{"id":81919,"date":"2012-05-01T21:53:06","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T02:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/?p=81919"},"modified":"2012-05-01T21:53:06","modified_gmt":"2012-05-02T02:53:06","slug":"jo0urney-to-meditation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/2012\/05\/01\/jo0urney-to-meditation\/","title":{"rendered":"Journey to Meditation"},"content":{"rendered":"
It has been an\u00a0 interesting journey in learning from various leaders through their books and teachings. -including \u00a0 \u201cThe Monk Who Sold His Ferrari\u201d by world-renowned author and speaker Robin Sharma.<\/div>\n
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That all changed on April 17th<\/sup>, 2012 when I \u00a0got listen to Ajahn Kusalo \u00a0on an evening that I will never forget.<\/div>\n
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\u00a0A few weeks ago I was given a CD at my(41 years young) birthday party\u00a0 by a very good friend\u00a0 who\u00a0 admires my energy but was concerned about me having some \u201cslow down\u201d\u00a0 time as she coined it.<\/div>\n
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After listening to half way through the audio \u00a0and reported back to my friend that \u201cit felt as if\u00a0 I was walking through the forest with a bow and arrow on my shoulder with\u00a0 no idea why\u201d<\/div>\n
She sounded confused \u201cWere you chasing something or\u00a0 was something chasing you?\u201dI didn\u2019t because I didn’t really know.<\/div>\n
My friend invited me\u00a0 to participate in a meditation evening. She is a very spiritual individual and\u00a0 felt this might be of interest to me.<\/div>\n
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Initially I was non-committal to her offer and decided to wait and ponder it a little further. The day before the event\u00a0 she sent me an email with the location along with\u00a0 some special instructions which included to bringing a water bottle and to wearing\u00a0 comfortable clothing.<\/div>\n
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Tuesday morning I went\u00a0 through my own routine of reading morning passages from a book that I keep nearby and did my morning affirmations.<\/div>\n
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That afternoon I listened to the last half\u00a0 of\u00a0 the CD (to my pleasant surprise) by then\u00a0 I was in the forest with no bow and arrow just walking through. Listening \u00a0to the songs I could see a big tree across the street and remembered\u00a0 vividly 25 years ago when it was first planted in the soil, it has now grown into a huge tree, solid from stump to the end branches. Just like me!<\/div>\n
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After that took a brief nap to relax\u00a0 let the music sink in, and woke up and feeling\u00a0 re-energized.<\/div>\n
By late afternoon I had decided that I was ready to go to the meditation and I informed my friend via email. She was pleased and looked\u00a0 forward to it.<\/div>\n
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As I neared the location was pleasantly surprised when\u00a0 I realized that I\u00a0 pass by this location all the time going to a health club near by. Locked up my mountain bike and followed the signs to\u00a0 where it said \u201cEveryone is welcome\u201d.<\/div>\n
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My friend was going to arrive little later so I made my way in and found\u00a0 a chair off to the side. The room was very quiet as people began to arrive.<\/div>\n
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Even though I had my business cards with me I made no attempt to interact with anyone, respectful of the environment and the event.Ajahn Kusalo\u00a0\u00a0 walked into the room and was greeted by a gentleman who was assisting with the room and event proceedings.<\/div>\n
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At the entrance there was option to make a donation to the monastery, so I grabbed\u00a0 an envelope and made a mental note to put one the box on my way out.<\/div>\n
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We were given two\u00a0 handouts. The first\u00a0 was a dedication of offering which was a chant that was made during the session; the second was a\u00a0 sheet of explanation called Tisarana- an overview of intent and direction<\/div>\n
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Ajahn Kusalo began with conversation and I was pleasantly surprised that he was very amusing and made a strong effort to connect with everyone. He used many sports analogies to explain life and how we each\u00a0 go through our journey.<\/div>\n
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He spoke how we deal with things that we face in our daily lives\u00a0 and how we can learn to respond better and\u00a0 better understand that life \u00a0is not as complicated as we make it.<\/div>\n
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We all have weaknesses. but at the end of the day we must\u00a0 work on our strengths and evolve to improve our\u00a0 weaknesses.<\/div>\n
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The room was silent as everyone listened except for the occasional\u00a0 group laugh. It was a healthy spirit of individuals from all walks of life young and old, gathered together\u00a0 for a few hours together time to relax and take time to breach and relax from our busy lives.<\/div>\n
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We chanted for about half an hour and then Ajahn Kusalo\u00a0 fielded questions for the attendees.<\/div>\n
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It was a very therapeutic experience and I appreciated my friend inviting me to this event.<\/div>\n
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Moral of the story: meditation is a great way to relax and release yourself from the busyness of life.<\/div>\n
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If you wish to attend a future session information is below<\/div>\n
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For more information:<\/div>\n
\u00a0http:\/\/www.tisarana.ca\/\u00a0<\/a><\/div>\n
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Website:<\/strong> http:\/\/springrainsangha.com\/meditation-classes\/<\/a><\/div>\n
Address: <\/strong>60 Lowther Avenue, (close to St George subway station)<\/div>\n
Bring<\/strong>: Water bottle & wear comfortable clothing<\/strong><\/div>\n
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It has been an\u00a0 interesting journey in learning from various leaders through their books and teachings. -including \u00a0 \u201cThe Monk Who Sold His Ferrari\u201d by world-renowned author and speaker Robin Sharma. That all changed on April 17th, 2012 when I \u00a0got listen to Ajahn Kusalo \u00a0on an evening that I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81919\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}