Page updated
3-3-24
Eight-Week course
Eight-Week course: Introduction
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Whether you are joining us for the course via Zoom or are simply checking in on our on-line resources, we look to offer you a warm welcome.
We're very pleased to share the course sessions with you and hope you find something useful in the various sessions.
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Guidelines
Remember, these key principals:
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God is good, and on our side, and wants the best for us.
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God is always at work for our good.
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In all things and at all times, God is at work to help us come to that fulness of life he want us to know and share and enjoy.
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Some suggestions about how to approach the course.
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Go steadily and gently. Be kind to yourself. Trust that God is doing a work beneath and beyond what we might be able to see.
Try to ease back from judgments about how well (or how badly) you might be doing.
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Simply appreciate what you can do and appreciate the fact that you're even trying. (Perhaps keep in mind that although we tend to think we know what being mindful should feel like, we really don't.)
​For instance, many people assume that being mindful means quieting the busy mind or even making it 'blank'. It's not ... We can gradually learn to let the mind settle ... but that takes time. Meanwhile, try to let go of ideas about how the mind should be, ease back from self-criticism and self-judgement. Remember, judgment belongs only to God.
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Letting go of unhelpful patterns and habits of thought and emotion is key in all this. We cannot force or contrive any deep and lasting change in ourselves. Any change we achieve through what amounts to violence will not be belong-lasting. if we challenge and frighten it enough the 'old-self' may go quiet for a while, but sooner or later, there will be a reaction. The 'old-self' will fight back.
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Perhaps the best and most creative way to respond to any difficult patterns of thoughts and feelings that we notice in ourselves is to say, 'Aha, I notice what's happening and I'm aware of how I usually respond (or react) in situations like this, but this time perhaps I don't need to do that. That phase 'perhaps I don't need to' opens the way for change. That phrase has within it a certain humility and a certain gentleness.
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And as we ease away from (or quietly step back from) our habitual patterns of thought and behaviour, the very things that bind us to the past, so we open the way to receive the change that God wants to work in us. Humility and gentleness are key.
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And again, we see that everything begins and ends with God: his love, his kindness and his generosity. Everything, including our own healing and growth, come to us as gifts of his grace, a grace freely offered and feely given. And beginning in love, his gifts of love are is all for the sake of love, a love which naturally belongs to God but which (purely out of love) he wants us to know. He wants us to share in that love, to live within it and also to share it with others. Remember that God wants us to be like him in all things, and that means he wants us to share his generosity and goodwill towards others—indeed, towards everyone.
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And it is through learning to share in God's love and good-will towards others that
we come to know for ourselves and experience deep within
what that love really is.
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​'Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. ...
God is love, and those who live in love live in God
and God lives in them.'
(See 1 John 4:7, 16.)
We become more mindful, not by adding something to what we already are —
as we do when we learn, for example,
to play the piano, dance the tango, or stand on our heads.
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Mindfulness is not about adding something on.
It's more about letting something go.
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Mainly, we become more mindful by noticing the things
that get in the way of us being mindful, and then by letting go of them.
(But please keep in mind that letting go is not the same as forcing away. )
More often than not, what we have to let go of is either
an unhelpful preoccupation with ourselves or
an unwise commitment on some belief about ourselves.
Click the titles below to jump to the weekly sessions
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Week 6: Emotional systems and
Daily life practices.
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Try to keep in mind that ...
... we don’t really know what it is to meditate or what it is to be mindful. We think we do, but we don't.
We don't really know how our mindful sessions should feel, or what a 'good session' really is. And we don't really know how to assess how we are doing. It's a symptom or consequence of what we sometimes call The Fall that we do think we know.
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Indeed, we can ask ourselves the very simple question, 'What makes us think that we do know what mediation or mindfulness should be like? How do we know whether it is going well or badly? Again, the fact is that we don't!
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The wise assessment seems to be: 'Every session is a good session.' And the wise advice seems to be, 'Just keep going, and the day will come when you'll see the sese of that for yourself.'
Certainly, we can say, 'I'm not enjoying this...or 'I don't think it should be like this...' But perhaps we can learn to sit light to these judgment, these assessments, and simply get on with doing what we can, as we can ...
This is one of those instances where judgement belongs to God. So, let's try to be content to leave it with him!
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Often in our practice (perhaps always) there's something going on at a level and in a way that we cannot recognize or understand.
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Here, when it comes to our practice, sports brand Nike offer the best advice: Just do it — and leave all judgment about how it's going to the one who knows, namely God. (By the way, God always appreciates our efforts more than we can imagine.) ​​
Two short videos used in Week 1 of the course, both suggesting something about what mindfulness is ...
From American organisation Happify,
a quirky two-minute animation: Mindfulness is a Superpower. Click here.
A simple four-minute introduction to mindfulness/meditation from Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).
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MBSR is a secular programme but massively influential and has helped many people. The video is well worth watching. Click here.
Mindfulness in a Nutshell
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What is it to be mindful?
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'Being mindful is being present to the present.'
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That is, being present to and with our present moment experience,
that is, to whatever is present to us in the present moment—be that experiences through the senses (sights, sounds, tastes, etc.), or
thoughts, feelings, memories—whatever.
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And we are not being mindful when we are entangled in any hopes, fears,
pleasures or pains associated with those present moment experiences,
which very easily and very often happens.
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Keep in mind that we can only ever meet God in the present moment.
(That is where time meets eternity.)
God is only ever in the present moment.
He was there in every moment of the past, and he left behind
certain 'traces' of his presence;
some of these can help meet him in this or any present moment.
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For we can only ever meet God in the present.
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God himself is always present in the present moment.
Image © Racool Studio on Freepik
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See the pannal to the right for some thoughts on the best way to crack the shall of the nut and get to the treasure inside.
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​Some thoughts on
'cracking the nut'
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The key dispositions that will help us 'crack the nut' are kindness, gratitude and trust. (Ultimately, we'll see that all three come to us as gifts.)
These three equate, in reverse order, to faith and hope and love. Trust/faith is trusting that, however well or poorly things seems to us to be going, God is on our side and at work for our good. ​Gratitude/hope is fitting because, since God is at work on our behalf, things are always moving forward. ​Kindness/love is always appropriate because God’s love is both the ground of all things and the fulfilment of all things, and the way of growth, step by step, is also love.
These three (trust, gratitude, and kindness) are all inherently gentle, while yet incalculable strength is hidden in that gentleness.
A not-so-helpful approach to 'cracking the nut' is to use the sledge-hammer of force and aggression, often appearing as self-criticism and that kind of complaint and coercion where we try to make ourselves what we think we ought to be.Just think, with a sledge-hammer we might well crack the shell of the nut, but then the nut inside would be ruined, and not at the little treasure it is meant to be. Pushing the analogy, this squashed and flattened nut would neither be good for eating nor would it ever be able to germinate and grow. ​
Kindness — Gratitude — Trust ​'These three abide ...' See 1 Cor 13.13)
