100 days of Shamatha - abiding in peace.

‘Shamatha means 'calm abiding', it is the ability to remain at peace. What does peace mean? In Islam it means coming into harmony with the source of life. This is expressed in Buddhism as the blowing out of the 'ego' which is called Nirvana. In Christianity, it says the people of the Divine are known by the gift of peace. Thus if you are peaceful it means you are a Sannyasin, a Sufi, one of God's people, a Mystic, a Buddha. It is knowing this peace that makes one actually conscious.

Once we find peace within ourselves it spills out into our life. It is the ability to remain in truth that determines the quality of our life. If we continue to fall prey to anger, jealousy, discontent, anxiety, stress, worry, guilt, fear, whining no matter what we do in life we will never be happy. We may book our dream holiday, or buy our dream house or find our dream partner but if we continue on with no inner peace we will NEVER be happy. However if we can remain in peace, no matter if we have very difficult external circumstances we can remain happy. What to say of having our dream holiday, house and partner AND having a joyful, loose, contented, humorous, loving mind? Jesus, peace be upon his holy name, called this 'the kingdom of heaven.'

On this course we will learn various meditation methods to help us find and rest in our inner joy, our inner peace. Our consciousness is a vast phenomenon, it has depths of peace difficult to comprehend when we first come to 'the Path.' What this means is it doesn't matter if you're a beginner or have been practising for years. On the course there will be regular group discussion with practitioners of different stages of practice. This is very helpful for all concerned. For beginners to see how meditation affects us and for more advanced practitioners to articulate and share their experience. In other words the group provides a good support for your delving into inner peace. One is not alone here.’ ~ Lama Noah Samarkand.

Classes will be Wednesday evenings 19:30 - 21:30 with one Q&A discussion per month.