Last week I facilitated a workshop for volunteers at Greenwich Hospital, here in Sydney: An Introduction to Meditation.
Through a series of very small and simple techniques, participants were given the opportunity to discover certain qualities and experiences associated with meditation: being in the present, relaxed, aware and centred; conscious ventilation; being responsive rather than reactive; and accessing our capacity to be joyful and loving, and so on.
My aim was to provide not just a lovely day which, however delightful in the moment, would be forgotten as if it had never happened some weeks down the line, but one which would also give participants a repertoire of techniques that they could take away and immediately integrate into their everyday living.
The feedback included appreciation of having been given an eclectic assortment of approaches. Perhaps the majority of those new to meditation have the idea that it is either about chanting a mantra (as in TM) or sitting passively, watching the breath (as in the Buddhist tradition).
The notion that any activity done with awareness is a meditation was new to most of the group, I imagine. Probably none anticipated that as one of the methods we’d be doing a form of meditation called gibberish (and would find it to be, in fact, a fun and effective form of tension release)!
Some participants were overjoyed to have a day just for themselves, to nourish and rejuvenate them. We all need that, and especially, perhaps, those who – like the volunteers – are with the sick and dying.
A follow-up day (in fact, a morning) in a few weeks’ time will give participants an opportunity to talk about how it has been for them to introduce meditation into their everyday lives, and to discuss how to be – and remain – motivated to meditate.
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