Find Your Peace Through Meditation

Learn the basics of meditation and how to initiate and maintain a daily practice that works for you. The Monastic can guide you in finding the right time and space to meditate, as well as different meditation methods, postures, reflections, and chants. We will discuss the hindrances to "successful" practice, and how to address them when they arise. 

Stress can take a toll on your mental and physical health. Whether dealing with study, work, family responsibilities, traffic, or  relationships, stress for most people is a fact of life. Our meditation sessions are designed to help you to relax, let go of tension, reduce anxiety and just Be.  Our blend of guided and silent meditations will leave you feeling calm and centered, able to face the stresses and strains of daily activities with greater stability and equanimity, and less subject to the vicissitudes of life.

One of the main meditations we employ is Metta Bhavana, or Loving -Friendliness Meditation.  This practice opens the heart and creates lovingkindness for ourselves, those close to us, the indifferent and unfriendly, and ultimately all beings. The Buddha teaches us that Metta Bhavana can lead to a liberated heart, a joyful disposition, and numerous other benefits.

If you struggle with falling asleep or staying asleep, meditation can help. One of the eleven benefits which the Buddha identifies flowing from meditation is the ability to fall asleep easily and sleep well. Meditation also has other health benefits, like decreased heart rate and blood pressure, positive changes in brain waves, better  digestion and even complexion.  Perhaps more  importantly, meditation can provide a precious gift - a quiet mind leading to serenity and peace.

 Our sessions are designed to help you cultivate mindfulness and concentration, which are essential steps on the path to insight. Greater focus, patience, compassion, and equanimity can also be expected by engaging in Samatha, or One - Pointed Meditation. Once the mind is concentrated, students can progress on the path toward Vipassana, or Insight. This is where real transformation can occur, and direct seeing into the nature of oneself and the universe.  

Emotions and negative mind - states can sometimes be almost overwhelming.  In Theravadin Buddhism, we learn about the roots of these unwholesome states, and  address them in our Meditation Practice. This purifying aspect of the practice allows one to transform the unwholesome and destructive thoughts and emotions into wholesome and productive ones, reducing our habits of negativity, and improving our relationship with ourselves and the world.

 In addition, meditation has a profound effect on quieting the mind of its incessant thinking, which allows us to be more fully present and in-the-moment, free of much of the usual clutter and confusion. This leads to more enriched experience, a sense of oneness and fulfillment with our activities, and a certain contentment with just what is right here and now.