Meditation practice and classes

Meditation and Mindfulness:  One of the best solutions to better manage stress and learn to adapt and overcome all sorts of mental and physical troubles!  We offer group classes each week and individual sessions by appointment.  Each week a different aspect of meditation will be focused on.  These can help you make your life better and reduce your personal suffering, whether it is physical, emotional, or spiritual.

Learn the basics of meditation practice and the when’s, how’s, why’s and what’s of meditation and mindfulness practice. 

Benefits of meditation and mindfulness...

Benefits of meditation are cumulative and does not lose effectiveness over time.  This means you can pick up right where and when you left off.   Meditation is a practice that it takes effort and time in order to see improvement.  It is just like practicing to worry.  Many of us do that on a daily basis and we become very good at it. 

ü  Reduces stress and worry

ü  Reduce anger and resentment

ü  Decreased muscle tension

ü  Improved performance on all levels

ü  Control emotions and recognize feelings

ü  Slows the aging process

ü  Builds compassion and wisdom

ü  Deepens understanding of the self

ü  More self-control

ü  A sense of connectedness

ü  Reduced heart rate and blood pressure

ü  Increased ability to concentrate

ü  Harmonizes the endocrine and neurological systems

ü  Helps in healing

ü  Greater spiritual and mental calmness and confidence

ü  The realization that now is your greatest gift

ü  You decide…

Services/meditation class topics:

Metta. Loving Kindness

Gratitude

Mantra for personal use

Silent sitting

Bigger thinking

Healing body scan

Pain and suffering

Death and dying

Pranayama and specialty breath work

Vipassana insight meditation

Mala work

Beginner’s meditation

Success and accomplishment

Tactical mindfulness for first responders

Half day workshop on Meditation and Mindfulness:

Eating meditation

Sitting meditation

Walking meditation

Body scan for healing and wholeness

Chakra balance

Movement meditation

Mantra meditation

What can meditation and mindfulness help?

Depression, anxiety, nightmares, over active mind, worry, aggression problems, recurrent troubling or bad thoughts, pessimism, loneliness, and mood disorders, poor self-esteem, Chronic pain, impulsiveness, fear, stress, lack of focus, scattered mind, memory, ADHD, PTSD, IBS, High blood pressure, rapid heart rate, inflammatory disorders, Panic disorder, loss of focus, asthma, PMS, menopausal symptoms,  chronic disease processes…

Why meditation and mindfulness? 

In practice for over 25 years, I have been able to dramatically change not only my own life but the lives of every student that has continued with personal and group practice.

Check us out on line for more!  We post daily somewhere and send out videos and emails to help you in your personal quest for great health.

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Twitter (@centeredpath)  

Dr. Sean H. Thompson (Reverend) has taught meditation and mindfulness for over fifteen years. 

Founder and board member of the International Order of Buddhist Ministers as well as a Delegate of the United Nations Day of Vesak Conferences, he began his practice in martial arts over 35 years ago and continued on to a more philosophical approach which lead him to mindfulness and meditation practice and his Buddhist journey on the Centered Path. 

He is a fully ordained and classically trained Buddhist Minister, Dharma name: Dhammajivaka.  He practices a non-denominational Buddhist practice of ‘Chan’ which is the precursor to modern Zen.  His teachers are: Ven. Bhante Chao Chu, LABU Abbot of Rosemead Buddhist Monastery (Mahayana), Ven. Dr. Walpola Piyananda, (Theravada) Abbot of Dharma Vijaya Buddhist Vihara, and Rimpoche Jigme Dorje, Abbot of Khawalung Monastery (Vajrayana)

The bad trip in meditation.

Recent articles describe over a quarter of people that practice meditation have bad experiences.

Here's my take.

I have taught meditation for over 15 years now and have practiced for well over 40 years.  I have had bad experiences or bad trips while meditating and because of meditating.  I have had many of my 'students'  (I think of people that practice with me as more of a colleague than a student even though I am going through the steps of how, when, where, why and what to meditate about.) report difficulties, bad trips and unpleasant experiences.  This is how I help people through and past those times. 

I read four different articles from four different sources that turn out to be the same article, lightly massaged to appear different and had different titles. This seemed to become a big topic around 2018 or so.  Now there are even associations that can help you if you have had bad experiences with mediation.  Here are the links to those articles.

https://www.dailysabah.com/…/study-meditation-might-lead-to…

https://www.newscientist.com/…/2202323-a-quarter-of-people…/

https://cosmosmagazine.com/…/meditation-is-a-bad-trip-for-2…

https://www.newsweek.com/meditation-good-you-25-have-unplea…

In the training and practice that I do, meditation is a part of daily life. So it only makes sense that 25% of meditation and life is going to have unpleasant experiences. Meditation is designed to help us effectively deal with 'bad trips', unpleasantness, and... you guessed it... suffering. This is the whole idea of the Buddha dharma or the teachings and truth of Buddhism itself.  The idea of practice is to get ready for something. No one goes to practice thinking it is the real deal, the end of suffering. You need plenty of coaching, guidance, re-dos and discussion to really get the process. You cannot just sit down for 20 minutes and expect your mind to do what you want it to. You have spent your whole life training to be reactionary.  It is going to take practice, effort, time and patience to just see it IS reactionary much less train it to not be reactionary. 

QUICK FIX

The problem with meditation as it is taught currently by some is that it is somehow taught as a destination rather than a journey. We all want a quick fix without putting in any real work.  Time and time again I hear people say to me 'I need to start meditating' , they may show up a couple times and then say they cannot practice for what ever reason.  We seem to want a quick and intensive training to get years of practice into just a couple days.  Look at how many seminars and workshops offer weekend transformational 'life changing' techniques.   Occasionally some find huge benefit from them and it does indeed change their lives but the vast majority just go back to the rut of their 'normal lives' within a few days of the retreat. 

Regular meditation

One of the articles even specifically mentioned 'regular meditators' which was a good distinction from those that are just starting out or those that occasionally 'try' meditation. However, many that are regular meditators are not really even meditating, they are ruminating.   I had a "Meetup" group for over five years, with over a thousand 'members'.  Most never showed up.  Less than five percent became regular at their meditation and of those only about one percent of the thousand progressed to at least notice when they were ruminating.  

Ruminating is re-chewing something over and over. Cows are called ruminants because they 'chew their cud'. They belch up stomach contents to re-chew it for digestive purposes. Many people do the same thing, running it over and over in the mind, trying to find another answer, or simply just attempting to think the problem to death. This is what I see many do in their minds when they stop to meditate. They sit and think over everything that the day was about, all the stuff they need to do and all kinds of junk they are worrying about. Here is the main problem with this- They are practicing worry. They are training their minds to ruminate, to worry, to fret, to be agitated. Sooner or later, they will be very adept at it.

I had a client come in for some work and we discussed meditation, he said he had been practicing TM for over 30 years and had to stop because it stopped working for him. With a little prodding it came clear. This guy was a high end executive and had a very stressful work life. When he would get stressed he would sequester himself away for 20 minutes and chant his mantra, he would meditate. The only problem was, he would only meditate when he was stressed so he started to link and anchor stress to his time meditating and also linked in his body mind his mantra to stress. No wonder it didn't work for him.

Being good at it

So here is the problem. You will become good at what you practice. Practice happiness you will become happy, practice gratitude, you will be more thankful. Your mind will look for ways to continue that feeling if it is beneficial.   If you practice meditation or mindfulness at the right time, place etc.  You will get better at it.  But we have to ask, better at what?  That depends on your intention or reason for meditating in the first place.  We have to decide what our 

I teach people to have as many anchors as they can when they meditate, I also tell them to find a specific time to meditate. What is an anchor you ask?  A meditation anchor is anything you purposefully use routinely in a meditation where over time, this becomes part of the meditation and helps you to get to a place of your intent.  These can be place, time, a color, sound, smell or any sensory aspect of your meditation.  This way, when they have many specific links to relaxation, or even the intent of focus on calm, that is what you will do, focus on calm then they will become good at it. So when a stressful event occurs their set point is better, they see the stress coming and can choose to act differently. This takes time, study, discussion and practice. Without any discussion or study, you are merely sitting there in your own cesspool mind, practicing exactly what you are thinking... stress, clinging, worry, agitation...

When you have a place to meditate that is away from your regular stressors, with scents, colors, items, pictures, statues and even routine that is only used when you are setting your mind and body for meditation and calm, then you can really get the essence of the art of mediation, that it is a practice for when stuff comes up OFF the meditation cushion. That is when the rubber hits the road. You cannot check the air pressure, brakes and tread in the middle of a hard skidding stop. That should have been done before. That is why we call it PRACTICE.

This is probably the main reason I am not fond of the mindfulness movement. It has taken Buddhist meditation practice and secularized it, thinking that if they took out the moral training and study it would somehow make it less 'religious'. It doesn't work. S.N. Goenka did it with Vipassana, and it works lovely. There is hardly a mention of the Buddha. Instead, in my opinion, he was able to teach it as the Buddha intended. Approachable and doable by all, not just those that paid homage to him. No ceremony, no dogma, just insight meditation.

I was taught in the Buddhist Chan and Theravada traditions, so there is plenty of dogma and ceremony. I found it useful for me at times, other times, I did not so I let it go. I was able to see how my study of psychology and mental well being really meshed with that training and I have been able to transmogrify Buddhist (Eastern thought) into a more palatable form for Westerners.

The hard part is to slow people down with meditation and mindfulness. They want too much too fast. It was not designed to be that w

ay and is in no way a panacea.

So, let go. Just sit. Comfortably... breathe. You can do this. If you can decide to sit you can decide to change the way you react to your mind.

See you on the mat.

Dr. Rev. Sean H. Thompson (Dhammajivaka)

http://www.thecenteredpath.org

To think, it is NOW everywhere.

In the meditation process we are attempting to really look at things as they are... now.  It is one of the most difficult things one can do without practice.  However, that is exactly why we practice. We spend some time see-ing things as they are in the present moment.  Soon we realize that we are all in THIS now moment.  We can stop thinking about yesterday and tomorrow, all the 'shoulds' and 'woulds' and get to what is going on now.  Are we satisfied?  Dissatisfied?  Uncomfortable?
As we learn to sit, we become still.  It is in that stillness that we can become aware of ourselves and what is going on around us.  Without judgement, commentary or even flashbacks or flash-forwards to events we mull about at other times.

Once we have sat for a while, become still and start to see things for the way they are, we can start to realize our suffering and the suffering of others.  Not suffering like being ill or something but it can mean that.  I am talking about that general 'angst' that we all feel when things are not quite going the way we want.  Time is too slow, too fast, it is too cold or hot, etc.

How can we get to that point in time when everything seems to stop?  By stopping of course.  LOL.
In order to meditate we just have to sit and do it, even if only for a few moments at first.  Soon you will start to like it because it feels good not to be rushing all over the place or thinking too much.  But that is only the beginning.  Later we feel the need to breathe.  It comes naturally usually yes, but it is something that fortunately we can control.  Something we can slow or speed up with a mere thought.  We soon realize it is thoughts that control breathing and breathing can control (influence at least) thoughts.

Think for example of how you breathe when you are angry?  They are not deep breaths that are flowing and smooth.  Our breathing is faster, heavier and higher in the chest.  Think about it.  In fact, just  try to breathe that way for few breaths.  Many times you will automatically start thinking of things that have made you angry in the past.  What suffering!  All just because of a pattern.    If we spend a lot of time thinking angry thoughts our breathing habits will change and it will be easier and easier to lose our tempers.  With the first step of sitting and becoming still we can start to see this occur and realize that our mood is really influenced by our breath.  Spend some time contemplating that?  Do you do that?  Do you know someone that does?

Now think of something sad, notice the body and the breath.  Totally different isn't it?  It is with that subtle stillness we can 'calmly abide' and see it.  Then we notice it for what it is, a thought.  A totally non-substantial thought.  Now, when I says non-substantial I am taking it as the word indicates.  Without substance.  It has no weight, no mass, no power except that which we have decided to give it.
Think of this quote:  'What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly."  How sad to be that caterpillar!  The end is there, all is done, all for naught!  But wait a little bit... notice the conditions that are present and you will soon see a butterfly.

Well, back to now.

When we really try and stay with the breath as it happens we find that we start to notice things we have never noticed before.  We feel movement in the body, or we feel air at our nostrils or at our lips.  This is a great progress point!   Start to watch your own breathing as if you were a scientist.  Just observe it, don't try and make it faster or slower or try to guide it in any way.  Just watch your breath, experience it.  It seems really futile and stupid at first, but you will catch on, I promise.

Next we can start to notice where you feel the breath in the body.  Is it all in your chest?  Are there other sensations you feel?

Now that you have contacted the breath, the next thing is to just realize this moment for what it is.  All THIS is happening now... Think now out side this space you occupy.  No matter how far away you can imagine.  Even a distant galaxy.  It is now.  Yes it may take years for that light to get to us, but now is now, soon you may realize that is all there IS...

About Dhammajivaka and The Centered Path.

Reverend Sean Hugh Thompson was fully ordained as a Buddhist Minister in 2006 under both the Mahayana and Theravada traditions.  He practices, studies and teaches based on the Chan style of Buddhism, the precursor to Zen and Sohn practices.  Reverend Sean was given the Dharma name of ‘Dhammajivaka’ after not only the meaning of the word ‘Good son of the Dhamma’ but also after Jivaka, the physician of the Buddha.  Since Rev. Sean is a holistic health provider, chiropractor and acupuncturist, he is able to apply and teach concepts of Buddhism in his holistic healthcare practice for his patients.   Rev. Sean also teaches contemplative, calming and insight meditation weekly.

The Centered Path is a church organization, registered as a 501c3 non-profit organization with the purpose of diminishing suffering for all beings as best we can.  Each week, Rev. Sean of the Centered Path presents topics like this in his Sunday morning class.  If you are in the Parker Colorado area on a Sunday, feel free to stop by.  Mediation and discussion are always free. 

You can, however, donate to help this project develop and continue.  Please contact me directly at thebasicbuddhist@gmail.com

Website:  http://www.thecenteredpath.org

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Youtube:  http://www.youtube.com/c/BasicBuddhist 

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