The practice we will learn here is called Shamatha (Sanskrit) (Shinee in Tibetan) or calm abiding. When the turbulence, we create in our mind, calms down, we can see things more clearly and our mind becomes more usable for all kinds of things, and it becomes a good learning environment to support your further learning proces during the meditation. Also we discover the natural qualities inherent in the mind and are able to cultivate these seeds to blooming flowers. This experienced meditation teacher (lama Zeupa, see photo), takes you by the hand during this proces.
In this course experience and science come together in a harmonious way. Two kinds of research methods were used during the last centuries (in the buddhist tradition): first person observation and also during the last decades through science: third-person observation.
Improve your meditation practice in 21 days of practice practice practice
- You will get to know tools and terms to apply in the meditation in order to improve your meditation practice.
- You will train in improving your focus and clarity in the mind.
- You will become more in touch with your body and learn to use this to support your focus.
- You train in coming back to the here and now again and again, instead of wandering around in worries. Like this you step out of your head into reality.
- By using these meditation instructions, your will bring your inner ratrace to rest. Then the natural state of your mind will be able to come to the surface, and you will get to know its natural qualities: clarity, love, joy, compassion, … Just discover for yourself!
- You will also further cultivate qualities like patience, equanimity, but also love and compassion.
- You learn to find a balance between concentration an relaxation in mind and body.
- You will learn the skill of acceptance: to stop fighting (and creating more turbulence in the mind) and to really open up and stay in touch with whatever comes up in your reality.
- You learn to stay open with painful ànd with pleasant experiences, without getting attached.
- You learn to stay in touch with reality, and confront anything coming on your path with calmness.
- You will get in touch with what is present within yourself: thoughts, emotions, … the whole range of your inner landscape, sometimes also the things you tried to push away for many months.
- You learn to be a calm witness of this without interfering, you will learn to observe and let go.
- The result of your sustained training is that you will be able to abide for longer periods in this natural calmness of the mind, and be a calm witness with upcoming thoughts or emotions. You will see things more clearly and the natural qualities of your mind can bloom.
You learn to deepen your meditation experience by practicing these simple, basic and fundamental meditation instructions.
- We help you to reflect on the meditation instructions and on your meditation experience in order to facilitate your learning experience.
- Step by step you will improve by receiving new instructions after you have been able to train your mind with the first instructions.
- Like this we build one lesson on to the other, mixing it with your experience.
We guide you in a 21 day course to set you on the road, but you can improve your practice for the rest of your life. It is also recommended to do a retreat in order to facilitate your learning experience.
About this kind of learning process
In this course you will not learn anything … not in a cognitive way, at least. The learning proces is one of enskillment. It is not interesting at all to read these words, like reading a book or to listen to the teaching audio. There is no philosophy or psychological mysteries to be revealed. The words itself will not teach you anything. They only point you the way. Don’t look at the finger pointing, but when you mix the meditation instructions into your own experience, you can see for yourself what you discover on that path. It is there, inside you, that the true learning proces is taking place. This is a skill that is brought into life, like a dance, or like cooking classes, or playing the piano. You don’t learn it by reading the words or hearing the teachings, but by practicing the instructions.
First-person research through personal experience
The teachings in this course are very short, pitch instructions to be applied immediately in your practice. Why are these instructions so successful? Not only because they were said to be carried on from the Buddha himself, in a warm lineage to the teacher of this course. Lama Zeupa and his teachers (eg. Kalu Rinpoche) are all students of this lineage since childhood. A warm lineage means: that the instructions were given from teacher to student, who then becomes a teacher and passes it on. It is not something cognitive that is passed on, like something that can be written in a book. A quality of this lineage is that it is passed on and practiced for several years, mixed with the students experience, before it is further passed on. Like a dance, you dance for a while this life with your teacher, who observes your learning process and points you in the right direction. (Photo: Kalu Rinpoche)
Third-person research by modern science
Not only were these meditation instructions secularised into the mindfulness practices in mainstream psychology and extensively researched by scientists. Also long-term Buddhist practitioners and teachers were subjected to neuro-imaging techniques. This made Steven Laureys (one of the top scientists in neuroscientific research), conclude that they are the top athletes of brain gym. Lama Zeupa, the meditation teacher in this course is not only his guinea pig, but also one of his teachers.
