Lektion 1
The Basics Of Mindfulness & Setting The Foundation For Your Practice
Before we explore the full range of mindfulness practices and insights contained in this course, it will serve us well to make sure we are getting the basics right. This will provide the introductory knowledge required for the deeper and more subtle aspects we will develop later. What is mindfulness, how do I do it, and why does it work?
In this session, we explore the five essential elements of mindfulness and the four steps of mindfulness. We will also look at the idea of having a foreground and a background to our awareness and how this can help us move away from the idea of having to make effort to focus or concentrate during our mindfulness practice. The second part of the session takes this idea further and describes how developing this concept of the foreground and the background of awareness can lead to more profound experiencces.
Lektion 2
Being Mindful Of Your Mind & Your Thoughts
The one thing that will always be with us when we sit down to practice mindfulness and be more present is our own mind and our thoughts. This session will provide insights into how to approach your thoughts - what to do and, just as importantly, what not to do. This can lead to a radical change on how we expereince our mind and our thoughts.
In this session, we cover the following topics:
- Treating our thoughts just like anything else
- Don’t make your thoughts the enemy
- Why trying to stop your thoughts doesn’t work
- How big is your mind?
- Maximising mindful mental activity
- Whole concept thinking
Lektion 3
The Six Elements Of Mindfulness
Practising mindfulness can sometimes feel like an isolated and introspective activity. But that need
not be the case at all. In this session we will learn how, in fact, mindfulness can take you far beyond yourself and encompass so much more. The Six Elements of Mindfulness meditation is a gateway to connecting to the expansive world that you are always a part of. The Six Elements meditation brings you to a direct experience of that which most fundamentally joins all of together as one.
Lektion 4
The Subtleties Of Mindfulness Practice
After practising mindfulness for a while, it starts to become clear how subtle it can be. Eventually we realise that we are teaching orselves how to be, how to enter into a state of being. This state of being is about accepting the flow of the present moment without interfering with it. This session will look at exactly how we can do that.
The session includes:
- Mindfulness, t’ai chi, and relaxation
- Three levels of presence
- Neither this nor that
Lektion 5
Going Deeper Into The Mind
This session discusses autonomic thoughts and autonomic emotions. Do we consciously create our thoughts and emotions? If not, what implications does this have? Learn how mindfulness can change our experience of negative thoughts and emotions and can inspire new types of thoughts and a new approach to our emotions.
Lektion 6
The Breadth Of Mindfulness
In this session, we talk about why isn’t mindfulness easy. We will learn about taking opportunities for everyday mindful moments and catching a moment of pure being. Lastly, we ruminate on whether visualisation meditation be seen as a mindfulness practice.
Lektion 7
Some Unique Aspects Of Mindfulness
In this session we explore some diverse questions related to the mindfulness experience. Can we be mindful when we are asleep? Can mindfulness lead to an experience of the eternal when it's in being mindful that we're actually in the present moment? Can mindfulness really be a completely secular experience?What practice is right for you.
Topics in this session include:
- Mindfulness meditation and lucid dreaming
- Demystifying eternity
- The illusion of now
- The mindfulness contradiction
- Don’t try to fit in
