Weekly Drop-in Meditation Classes in Devonport

Thursdays | 6.30 – 7.45pm | The Meeting Room,
Devonport Recreation Centre, 34 Forbes St, Devonport

Class Fee: $12. Drop-in any week

Love Without Pain
Sep 9, 16 & 23

Although we all seek happiness in our close relationships, so many of those relationships end up burdened with too much of the opposite: Unhappiness. According to Buddha this is because we often confuse desirous attachment for love.

Desirous attachment is a deluded, unpeaceful state of mind that sees the other people as our source of happiness, and consequently expects them to make us happy. But it is a con job. Happiness doesn’t come from other people. It comes from our own mind. Desirous attachment undermines our love for family, friends and others, making those relationships ordinary and setting us up for dissatisfaction and conflict again and again.

In this series, we will learn how to recognize and reduce our desirous attachment and to replace it with an authentic love that actually does reveal pure happiness. We will learn what real love is and cultivate it. We will learn what interferes with real love and abandon it. In this way we will come to know love without pain and everything in our life will change. 

The Peace of Letting Go
Sep 30, Oct 7 & 14

Letting go. It’s easy to say but hard to do. Yet if we can learn to let go…..of painful emotions, of bad experiences from the past, of self-critical minds, of self-limiting views, of everything that’s holding us back. If we can do this then limitless peace and freedom awaits us on the other side.

To learn to let go, we must learn how to stop holding on. And to stop holding on we need to understand what we are holding on to. It’s clear that many of the thoughts we hold on to are not helping us in any way, in fact the things we hold on to are often the direct cause of our pain. And grabbing onto them so tightly only makes matters worse.

In this series, see how you can get inside the mind that can’t let go, won’t let go, doesn’t want to let go. In Buddhism we call this mind attachment, and when we see it’s deceptive nature and what it’s doing to us we can abandon it and finally experience lasting happiness and genuine peace of mind.

The most simple, easiest instruction you could give a human being is this: sit down, relax and breathe.

This is exactly how we begin to meditate. And we all know what happens. The most simple thing quickly becomes incredibly complicated. What should be so easy becomes very difficult. Our mind just goes everywhere. It just will not do what we want it to: it seems to have a life of its own. We might be smiling and serene on the outside but on the inside we are doing our weekly shopping, dreaming of next year’s holiday, having a mental chat or finishing off an argument from 2016. We’ve all been there!

The danger is we can come to two wrong conclusions: meditation doesn’t work or I can’t meditate. We can really miss out on finding reliable peace of mind and happiness in our lives and different ways of solving our daily problems. How sad would that be?

If we get the basics wrong, or neglect them, we can “meditate” for years and make little progress. But if we get the basics right, then what follows becomes easier, simpler and results come quickly. We get the confidence that good meditation brings, we become happier and more secure in ourselves.

At this 3 week drop-in class series, learn the essential inner skills to become an effective meditator and enjoy the opportunity to be guided through simple meditations where you can learn to practice them.

The classes are suitable for beginners and also experienced meditators who wish to get back to basics or refresh their meditation tools.

The Teacher

The Teacher of these classes is Sarah Bissell. Sarah teaches with warmth and  gentleness. She clearly demonstrates how Buddha’s teachings provide solutions to our problems and difficulties, and exemplifies how everyone can integrate the path of loving kindness into their modern lives.

The Venue

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The Meeting Room, Devonport Recreation Centre,
34 Forbes Street

Please note that all our classes follow covid-safe procedures.
Please do not attend if:

• You have any COVID symptom (in particular coughing, sore throat, fever or shortness of breath).
• If you are awaiting COVID test results.
• If you or a close contact have been diagnosed with COVID within the last 14 days.

By attending these classes you have read and understood our covid-safe procedures which can be found here.

For enquiries:
email: samudrabookings@gmail.com
phone: 0466 336 772