Saturday Meditation Courses
Saturday 31 October
2-3.30pm
a course about mindfulness
with Gen-la Kunsang
IN-PERSON & LIVE-STREAMED (available to watch the replay up to 72 hours after the live class)
How often have we heard those words? But what does it mean to “mind” something? It means to watch, take care of, to keep under control, not to forget.
And for those of us wishing to find some peace and composure in our daily lives, what is our “business”? It is our own mind – with all its habits, agitated activity and impulses. We are advised to “mind” our mind! For a meditator this means learning to use our mindfulness – the opposite of being forgetful or careless with our mind. It is our mind that gets us into trouble and our mind that keeps us out of it.
Mindfulness helps us in three ways: to pacify our mental agitation, to abandon negative thinking, and increase positive mental states. It brings skill and success to our meditation practice. We learn how to watch, control, purify and transform our mind. We begin to create for ourselves a stable, inner source of happiness and confidence. We can then take this special experience into our daily lives, happily “minding our own business”. If we take care of our mind it will take care of us.
This course will give us a very practical understanding of our own mind, the skills we need for successful meditation and how to apply meditation in our everyday activities.
Saturday 7 November
2-5pm (2 sessions)
Letting go of worry
with guest teacher Gen Tsangpa
ONLINE ONLY (available to watch the replay up to 72 hours after the live class)
“If something can be remedied,
Why be unhappy about it?
And if there is no remedy for it,
There is still no point in being unhappy.”
(Buddhist master, Shantideva)
We all have within us the seeds of doubt, worry and confusion and it seems there are many situations right now that can give rise to these harmful thoughts and feelings.
Buddha’s timeless wisdom explains how we can learn to develop the inner resources and strength to transform these thoughts and feelings into positive minds. Rather than dwelling on what may happen to us in the future we can discover how to replace doubts and worry with minds of love and compassion. Rather than feeling overwhelmed or disempowered we can develop supreme inner confidence based on realistic views of ourself and the world around us.
This half day course will look at how we can use tried and tested Buddhist meditation techniques to let go of our worries and replace them with positive, constructive views that lead us to the development of profound experiences of deep and lasting inner peace.
Saturday 14 November
2-3.30pm
Karma - If only I had the choice…
with Jeff Simm
ONLINE ONLY (available to watch the replay for up to 72 hours)
We all try to plan for our future and if we choose wisely we can prepare some security for ourselves. But even if we accumulated great wealth there is no guarantee it would bring real happiness or fewer problems. While we can provide for the outer quality of our life, we leave the most important thing to chance – our own experiences.
But imagine if by taking some steps now we could be confident of finding peace and happiness in the future – would we miss this opportunity?
Buddha gives us both the motivation and the method to make this happen. Without these we will have little choice over our future experiences. We even find it hard to explain where the present ones have come from.
Buddha tells us everything has causes. Nothing is random or determined by fate. Even our own experiences are the effects of their own causes. These are inner causes – our intentions and actions. This is “karma” which means “cause and effect” in another language. It is scientific thinking. By changing our thoughts and actions now, we create positive results in the future. We start to build our own store of inner wealth.
This course will help us to create the real causes of our own future welfare. We can discover we have the freedom to change our experience of the world and ourselves for the better.
Saturday 21 November
2-3.30pm
Feel Good
with Gen-la Kunsang
IN-PERSON & LIVE-STREAMED (available to watch the replay up to 72 hours after the live class)
Imagine you met someone and the first thing they thought about was your happiness. You would think they were someone quite special. And you would notice just how composed and happy they were too. We would begin to wonder what their secret was and how we could aspire to be that kind of person ourselves.
Their secret is knowing what love really is and how to develop and maintain a loving heart towards all people. We use the word “love” many times a day but we actually don’t know what it means! I love pizza, I love my dress, I love football …. I love you. Buddha gives an inspiring, true and clear definition of love. And it is guaranteed that knowing this will save us many problems and much heartache. This course will give us this wisdom knowledge, and help us to change into a loving person.
