our practices
Meditation
Meditation is nothing special. It is just an attitude. It is simply other. It cannot be compared to anything else. It has nothing to do with a useful activity that attempts to gather the necessary causes to bring forth an objective that is not present, an expectation that tends to place one outside of oneself. Meditation is a way to come to oneself, to come to the present without taking sides. It can’t be concerned with blocking that which is disagreeable or difficult, or with favoring that which is virtuous or agreeable. Meditation is simply other because its essence is to be in the present experience disregarding the contents of the experience. The contents of the experience are not more important than the images that appear in a mirror are for the mirror itself..
In the practice, the meditator stops being concerned with the world of objects or the world of thoughts and comes back to the consciousness of what she is experiencing without any wish to improve or transform anything. Various preliminary techniques, including the simple limitation of the sphere of experiences, help the meditator to rest in the present. Most of the time it is an awareness of the breathing process, an awareness of the bodily sensations, and when the mind is suppler, of a choiceless awareness. In the intimacy with the present experience, awareness is realized as a freedom that is beyond thinking..
Gesture of Awareness
Gesture of Awareness is a non formal type of meditation . What is at stake in this practice is not what we are doing or how we are doing anything but a way of being that doesn’t hold onto anything. A way to explore the coincidence of the actor, the action and the world, a coincidence where grasping can’t take place anymore.
This can be explored in movements or gesture, in taking a step, in the contact with another person, in speaking or listening and finally in the discovery of how our mental representations limit the way we live.
Resting in the undivided experience of the instant, one discovers an incomparable sense of wholeness and even freedom. Any situation could be approached with this attitude: hearing, speaking, seeing, singing, moving or resting, alone or in contact with another.
Within our organism, there is a natural tendency to move towards a deeper balancing, a freer way of living.
