Workshop in Toronto

I am doing a workshop on mindfulness through the Mindfulness Clinic in Toronto on September 17th.  For details go to http://www.themindfulnessclinic.ca/therapy-training/seminars-workshops/#intro.

Refer to bancroftmeditates.com

As of February 1st, this account will be deleted.  The content can still be seen on www.bancroftmeditates.com.

What is this now?

From the vantage point of experience, the present alone is real.  The past has happened and is just a memory, the future is yet to happen and can only be imagined.  However, if this now is the boundary between the past and future, is it a boundary with width, or is it an indivisible, infinitely thin line?  If it has width, then there must be a past and future within it and another now in this now and so on ad infinitum (the now getting ever smaller).  It is very elusive for sure, constantly shifting as it does.  Can we only "grasp" it as a fleeting memory and pretend that a "now" that constantly eludes us is "present" when it is actually gone?  How can we be "in" the present when it never is "there" long enough?  Yet, it is inescapable:  we are always in the present moment for, after all, that is all there is.

Just as it is: the meditative experience

Truth be told, all that we experience is just what is occurring in the present. Of course, to navigate through life and to make sense of it all, we construct out of these happenings a separation between ourselves and the world and put it all into a frame of past, present and future. This construction is pragmatic; it works for us, but that does not make it ultimately true or real. In meditation, we have an opportunity to connect with our experience just as it is, that is, with these happenings in the present moment. This is not a lofty attainment but the most ordinary. It only requires that we stay present with our experience.

Experiencing the Dhamma by Bhikkhu Khippapanno

Experiencing the Dhamma by Bhikkhu Khippapanno is a compilation of lectures he gave at the Forest Refuge in Barre, Massachusetts in 2009 and in 2013.  I helped edit the first edition and the most recent edition.  It is a free Dhamma book but has been printed in a limited number of copies.  It is now available as a pdf file.  To obtain a copy, click on the Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Experiencing-the-Dhamma-by-Bhikkhu-Khippapanno/359102370937660 or email worker@attentivemind.ca.

What meditation isn't.

A cartoon on what meditation isn't.

The website of Attentive Mind

I have been revamping my website, attentivemind.ca, which describes my psychology practice in Bancroft and Peterborough, Ontario.  I am branching out with online services which are available to all residents of Ontario.