Dear Jules -
Please excuse my poor memory. It's become an issue in my life.
As to deepening your meditation practice, there are a couple of good options that come to mind. The first is an 8 week
MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) class (total cost approx. $500), which is centered around weekly 2 and 1/2 hour classes/group discussions/guided meditations etc., tapes on guided meditations and yoga to be used on hopefully a daily basis in between, and a day long retreat at the end of the program. The program has been run out of the Univ. of Mass. Medical school for over 30 years, for many years by by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, who's a very interesting guy in his own right. Here are the first two paragraphs of his online bio:
JON KABAT-ZINN, PH.D., is founding Executive Director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He is also the founding director of its renowned Stress Reduction Clinic and Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He teaches mindfulness and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in various venues around the world. He received his Ph.D. in molecular biology from MIT in 1971 in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate, Salvador Luria.
He is the author of numerous scientific papers on the clinical applications of mindfulness in medicine and health care, and of a number of books for the lay public: Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness (Delta, 1991); Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life (Hyperion, 1994); Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness (Hyperion, 2005); and Arriving at Your Own Door: 108 Lessons in Mindfulness (Hyperion, 2007). He is also co-author, with his wife Myla, of Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting (Hyperion, 1997); and with Williams, Teasdale, and Segal, of The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness (Guilford, 2007). Overall, his books have been translated into over 30 languages. . . .
http://www.umassmed.edu/Content.aspx?id=43102
The MBSR mainpage is at
http://www.umassmed.edu/Content.aspx...d&itemid=41254 including a link at the bottom to finding teachers in your area. As much as it troubles me to admit it, nothing I have done since then, including 2 week residential retreats, has focussed me on daily commitment to practice as much as that first MBSR class.
A less expensive option is Shinzen's whole new baby,
Basic Mindfulness: Home Practice Program Phone-based Classes & Retreats at
http://www.basicmindfulness.org/ It's a series of 2 - 4 hour classes, mostly guided mediations taught most by Shinzen himself, that meets over an entire weekend, 2 hours on Friday night and two 4-hours sessions on both Sat. and Sun., once a month. The cost of each class ranges from $10 to $20 each, however,
no one will be turned away for lack of funds. The upcoming October program (Oct. 11 - 13) will, however, be taught be a couple of his senior students, where Shinzen will be on retreat in Israel.
The techniques is set around a program Shinzen calls
5 Ways to Know yourself as a Spiritual Being - an article laying out the entire structure can be opened at
http://www.shinzen.org/Retreat%20Rea...20Yourself.pdf - and while most of the classes have a prerequisite, each month there is one totally intro class open to all. In October it's "Focus on Change: Part 1." The idea being that each of the basic techniques (all distilled from thousands of year of organized practice, and each can be footnoted at legnth). With each of the 5 basic techniques, you take Part 1, followed by Part 2 at a later date. However, if Part 2 of the class you've started isn't available on the following month, you're free to take Part I for any other technique. Then, as soon as you have Parts I and 2 down for any one of the techniques, you can take any "elective" on which it's based. And once you've covered all five techniques, it's as though you have just completed a week-long residential retreat and you're good to go with everything on the menu.
I just noticed,
for perhaps this month only, there is a 2 hour guided overview of the 5 Ways with no prerequisites, led by Stephanie Nash - who's great - on Friday night, October 9, 2009. (Go to the basicmindfulness.org page
http://www.basicmindfulness.org/ and click on the "Monthly Schedule tab at the top of the page.) For $10 this is an opportunity not to be missed.
Hope this is useful.
take care,
Mike