Meditation Sits
*During the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re meeting online every Monday at 7:30pm EST
CEC Monday Night Zoom Room: https://zoom.us/j/799184864, passcode = 00000 (five zeros)
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 in Toronto almost every Monday night. Starting at 7:30pm sharp and finishing by 9:30pm.
With calls for social distancing to curb the spread of COVID-19, CEC is offering virtual meditation sits and discussions via Zoom for the foreseeable future. Please join us Mondays at 7:30pm(EST) to meditate in community and cultivate some connection in these physically distant times. If you live outside of Toronto and have always wanted to check out CEC, now’s your chance!
CEC Monday Night Zoom Room: https://zoom.us/j/799184864, passcode = 00000 (five zeros)
The usual location is Mosaic Yoga, 225 Sterling Road in Unit 23 (click the link for directions).
Cost is $10-20 sliding scale, or PWYC. The CEC is a nonprofit – funds go to pay teachers and support the costs of programming. For online sits, the CEC gratefully accepts donations via e-transfer (within Canada) or Paypal, sent to consciousnessexplorersclub@
For this month’s offerings, 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.
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.
This Monday, we will explore how words open us, challenge us, offer insights and perhaps even healing. How are poetry and meditation different literary forms? How do their effects overlap, and how are they different? These are absurdly broad and ambitious questions, thus fun to entertain. Alayna and I will weave together meditation and poetry; afterwards we’ll share some thoughts, and then open it all up for community discussion.
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In this practice we’ll explore the restorative power of non-action, the oasis of spacious mind. We’ll take this practice laying down, find release through yoga nidra, and melt into spacious awareness where the mind can finally unwind.
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In this practice we will explore how we can feel more grounded in our own being, and cultivate that sturdiness to move towards our edge. This practice will be gentle, honouring and respecting where you are at in your process.
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In tonight’s practice we’ll explore our multitudes, all the different versions of who we think we need to be in any given situation. Is there a thread that unites them all? How can we move closer to an integrated whole?
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