Foundations of Meditation
A six-week course in the essentials
Tue 25 June | 7.15 - 9.30pm | In person | £100/£70
In this six-week course you’ll get a thorough grounding in the principles behind the two practices we teach at the LBC. You’ll also fine-tune your meditation posture, learn how to respond to distractions of different kinds and discover how to get more deeply absorbed. Everything you need to build a strong daily practice and engage confidently with any further meditation teaching you encounter at the LBC. The course teaches meditation from the Buddhist perspective and will introduce Buddhist aids to meditation such as mantra chanting and Buddhist ritual.
Structure of the course
- Setting Foundations: The course will give you a thorough grounding in both the Metta Bhavana (development of loving-kindness) and Mindfulness of Breathing meditations.These practices are rooted in thousands of years of Buddhist tradition and are the foundation to any effective Buddhist spiritual practices. We will also look at essential areas of a meditation practice such as good posture and preparation.
- Transforming Difficulty: By the end of the course you will have tools to work with emotional or physical difficulty in your experience both inside and outside of meditation. We will look at the hindrances to concentration in meditation and set out the means for overcoming these.
- Cultivating Positivity: The course will give you the essential tools to cultivating more and more pleasure and positivity through your meditation practice. Much more than a de-stressing technique, meditation can unlock increasing amounts of energy, calm, friendliness and pleasure. You will learn how to encourage beneficial mental states through your meditation.
- Establishing A Lifelong Practice: The course will look to open up what can be a lifelong journey of Buddhist practice. The course is rooted in the Buddha's vision of the vast potential of the human mind. It will present meditation within its traditional context of our radical potential to transform our lives and unlock our deepest human potential.
Week 1
Learn the basics of meditation posture and other foundations for meditation, discover the Mindfulness of Breathing meditation practise
Week 2
Hear about the Buddha's teaching on the second arrow on how to work with and overcome discomfort and pain in our physical and emotional experience
Week 3
Learn the 5 hindrances to deepening our concentration in meditation and the 5 antidotes to apply to those hindrances
Week 4
Learn the Metta Bhavanna practise on how to cultivate more and more friendliness and love through meditation and how to transform hatred and ill will
Week 5
Discover how to develop more and more pleasure in our experience through meditation and use that pleasure to become more absorbed
Week 6
Look at how to balance effort in meditation so meditation is neither too tense nor too slack allowing for a state of energised calm to arise
Is this course for me?
This foundations course is open to everyone, including complete newcomers, and is aimed at making meditation accessible to all. By the end of the course you will have all the tools for a lifelong meditation practise and you will be well placed to engage with any class at the London Buddhist centre.
The classes take place at the London Buddhist Centre, in a friendly environment. They are led by Buddhist teachers who will guide you through each week's topic, answer your questions, and help you to reflect on how the teachings are relevant in your life.
There will also be opportunities to connect with others, through discussion and a tea break. After each class, we will send you a follow-up email with the key ideas and practices to try out during the week. We'll also support you to think about next steps when the course ends.
We hope to see you there!
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I get the most from the course?
Here are some top tips for taking part:
Come every week – whether you feel like it or not. If you look for motivation before you do something, you reverse your motivation; mostly you only want to do something when you’re actually doing it.
Come early – so you can relax before the class.
Do your ‘home practice’ every day – then each week you’ll be in a small group to check in about how that went.
What if I can’t make every session?
Often people need to miss a session or two, so feel free to book anyway. We'll send follow-up emails which will recap some of the content you missed.
If you are going to miss a class – Just get in touch so that we know and do come back the following week.
What if I can’t afford it?
If money is a barrier to you booking on a course, you can use the concessionary rate or alternatively email bookings@lbc.org.uk or call 02087099978 (10am-5pm weekdays) and we would be happy to discuss other ways to help you get on retreat.
You can read more information about payments and cancellations on our Bookings Policy page here.
