For many people, the word “meditation” is synonymous with “mindfulness”: a technique for quieting the mind, for observing one’s thoughts without judgment, which often carries an exotic flavor, reflecting an “Eastern” origin.  Those techniques of mindfulness meditation are powerful tools, which many people have found to be useful.  But they’re not the only game in town.  Not by a long shot.

Meditation has been part of the Western intellectual and spiritual heritage for thousands of years of recorded history.  And the strategies and techniques of meditation have been wildly diverse, as they focus on a variety of different goals.  Unlike simple “mindfulness” practices that attempt to still or quiet the thinking mind, most of these styles of meditation are designed to focus, direct, and train the mind: cultivating and strengthening our powers of concentration, understanding, reasoning, will, discernment, and judgment.

(In Asian traditions, too, we find a broad range of meditative techniques for training the mind and developing the powers of human reason and concentration.  Those methods are both quite interesting in their own right, and well beyond the scope of this short workshop.)

In this workshop, we’ll explore several techniques of meditation with deep roots in Western spiritual, religious, and philosophical life and practice.  We’ll examine two daily practices, popular among the ancient Pythagoreans and Stoics, for developing the power of recollection and preparing ourselves for challenging circumstances.  And we’ll consider more broadly the ways in which meditative practices can help us to develop our powers of attention, concentration, clarity, and discernment.  

For all of these techniques, we’ll combine practical instruction and hands-on experience, with theoretical reflection on what these techniques can do, and how they differ from common ideas of “mindfulness.”  And we’ll make sure to discuss some common dangers and pitfalls of all these methods of meditation, along with basic precautions and safeguards.  All of these practices have been used by countless people over thousands of years, with great success.  Still, any tool that has the power to be useful or helpful (whether in carpentry, electronics, medicine, spiritual development, etc.) also has the potential to be ineffective or even counterproductive, if used inappropriately.  So we’ll discuss both the strengths and the limitations of these methods, and give practical advice for avoiding common problems.

Along the way, we’ll likely touch on a variety of related issues and questions, including the relationship between philosophy, spirituality, and religion; and what it means when we say that philosophy is a “way of life.”

You’ll come away with:

• A preliminary understanding of several Western meditation techniques, including Pythagorean daily recollection, and Stoic pre-meditation.
• Detailed handouts, giving detailed guidance for how to practice these techniques at home.
• Suggestions for further reading, study, and practice.

Warnings and safeguards:

• The techniques we’ll be exploring are considered to be generally safe, and can be practiced by most people on their own, even without an experienced teacher.
• If you suffer from clinical psychiatric disorders or mental illness (especially, but not only, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder), please consult with your health care provider before beginning any type of meditation, including (but not limited to) the techniques taught in this workshop. I do not recommend practicing any form of meditation while suffering from, or receiving treatment for, psychiatric disorders or mental illness.  If this applies to you, you are still warmly welcome to attend the workshop for the sake of intellectual conversation and learning the theory, but please wait to begin the practices until you have completed treatment or received the approval of a licensed medical provider who is familiar with your personal circumstances.

Other (for those who participated in our previous workshop on this topic):

• While there will be some repeat of material we covered last year, about 60% of the workshop is new.  So it will serve as  great refresher as well as an introduction to different things!