“If we want to be happy all the time and to be free from problems, we must develop and maintain a peaceful mind.”
– Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, How to Transform Your Life
In Buddhism, the term mindfulness is interchangeable with meditation.
Mindfulness is that part of the mind we need to cultivate in order to practice meditation. Mindfulness technically means to remember, to be mindful. We already have mindfulness, the problem is we have mindfulness of the wrong things. For example, if we have a tendency towards anxiety we’ve already mastered mindfulness of remembering all the things that might go wrong.
That’s why we need to train in mindfulness of the right things, to train ourselves to focus on those aspects of our mind that produce what we actually want – peace, happiness and an expansive and open heart.
We can think of meditation as focusing the mind on the internal causes of peace and happiness. The beautiful thing is we carry these internal causes with us everywhere we go. While we all already have them, we need to learn how to recognize them. Once we can recognize our internal causes of peace and happiness. we then train in remaining mindful of them.
This is essentially what the practice of meditation is all about, and how it can be used to completely eradicate all suffering, including the suffering of anxiety.
Price: $15 for the Special Event, followed by $15 per class, or sign up for all five follow-on classes in advance for $50 (save $25).
During the special event, Kadam Morten will explore:
- The nature of anxiety
- The causes of anxiety
- How we can let go of anxiety
- How we can respond positively when anxiety arises in daily life
- How we can discover our actual nature from which our true potential arises
Five week follow-up course offered on Monday nights and Wednesday nights taught by Joseph Giacona and Daniel Koren:
- Week 1: Meditation and Inner Peace
- Week 2: Understanding Anxiety
- Week 3: The Key to Letting Go
- Week 4: From Fear to Courage
- Week 5: The Power of Fearless Living
This event and course is also offered at our Chelsea location.
Sponsored by Kadampa Meditation Center – Williamsburg Branch: The Williamsburg Branch of the Kadampa Meditation Center was established over 13 years ago to provide people in the Brooklyn area with the opportunity to learn about and practice Buddha’s teachings. To fulfill this aim, we have created a peaceful city sanctuary located in the heart of Williamsburg. Based on the books of the modern day Buddhist teacher, Ven. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, we present Buddha’s teachings in an accessible manner that can easily be integrated into our modern lives.