free open mind

Check here for meeting zoom link and details about weekly meeting schedule.

For thousands of years, spanning all cultures and traditions, humans have wondered how the mind operates. We hope to bring together ancient traditions with modern science. This is not group therapy. This is not a medical or health care treatment. We offer only support and information for communities coping with intense emotional experiences.

The word mindfulness simply means “awareness.” Being aware, on purpose, in the moment, letting go of judgments as they arise. It is full involvement in each moment exactly as it happens in your experience. Meditation is only one way to cultivate awareness, and certainly not the only, or even the best way for some. In my opinion, awareness is far more important than meditation.

The practice of sustained awareness may involve many skills. Here are a few:

1. Sustained attention. This can be difficult in a busy world, with a busy mind (like mine).
2. Unified practice. This means that we immerse ourselves in the practice as fully as possible, involving heart, mind and body; urge, action and effort.
3. Relaxed engagement. Awareness is rarely better when we are contracted or grasping onto outcomes.
4. Heartfelt involvement. Awareness is both supported by and predictive of increases in compassion and empathy.
5. Insightful realization. Practice is often followed by surprising new perspectives on the world. Like a child seeing a sunrise for the first time.

In community we can share with and support one another. In community we learn that we are not alone in our difficulties. In community we can reach out and receive heartfelt feedback from others. In community we can hold ourselves accountable. In community we can practice our recovery in the open, learning how generosity may open a window on liberation.

The word science comes from a Latin root meaning “to know.” In mindfulness practice we are often interested in how we learn to know things. Culture? Tradition? Habit? Things said or written? Things repeated and never questioned?

How do we know what we know, and were we aware when we knew them?  

Once upon a time science and spirituality were just considered various ways of knowing things, neither “better” than the other… I still believe this.  I believe we are all knowers of exactly what we know.

The question is: are we “aware-knowers?”

The answer to this depends on how we treat the word truth.  Many authors assign truth an absolute value; they treat it as “Truth” with a capital T.  However, if we choose for a moment to consider Dr. Marsha Linehan’s assumption that “there is no absolute truth,” then truth may be taken to be another word for knowing which may be another word for awareness.  And just because awareness (a.k.a. truth) is a process unfolding in time and subject to circumstance, it cannot be assigned an absolute character. 

From my perspective when someone says something is “true” they are simply telling me what they know; what has shown up, persistent, in awareness.  I can honor their experience without being pushed around by it just because I’m also aware of my own awareness, subject to time and circumstance.  I believe this is why Marsha said that she as a clinician was just as much a “victim of the laws of learning” as her clients.  Her bits and pieces of knowing, her “awarenesses,” were no more absolute than anyone else’s.  I agree with her.