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The Elements of Meditation
Topic for 2017 Med. Course
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Rojana Center (Asoke area)
1-3pm Saturdays, Feb-Mar
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Since people come and go so much in Bangkok, it makes it difficult to approach meditation systematically. How does it work step by step?
The Meditation Course this year puts all the different aspects of meditation into a methodical sequence. Determine to do 20 minutes of sitting meditation a day, and see what happens.
- If you are new to meditation, this is the time to get started and piece together all the elements.
- If you have some experience, this is both a refresher, and a time to commit to a regular daily sitting for 7 weeks
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| Week One The Mind is Machine: Posture, Timing, Meditation Objects, and typical difficulties experienced. Be patient and sit for 20 mins. a day. |
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| Week Two Coming Home to Yourself: Tricks and tools to awaken awareness, and stay sharp in sitting. You are a human just BEING, not a human ‘doing’! Concentration vs Awareness styles of meditation |
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| Week Three Samatha-Vipassana: – the classic combination of these two styles taught by the great Mahasi Sayadaw of Myanmar. This is how watching the breath generates you own, home-grown wisdom. We also look at how to deal with unbidden thoughts. |
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| Week Four BEAUTIFUL Mind: Part of meditation is ‘knowing things as they are’, but another part is learning how to generate the beautiful states. The mind is a machine, and you just have to enter the right code. |
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| Week Five Investigation of States: Calming and making beautiful is good, but the next step is turning attention back to the experiences and investigate how the process is working. In the Pali this is called ‘Dhammavicaya’, investigation. |
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| Week Six The Experientialist Mind/Matter? Subject/Object? Past/Future? All these are philosophical positions. We can’t carry the load of yet another philosophy. You are an experientalist already! This is how consciousness works (and yes, that is a pretty bold claim) |
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| Week Seven Shut Up and Dance Taking meditation off the cushion and into daily life – we’ll give you pointers, but it is up to you to put it all into action. |
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Main announcement of the Course is here
iincluding maps, directions etc …
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