Foundations of Meditation Classes (Online or In-Person at Clear Sky)
Thursdays 7-8pm MST
How do you grow your inner well-being? These community classes at Clear Sky center help you develop a stronger meditation practice.
Join us for Meditation Circle, Thursday nights (7:00-8:00pm MST) at Clear Sky Center. You can attend in-person, or join us online.
These classes will run each season of the year. This current series of classes will run from Thursday, January 26th to February 24th. We encourage you to attend all classes.
There are two ways to attend – in person or online. Just click the appropriate button to register. See you soon!
Questions?
Contact Cara via email or phone:
cara@clearskycenter.org | 250-421-8280
"Meditation is like turning on a light in a dark room. The power of awareness lets us see what is there - in our bodies, emotions, mind, workplaces, homes and relationships. Seeing what is there gives us the freedom and the courage to make deeply impactful changes."
Series Overview - with Duncan Cryle
Does your mind feel scattered and distracted? Do you feel like you are going through life on auto-pilot? Or do you feel constantly tired and low on energy? This 5 week series as part of Clear Sky’s Meditation Circle classes is for anyone looking to establish or deepen a meditation practice.
Meditation helps us build our concentration, our mindfulness and our energy. With our hearts and mind fully present, able to give our deep attention, we become able to grow quickly in wisdom and compassion.
In this series, in each session we’ll meditate together, and explore:
- What is insight breathing meditation (vipassana) and how can we use question and investigation in meditation to invite insights
- How to practice – deepen your practice
- Build your meditation toolkit – classical teachings on how to work with obstacles and distractions, and to build mindfulness and calm
- Ways to establish and deepen a daily meditation practice at home
- Meditation tips and practices you can integrate into daily life and work
"I feel like we're so disembodied today in our technological culture that meditation is my little kindness to myself in saying 'hello body, you're part of my day.'"
Meet the Teachers
Maureen Smith
Maureen Smith (MSW, RCSW) is a therapist and meditation teacher. Passionate about what she does, she will guide you to a more alive, aware and mindful path of living.
Maureen is a well-respected Cranbrook-based therapist and educator. She works with individuals and couples in the public sector in addictions and mental health. Not only was Maureen the first acting caretaker at Clear Sky Meditation Center in BC, she has studied numerous meditation practices intensively for over 10 years. She has a Master of Social Work degree and is a Registered Clinical Social Worker in British Columbia.
Duncan Cryle
Through 30+ years of personal practice and 15+ teaching meditation and mindfulness, alongside an active career working all over the world, I’ve learnt a lot about an integrating mindfulness into daily life. As a founding member of Clear Sky in 2004, I’m amazed at the power of a beautiful, natural and dedicated space for supporting people to deepen their meditation and feel more connected. Alongside. my Clear Sky work, I hold a director position at a large software company where I also run a volunteer global mindfulness program to 1000s employees. I was formerly one of the pioneers of IBM’s mindfulness movement. I’m passionate about how mindfulness-based approaches can transform how we live and work together, and be of better service in the world.
Karen McAllister
As Clear Sky’s Chair of the Board and Director of Business Development, I’m passionate about teaching the much-ignored principles of nurturing the factors – like honor your space, structure, and communication – that create the conditions we need to wake up more in daily life. I see how I learned and embodied these principles in my different roles at Clear Sky as the center went from self-starter to second-stage growth. This is what I call “the hands-on way of doing an MBA with a spiritual bottom line!”
In my free time, I love travelling, speaking Portuguese and reading history, architecture and art books.
Cara Conroy-Lau
Cara brings a joyful East meets West approach to meditation and holistic health.
As a New Zealand-born citizen of the world, she grew up in New Zealand, Singapore, Japan and China. Cara has trained in mind-body integrative health for over 15 years. She is the founding acupuncturist at Cranbrook Acupuncture Clinic.
Cara has been training in meditation and Buddhist philosophy since her early 20’s, and has a paritcular interest in Asian philosophy. She is a long time resident at Clear Sky Centre, and was the Centre’s first farm and food forest manager from 2009-2012.
Course Cost: Dāna
We offer this course on the basis of dāna. If you’re not familiar with dāna, you may have come across related approaches such as “pay from the heart.”
Dāna is a Sanskrit term that translates as “generosity” in English. The practice of generosity is central to spiritual unfoldment, whatever path you follow. In our own Buddhist lineage, teachings have always been given on the basis of dāna, and we are committed to this practice and its development in the West.
Dāna is a radical and – we believe – viable economic alternative to capitalism. We all know there must be something better than capitalism or its hungry cousin, consumerism. We maintain that, together, we can offer a financial model that is based in life-affirming mutual support. Please join us in co-creating this promising economic alternative.
To help you choose an amount that feels right for you, we recommend this heart-based exercise from our friends at Planet Dharma.
Checking in with your heart
1) Take a few quiet breaths and center yourself. Spend a few moments to reflect on each of the below: the beauty and integrity of dāna practice; the value of receiving direct teachings from lineage holders in a recognized spiritual tradition; the reality of your financial situation.
2) Spend another few moments contacting a sense of health, strength and abundance. You have a healthy mind, a body, senses, the good karma to have heard the teachings, and conditions to support your practice of Dharma. Celebrate this!
3) Now check with your heart and mind what amount feels both consistent with your situation, and expressive of your aspiration.
It’s our joy to offer this course, and we trust you’ll match our time, energy, and passion by giving an amount of money that feels good and healthy to both you and us.