Meditation and Buddhism for Beginners - May/June 2009
We will be offering a short series of classes for people interested in exploring Buddhism and meditation perhaps for the first time. Everyone is welcome to attend and details about this 4 week program are outlined below. If you have any questions about the content of this course, please email Bryan Pietersma: frysk (at) sympatico.ca
Overall Course Structure
- Four consecutive Tuesdays
- Starts on Tuesday, May 19, 2009
- Last class on Tuesday, June 9, 2009
- 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
- Suggested donation of $10 per class OR $30 for all 4 weeks (put toward the cost of maintaining the dharma centre)
Course Content
These are some topics that will be covered in this introductory course. These will be starting points for discussion and participants are invited to bring their own questions.
Meditation
We will discuss and practise some basic meditation techniques:
- Body posture and some other preliminary practices
- Mindfulness of the breath (with counting and without counting)
- Walking meditation
Some Basic Buddhist Concepts
Discussions and readings will address the following ideas. Of course, the content covered will reflect the questions and interests of the group and straying a bit from the intended course content is welcome.
- Who was the Buddha?
- Why do we meditate?
- Four Noble Truths
- The Noble Eightfold Path
- Lam Rim