Why A Year of Meditation?

My aim with Beachcomber Meditation is to make meditation accessible to a wider range of people, specifically those of us with busy lives, who don’t have regular blocks of spare time to devote to a meditation practice. 

I notice with the many meditators who I have previously worked with, even those who are serious enough to be doing a Masters degree in Mindfulness, that we can struggle to fit a regular meditation practice into our busy lives. 

I also didn’t want the aim of making the path of meditation more available to undermine its effectiveness or the depth of the teachings and meditations that we could explore together. 

That’s why I came up with A Year of Meditation. It signals the long term approach  to meditation, which enables transformation of our minds and our hearts, and which enables us to enjoy the lives we have and to be happy. But it is flexible, so that you can sign up for as many or as few months as you like. 

Each month we will explore a theme and the teachings, meditations and reflections we explore will become deeper week by week. We will explore each theme starting by noticing what is happening. Then we will notice how we feel about what is happening. This will enable us to notice the mental activity happening in the mind relating to our monthly theme. Then we will turn our attention to become curious about that which knows the mental activity, and becoming that which knows. Therefore, by the end of each month we will be touching on the non-dual aspect of whatever theme we are exploring. 

The key to happiness is recognising that the mental activity is not what we truly are. What we truly are is that which knows the mental activity. So by the end of each month we will be meditating, or actually practicing non-meditation to be what we truly are. 

What we truly are is being, which we tend to overlook because we are so caught up in and identified with the mental activity. The inherent quality of our being is always peaceful, happy and effortlessly joyful. The inherent quality of our being is never damaged or impacted in any way by the mental activity happening within it. This is the non-dual aspect. Recognising and abiding in our being, infuses our mind and life with its qualities of peace, happiness and effortless joy. 

So that will be our journey each month. For the first six months our themes will be the six habits of happy people. These habits are presence, gratitude, kindness, resilience, good relationship skills and living with purpose and meaning. 

For the next six months we will explore these themes by noticing what is happening in our minds in relation to these themes, noticing how we feel about what is happening, recognising that all this is mental activity and opening to and becoming that which knows the mental activity. 

The meditations and reflections will be fifteen minutes long and there will be daily life activities to do as well as journaling prompts (if you like journaling). You can fit these into your schedule at a time to suit you. There will also be short teaching blogs to read. We will get together each week on a Thursday evening at 8pm (UK time) for a talk, a practice and a sharing, but if you can’t make that time you can catch up the Zoom recording of the session, whenever you have time. 

Also, we won’t be taking ourselves too seriously. My intention is for us to have fun. To laugh and enjoy exploring our minds. I hope to create the conditions for this in A Year of Meditation. 

If you are thinking about subscribing to A Year of Meditation for £9.99 a month, why not start by trying out some of our free offerings, such as the guided audio on our home page, or why not join on a Monday morning or evening for a free fifteen minute Zoom meditation with me. Or catch up with the recordings of the Monday meditations at a time to suit you. 

It all starts on the 1st May and I hope to see you there.