twice a day? Some of us do, but many of us don’t meditate when we should. People come home after a long, hard day of work, finish their day and fall into bed without meditating. There’s simply ‘no time’ for meditation. But why don’t we find the time? There is so much proof of why meditation is good for you. If you were to visit some of the healthiest people on the planet you will be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t believe in, attest to, and practice meditation.
We all seek for many things. Some of us seek for money. Some of us seek for fame. Some of us seek for love. Some of us seek for health. But I believe, at its core, what we are ultimately seeking for is happiness. “I’ll be happy if I find the love of my life… if I have enough money, I’ll be happy… if I get that promotion… if I purchase that home… if I get that car…” The list goes on and on but we all know people who have money, who have fame, who even have the love of their life but still are not happy.
When we think about our lives, the people in our lives, the work we go to, the city we live in, the galaxy we’re a part of and the whole universe, we think of it as so real, tangible, ever present and everlasting. But because we perceive it in our minds and we can only perceive that which our minds can grasp, it’s actually a very small universe. It is also transitory – it doesn’t last. It only lasts and exists when we think about it. If we see it as a dream then we can locate truth.
To help you in your journey in meditation it is important to have a regular place to go to for your meditation. I have found through the years that having a routine is helpful. Our bodies, soul and mind seem to respond to this, knowing that it’s time to relax, be peaceful, to meditate. So find a place in your home that is comfortable, relaxing and say “this is my place to meditate”. It can be anywhere, you bed, a couch, a corner, a chair. Also, put up a sign if you have the possibility of being disrupted.
In this life, the most permanent thing we experience is witnessing awareness. It begins when we are born and it goes away when we die. But beyond this witnessing, beyond the most permanent thing that is part of our life, is that which truly is. That which we ultimately are cannot be described, yet it is a foundation of everything that is, will be or has ever been. What we experience is witnessing, but the knower and the known arise out of our ultimate true self. It’s similar to when we are asleep. We may not be aware of it, but after we wake up we are aware that we were asleep.
Life is in constant flux: people and jobs come and go, we learn new things while forgetting the old, and different events take place. Our lives and views change. A seventeen-year-old boy might believe popularity is of crucial importance, whereas a sixty-seven-year-old man might believe that having a connection with God is what matters most. Nothing stays the same. The only thing we know for sure is that we are, right now. It’s All A Dream
There are three important steps which are crucial aspects in moving in the direction of living an enlightened, awakened life. Any one of us can take these steps.
Everything that is, everything that ever will be, everything that has ever been, can only occur because we are bearing witness to it. Everything exists simply because we are aware of it. Without us, nothing can be. The entire universe unfolds from our true self: our consciousness, which is also known as the ultimate self, or the ocean of awareness. Whatever words we use to describe it will be inadequate, however, since words are limited. They are only able to be a part of our conscious mind, and even our conscious mind arises out of that which we truly are.
There is a movie starring A old Schwarzenegger called Total Recall. A large part of the movie revolves around A old’s character discovering who he really is. We all want to know who we really are. Unless we settle into thinking, “Well, this is my life and I’m not going to think about it,” we keep searching until we find the answers. Who Are We Really?
A practical article connected into the broader SelfGrowth topic graph.
The infinite reality of now is what life is really all about. In many ways, we have created a prison around ourselves. The walls are all those limiting ideas of who we are, who others are, and what life is. Practice neti neti: not this, not that. Let go of all the false identifications you have for yourself and everyone around you who limits both you and everyone in your life. We create a prison not only for ourselves but for everyone else, through our limiting attitudes and thoughts. Let’s allow the walls that encase our minds to crumble. It’s time to let the prison doors swing open.
I began meditating in my late teens after I was exposed to the research of Herbert Benson, who wrote the book The Relaxation Response. It was a wonderful study into how people meditate and the benefits of meditation. It was basic but very helpful. It got me interested in both practicing and studying meditation.
Meditation is a wonderful experience, but so often so many people out there stop meditating and their mind goes back to being extremely busy, active and non-attentive. They leave the meditative state of mind to go back to the every day world. I like to encourage people to truly keep their self in a present awareness all day long. This is actually the premise of the retreats I offer on a regular basis, focusing on a full day of living a meditative life.
There are many reasons why we don’t do things that we know are good for us. When I first was exposed to meditation, at about 19 years of age, I was working on my first academic degree. I had begun studying the positive effects of meditation. My exposure to meditation was very scientific, very medical. I learned how meditation was good for your heart, your stress levels and just overall good for your health. I would describe it all in very scientific and medical descriptions exclusively.
Ironically, one of the main things that keeps us from awakening to our true nature is knowledge. We think we know things, and knowing these things keeps us from being awake. Our belief that we have true knowledge keeps us caught up in our perceptions, labels, and opinions, making them appear as realities rather than the biased points of view they actually are. If truth is a matter of perspective, can we call it truth? If situations change depending on how we look at them and on who is doing the looking, can we really trust our judgments to be true knowledge?
Many years ago, when I began working on my first Masters Degree at Princeton, I had an experience that really helped me change my life and put me on a new path, a new direction for how to live my life. Towards the end of my degree I had made many accomplishments while at Princeton. I had was graduating with honors, I had won many awards for some research work I had done, I had been accepted into one of the top PhD clinical psychology programs in the United States, and all seemed to be going well.
Recently my daughter slammed her hand in the door and it was very painful for her. I had done a similar thing many years ago and initially it was a very painful experience for about maybe ten seconds. I started to breathe slowly and deeply and the pain went away quickly. There still remained a slight, dull ache for a while but overall the pain was gone. I’m sure my daughter and I aren’t unique in having painful experiences to us.
As we go through life, sometimes we have beautiful experiences. They are so wonderful that we are filled with a desire to hold onto them for as long as possible. But why we can’t hang onto them and why they go away is because we can only remember them in the mind. The mind itself is not stable; it isn’t consistent. We can’t hold onto those experiences because the mind often changes. The question to ask ourselves is: “What is consistent? What is stable?” We have to go beyond the mind to find that which is stable and always is. But, how is it possible to move beyond the mind?
There are many ways to meditate. Because meditation has been around for so long, a wide variety of meditation systems are available. The first technique I will introduce is simple and easy to use. It’s effective for both those who are new to meditation and those who have been meditating for years. This technique is popular all over the world. You will find it a very easy way to enter into meditation.
Labyrinths are walking meditations that go way, way back in time. Archeologists can date them all the way back to 1500 BC but they are probably much older than that. We can find them all over the world, in churches, cathedrals, old ruins, and now many spiritual retreat centers have them. Perhaps the most famous labyrinth is Chartres Cathedral just south of Paris. It’s a beautiful labyrinth that dates to over 800 years ago. I suggest anyone that goes to Europe visit Chartres Cathedral. It’s beautiful and the labyrinth is right inside the cathedral.
As we go through life things happen to us to get us off course. Things that make us wonder about the true benevolence, kindness and love of life and the universe. The beauty of meditation is that when you meditate you truly get grounded with life and you are able to see how everything is really well and going the way it’s supposed to. You are doing your part, others are doing their part and together the world is a beautiful place for everyone to live in.
When we desire something, we first have to work for it. Often we find ourselves spending a large amount of mental energy thinking about it, wishing for it and wanting it to happen. But after working for it, we should let go and just be.
I began meditating almost thirty years ago. I think at first I began just out of curiosity. I had been studying meditation in my academic training and learned how science has shown that meditation is very beneficial to us. When I started meditating I found it to be a very relaxing, peaceful experience. Over time as I grew and discovered that meditation is really helpful for our spiritual growth, I really dived into it. I now consistently meditate every day, usually once in the morning for about an hour and then in the evening for about half an hour.
Now I’d like to share with you my favorite form of meditation, called “breath meditation.” I believe it is one of the most powerful, yet one of the easiest, meditations to learn.
What causes things to be the universe, us, everything that is? Time and space play a huge role in causation. Physics, Einstein and scientists around the world have concluded that we live in a space-time continuum.
People from the Eastern hemisphere are probably more acquainted with the term or the word “Enlightenment.” If you’re from the Western hemisphere, you probably are acquainted with the term “Awakening”. So what is “Awakening” or “Enlightenment”? In the Western traditio Abraham Maslow was really the pioneer in studying these wonderful experiences of “Awakening”. He called them “Peak Experiences.” They really are magical, wonderful, enlightened experiences of truly being present in the moment.
I wrote a poem based on a Zen tradition and it describes aspects of enlightenment: I wake up, rain washes the trees, smells are fresh, spring is abounding now, the I wake to the illusionr I’m dreaming. Enlightenment is about waking up to the reality that life isn’t real. It’s merely an illusion, an extended dream. Our minds create a reality, saying “This is real, everything is real, I am real.” Instead of just witnessing life and being aware of it, we identify with our lives and take them on as an identity.