Making Your Meditation Your Own

When many of us learn how to meditate, we are taught a particular method that seems to aim at a particular goal. When we find that the reality of our experience does not match this promised ideal, we may feel that we have failed and give ourselves a hard time about it or even give up on meditation entirely.

How can we approach meditation in a more open, gentle and allowing way?

This question, the role of the meditation teacher and a new approach to meditation called Recollective Awareness will be the subject of an evening seminar and full-day workshop with visiting American meditation innovator and author of Unlearning Meditation, Jason Siff.

Friday Evening Seminar: Avoiding the Meditation Teacher Trap

Friday April 13, 7:30 — 9:30pm
Cost: $30/20

Please note: If you register and pay for Saturday’s workshop, you will receive a complimentary registration for Friday night’s seminar.

Venue
Kuan Yin Room
Prana House
Level 1, 885 High St
Thornbury
(Melways 30 F4)

In this interactive evening seminar, Jason will discuss how to identify and avoid common pitfalls in the meditation teacher-student relationship such as being tyrannized by the “rules” of meditation and the dangers of unquestioningly taking on the views and beliefs of a teacher as our own.

Saturday Workshop: What Really Happens When You Meditate?

Saturday April 14, 10:00am — 5:00pm
Cost: $100/80

Please note: If you register and pay for Saturday’s workshop, you will receive a complimentary registration for Friday night’s seminar.

Venue
Kuan Yin Room
Prana House
Level 1, 885 High St
Thornbury
(Melways 30 F4)

In this full-day workshop Jason will introduce his innovative approach to meditation, called Recollective Awareness, in which you meditate in an open, unstructured way so that you can experience what really happens in meditation when you don’t try to control the process. This proven method of meditation will be aided after each meditation by recalling and talking about your experiences with the teacher.

Jason Siff

Jason has trained meditation teachers for the past decade and developed ways of working with some of the most common problems within the teacher-student relationship. He lives in Idylwild, Calfornia and is the co-founder of the Skillful Meditation Project and author of several books including his latest, Unlearning Meditation: What to Do When the Instructions Get in the Way.

You can find more information about Jason and his work at www.skillfulmeditation.org

We would like to thank everyone who attended any or all of the three-day extravaganza that was the 2011 Australian Meditation Conference and we look forward to bringing you many more opportunities for personal and professional development in the years to come. 

We were very pleased with the way that the conference unfolded in the skilled hands of AMC MC Dr Craig Hassed and we are very grateful to all our wonderful presenters and musicians for their high quality and diverse contributions.

We know that many of our audience members have amassed a great deal of meditation experience and understanding and we look forward to presenting some new event formats for participants to gain further skills and dialogue with our presenters more closely.