“All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.”
- Blaise Pascal
Calming the mind - Opening the heart
Beyond the pounding waves of a restless mind there is an ocean to be found…
All encompassing, wise, clear and loving.
Approach and practice
Meditation opens a space within the mind and body where presence and undistracted awareness can arise. At first we don’t realise how much we need a spacious mind and a quiet, peaceful body. Our education doesn’t teach this, so we have to discover it for ourselves. If we want inner peace, stability and clarity, we need to learn them, value them, and nourish and care for them every day. Why?
Method and process
Meditation is learning to sit quietly with ourselves. It is the ground for developing awareness and presence, and for finally seeing what is really going on within us. We begin to recognise what distracts and preoccupies us, and what rules our perception of life. We realise that the mind is restless and rootless by habit, moving from thought to thought and drawing in emotions and the senses. We judge and label our experiences and the people around us, and we try to make sense of it all. But there is no wisdom to be found there.
As we turn our attention inward, to the body and the breath, we become mindful of the activity of our thoughts and emotions. It is a blessing to realise that our negative emotions and thoughts are not the ground of our Being. Our Essential Nature, with its inherent wisdom, lies on a deeper level, beyond the restless movement of thought. The essence of mind has always been pure, at peace and loving, from the beginning of time, and we can develop our awareness of it. Through specific meditation practices and guidance, it can be awakened, recognised and ultimately stabilised. We gain the choice of whether to follow what arises in us, and the ability to discern what brings us happiness. As a result, natural confidence, understanding, fearlessness, compassion and creativity lead our life into the Joy of living.