Dear [First Name],
I have an admission to make. I make a living out of teaching meditation, and yet sometimes I don't even meditate myself. Yep, it's true. Maybe I'll get caught up in the busyness of work, schedules, plans, whatever. I'll tell myself - I don't need to meditate, I'm calm enough, my health is OK, I'm feeling alright; besides I know what the breath is going to do when I focus on it. Up/down, in/out over and over and over. I've done all that before. I know what it's like. Sure, it feels nice, but it's no big deal. And so the days go by, maybe even stretching into weeks. I prioritise things like getting this newsletter out in time - and 'forget' to meditate.

Eventually though, it all starts to catch up with me. I catch the flu that's going 'round. I start feeling a little rundown and stressed. I get snappy with my family and don't pay full attention to my friends. I lose perspective, work less efficiently and make mistakes and errors of judgemental.

This is good! It's an excellent reminder of what happens when I lose balance. It helps me to fully appreciate just how useful a skill meditation is. Giving up, of course, is not an option. Giving up would be like saying a bicycle is useless just because I fell off one a couple of times. So, I find the time, or simply the intention - and start to pull meditation back into my life. It feels good. And to help keep me inspired I might listen to a CD or flip through a few pages of a good book on meditation.

In fact, this week I got my first batch of Eric Harrison's brand new 4CD set, "How to Meditate." I transferred the CD's onto my minidisc and went for a walk - and came home deeply relaxed and excited about meditation all over again.

If you don't have guided meditation CD's or good books on meditation of your own, I suggest you get some. They really are an invaluable aid. Everyone needs training wheels when they're learning something new. And we all get the wobbles from time to time on the road to mastery.

OK, OK, you're probably thinking I'm turning this newsletter into a sales tool. (That was my first thought too - and I'm writing this!) But seriously, it's unrealistic, perhaps even foolish, to expect that we can rely just on our own skills if we're to get the most out of any practice. Look at any successful person - and you'll find a support group of coaches, mentors and helpers all around them.

I know that without my various meditation teachers and the books I read I'd probably still be a novice - and certainly completely unfit to teach anyone anything useful about meditation.

So, it's been a longer intro than usual, but I hope it strikes a chord. What I've just described is the most common difficulty people have with meditation - remembering to do it. Of course, it's not a problem confined just to meditation either. Patience and persistence is required in any endeavour - they're the necessary ingredients for success in any form. Don't be discouraged if you fall of the meditation 'bike' from time to time. Slips and falls are all part of the journey.

In This Issue...

• Meditation Tip
• Special Events
• Course Schedule
• In the News
• CD Sale

Meditation Tip

What do you expect to gain from meditation? Better health? Relief from insomnia, anxiety, stress or your busy mind? Perhaps you just want to have a meditation as deep as the one you had in class once. Or perhaps you expect your mind to shut up completely or you wish for some kind of deep, blissful or ecstatic experience.

Here's a little tip. Don't try to meditate for any of these reasons. Expectations have a tendency to generate extraneous thoughts and pull you out of the present. You'll miss half your meditation wondering whether it's working or not.

When you meditate don't have a purpose at all. Or let your purpose be to do nothing, or just to meditate. When you do this you free yourself of unnecessary demands - and this allows you to relax and calm the mind much more deeply than you possibly could otherwise. Paradoxically, you'll often get the results you seek when you let them go.

You can apply this principle to any activity you do. Why, for example do you wash the dishes? To get them clean? Try washing them just to wash them.

An excessively goal oriented mind (even one that's just wanting clean dishes) continually seeks fulfillment in the future. This is inherently stressful and disappointing. It can turn any activity, including meditation, into a chore. The trick is to have goals, but to let them go until you get them.

Special Events

Simply Silence

Our casual group sessions, run in conjunction with Meditation Solutions, have been a big success. Meeting on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of the month at the North Melbourne Library, they're a great way to keep up practice in a group environment. For more information see www.simplysilence.org Entry is by donation. Next meeting is Thursday, August 3, and I'll be guiding it.

Course Schedule

Term 4 - August/September 2006

August 13: 4 Week Basic Course at Glen Waverley (Sundays 7.00 - 8.30pm)
August 14: 6 Week Basic Course at Clifton Hill (Mondays 7.00 - 8.30pm)
August 16: 6 Week Basic (Day) Course at Elwood (Wednesdays 10.00 - 11.30am)
August 16: 6 Week Basic Course at Elwood (Wednesdays 8.15 - 9.45pm)
August 17: 6 Week Course at Melbourne CBD (Thursdays 5.30 - 7.00pm)
August 17: 6 Week Course at Port Melbourne (Thursdays 8.00 - 9.30pm)

Teacher Training Course

Designed for yoga teachers, health professionals and others wishing to teach or guide meditation the Teacher Training Course takes a behind the scenes look at what's involved in meditation instruction and how best to integrate meditation with other modalities. The next course is scheduled for February 2007.

In the News - Meditation Makes You Smarter!

Although there's no money in it (you can't sell meditation like a drug), new research into the effects and benefits of meditation is being conducted and released regularly. My view is that you don't need a scientist to tell you what you know yourself - but in this case, they're claiming things that most meditators would be reluctant to express - that meditation affects the very structure and functioning of the brain. Read the full article printed in TIME magazine earlier this year: (http://psyphz.psych.wisc.edu/web/News/Time_Jan06.html)

CD's on Sale

Eric Harrison has just released a brand new edition of his 4CD Set "How to Meditate." Now including 12 spot meditations and meditations on thought management, pain, emotions and a track especially for getting to sleep. Order a copy in the next two weeks and you can have it for the same price as the previous version. ($70.00) Kevin Hume CD's are also on sale for the next two weeks. They've been reduced from $33 to $25.

Know someone who could chill out?

Do you have friends who are perpetually stressed or anxious, have trouble sleeping or could just do with learning how to relax? Do them a favour and forward this email to them. (Or if this is you, subscribe here.)