Facebook for North Hastings Meditation Community

I have setup a Facebook page for those in the area who are interested in connecting with others who meditate or would like to.  Just send me an email or a message on Facebook if you want to join.  My email is drampsych@gmail.com.

Conclusion of fall 2015 workshop

We finished the eight week meditation workshop on "the practice of appreciation" under the auspices of the Bancroft Family Health Team. It was well attended throughout. It was a great group of people who seemed to appreciate the Powerpoint presentations.  I plan to do another workshop in the spring.  It may be a repeat of the appreciation theme, although the treatment will be different enough that I hope that those who previously attended my workshops won't get bored.

Mindful attentiveness

The attentive mind is one illuminated by presence here and now.

Being here and now is inescapable, but often our experience is one of absence--dreaming forward, dreaming backward, some other time, some other place.

Mental suffering arises with habits of absence. Healing comes with awakening presence through the cultivation of mindful attentiveness.

presence

We are inescapably present here and now.
But we are so very often absent, some other time, some other place,
Dreaming forward, dreaming backward, only momentarily present.
Yet even in our absence, we are present.

Fall workshop 2015 (concluded)

Fall Meditation Workshop Theme: Appreciation

Appreciation perceives the value in our experience, understands our situation and recognizes its full implications.  It unites the everyday and the transcendent, and it is the foundation for our relating to others.  In this workshop, we will explore meditation practices that foster appreciation and the quality of appreciative joy.  

The workshop is sponsored by the Bancroft Family Health Team and open without charge to all residents of North Hastings at any level of experience with meditation.  The workshop will be held at 19 Oak Street.  There will be eight sessions 10:30 AM to 12:00 noon on Tuesdays.  The workshop will begin on October 13 and end on December 1.  For further information call 613-334-0109.

What is this now?

From the vantage point of experience, the present alone is real.  The past has happened and is just a memory, the future is yet to happen and can only be imagined.  However, if this now is the boundary between the past and future, is it a boundary with width or is it infinitely thin?  If it has width, then there must be a past, present and future within it and hence another now in this now.  There must be a limit to this division of the now or there will be nothing left of it.  But even with a limit, this division must end in a very tiny moment, one that arises and passes away so quickly as to be effectively indiscernible.  On the other hand, if the now is an infinitely thin boundary between the past and the future, in essence a moment without duration, in what sense can it be said to exist at all?  
Whether this now exists or not, this moment is very elusive for sure, constantly shifting as it does.  Can we only "grasp" it as a fleeting memory and pretend that a "now" that constantly eludes us is "present" when it is actually gone?  How can we be "in" the present when it never is "there" long enough?  Yet, it is inescapable:  we are always in the present moment for, after all, that is all there is.

Impermanence

When we meditate we cannot help but notice that whatever we experience comes and goes.  This is an insight into one of the fundamental characteristics of our experience--nothing is permanent except impermanence itself.  We can bewail the fact that nothing that presents itself to us "sticks around" or be happy about the fact that "this too will pass," but this characteristic of our experience--impermanence--is here to stay.

Conclusion of spring workshop

We finished the eight week meditation workshop on "purposeful attention" under the auspices of the Bancroft Family Health Team. It was well attended throughout. It was a great group of people who seemed to enjoy the Powerpoint presentations that I did for the first time for the workshop. There was much laughter, and I hope everyone enjoyed themselves as much as I did. I plan to do anther workshop in the fall. It will have a different theme, but we will cover the basics of mediation as we always do.

Spring Meditation Workshop Theme: Purposeful attention

Meditation is about paying attention on purpose and with purpose, guided by values and directed at revealing our experience as it is.  In this workshop we will explore this orientation to meditation and do exercises designed to bring purposeful attention to our everyday lives and promote emotional health.

The workshop is sponsored by the Bancroft Family Health Team and led by Dr. Alan McAllister, Psychologist.  It is open without charge to all residents of North Hastings at any level of experience with meditation.  The workshop will be held at 19 Oak Street.  There will be eight sessions 5:00-6:30 PM on Tuesdays beginning April 21 and ending June 16 (no session on May 19).  For further information call 613-334-0109.

Just as it is: the meditative experience

Truth be told, all that we experience is just what is occurring in the present. Of course, to navigate through life and to make sense of it all, we construct out of these happenings a separation between ourselves and the world and put it all into a frame of past, present and future. This construction is pragmatic; it works for us, but that does not make it ultimately true or real. In meditation, we have an opportunity to connect with our experience just as it is, that is, with these happenings in the present moment. This is not a lofty attainment but the most ordinary. It only requires that we stay present with our experience.