Session 01: What is Mindfulness?

 

In our modern multitasking culture,  with 24/7 networking, we lose touch with a felt sense of ourselves, and we also lose touch with what matters: the beauty of our natural environment, the beautiful colours of a rainbow or the eyes of the people we love and the things that we care about. The good news is we can train ourselves to become more present.

When life seems stressful we need to calm our minds, steady our thoughts and take care not just of our body but everybody in the world around us, as we begin to realise just how globally connected we living beings on this living planet are.

We need to allow ourselves some time to sense that life is a sacred mystery to be lived, not a problem to solved and that one of the greatest gifts of being human is that we are life made conscious of itself.

You will learn here what the Dalai Lama calls "the science of mind:" a systematic and supportive space to undertake the fundamental trainings of the foundations of mindfulness.

You'll learn how to work with breath and body in a mindful way, how to bring a healing and liberating attention to feelings and emotions, to thought patterns and states of mind, and a wiser relationship to the joys and sorrows that make up our humanity.

Perhaps most importantly how to embody this mindfulness with loving awareness in relation with people close to you: family, your local community and your care for the world as a global citizen.

And so we begin this wonderful training with the understanding that this is possible. I'd also like to remind you that an important dimension of these practices is not just participating in this setting but actively practicing on your own as well as with your family, local or online community and to really see yourself in all being and all beings in yourself.

Part of the path that will really help deepen your practice more than listening to a facilitator is learning to listen to yourself: You are the everyday expert of your life and it is you who determines how you see life.

We have our routines, regular visits to the workplace, home to family, our circle of friends and social outlets. However, change is also part of our nature and when our habitual way of being human is challenged part of what makes us such resilient creatures is our ability to adapt through collective learning.

Mindfulness is a way of working and learning to deal with difficulties, with loving-kindness and compassion for yourself and others, through an awakening in all the domains of your life.

With the guidance of a facilitator who is experienced both as a meditator and as a teacher, and who is also on this life-changing adventurous journey with you we continue to collectively learn how to transform life’s crises into an opportunity for creativity and change.

 

And so we begin to see how these ancient practices of meditation and mindfulness, which are really a training in self-awareness are as relevant today as they were when civilizations began to emerge with our categorisation of species and ideas of different cultures beginning to emerge, separate and globally merge again in the ongoing cycle of life.

We are so quick to judge another or, even more so, to judge ourselves as different when in truth we have more in common than what separates us from our true selves and one another that it sometimes takes a global event to unite us in a common cause and common concern for humanity.

The invitation of this mindful presence, of this gift of presence, is to step out of the contractions, to step out of the reactivity of mind and, in any moment where we find ourselves in any situation, to quiet the mind, steady the heart, see ourselves and others with an innate respect, and care, and dignity that is the birth-right of every human being.

I'm very glad that we get to spend this time together.

John Farragher (MMTCP)

Mindfulness Meditation Facilitator

 
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Session 02: Mindfulness of the Body

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