Meditation Sits
Many people, especially busy urban dwellers, feel overwhelmed and undernourished. They struggle alone with their challenges and are only rarely able to discuss – let alone practice – deep matters of belonging and connection and embodiment.
The vision of The Consciousness Explorers Club (CEC) is to provide a fun and accessible venue where people can discuss these things as they emerge from perspective-altering spiritual and psychological and social practices. Our members go on mind-body adventures – together and independently – and then share their insights and discoveries and inspiration with the community.
Details
So: We meet almost every Monday night. Starting at 7:30pm sharp and finishing by 9:30pm.
The location is Mosaic Yoga, 225 Sterling Road in Unit 23 (click the link for directions).
Cost is $10-20 sliding scale. The CEC is a nonprofit – funds go to pay teachers and support the costs of programming.
For this month’s offerings scroll down, or read our current newsletter.
What do we do?
The evening rolls out in two parts:
- Part one is 35-minutes of sitting meditation practice (from 7:30 – 8:30pm)
- Part two is 45-minutes of interactive practice, play and discussion (8:30 – 9:30pm)
In the first part, we experiment with different solo meditations, from restful absorption to creative visualizations, mindfulness-style noting (of various mind-body components), loving-kindness, sound meditations, choiceless awareness and many others. You don’t need to follow any of these techniques if you don’t want to – some people prefer to stay with their tried-and-true regular practice.
In the second part, we engage in different interactive practices, from partner noting to mixed-tape music sessions to theatrical craft projects to self-inquiry to Gestalt boundary exercises to any number of other combinations we make up in the CEC laboratory, as per our mandate to use arts and culture to explore issues related to personal growth. These are like playful investigations into different corners of human social reality, which we then discuss with great gusto. The idea is to create a bridge between the cushion and the street, to take our practice insights and actually try to apply them to real-life situations.
“A wise teacher, and a wise center, needs to offer a whole range of skillful practices, because people come along at different stages of their inner development, with different temperaments, and with different sets of problems.” -Jack Kornfield
The CEC is passionately nonsectarian – both humanistic and contemplative traditions are represented. That said, we do have an uber-meditation consultant: the Buddhist teacher Shinzen Young, who knighted myself and James Maskalyk with a machete, here.
If you are interested in our schedule of explorations, sign up for our mailing list to receive our monthly newsletter.
Jeff Warren
President, The Consciousness Explorers Club
Contact us: info@consciousnessexplorersclub.com
NOTE: Meditation is a compliment but not a substitute for professional psychological and medical health care. There are risks in any psychological or spiritual method. Those risks increase for people who are experiencing significant distress or dysfunction. Please inquire if you are unsure whether or not meditation is appropriate for your situation.
In this first Monday of the month, we’ll set the stage with a classic bit of Hindu Vedanta-inspired self-inquiry. Instead of asking “Who am I?”, we make it less personal, and ask “What IS this?” – as in, what is this whole existential boondoggle that we find ourselves running around inside?
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Focusing is a step-by-step meditative practice that help us access intuition and clarity around the confounding situations that sometimes arise in our lives. By tuning into our bodies and getting in touch with the felt sense of a situation, we can tap into the wisdom and innate sense of knowing that live deep within our experience. Instead of being swept up in the circus, focusing can help us become the circus master.
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What actually wants to emerge in each moment, before thinking jumps in? Inquiring minds want to know! As the saying goes, thinking is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. Many traditions argue that our actual default conditions – the factory settings, as it were – are wise and caring, but that we cover them up with our maddening stresses and schemes and agendas. In this meditation, we see what emerges when we practice not knowing.
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A philosopher is somebody who seeks philos (deep friendship) with sophia (wisdom). The original English meaning of “meditation” was to think deeply about a topic, as in the title of Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy. For tonight’s sit we’ll experiment with meditation as a focused inner reflection on a topic of deep importance.
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The Zen tradition of practicing with koans can make allies of our confusion, doubt and uncertainty and tap into something creative, unexpected, beautiful and wise. For tonight’s sit, we’ll each work with a classic koan, trying to “not know” our way into spontaneous discoveries and maybe even jolt ourselves more awake in the process.
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Want to take better care of yourself? Join us for a half-day mindfulness and meditation retreat themed around self care. Learn to tune into your unique needs and gain meditative strategies to support mental health and well being. Treat yourself to four hours of quiet in the heart of the city, alternating between gentle guidance, silent sitting and moving meditations.
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