If You’d Like to be More Mindful, then Read On…

If you’re like most people who are interested in mindfulness, you probably fall into one or more of the following three categories:

1. you’re looking for a way to relax and de-stress from the busyness of your life
2. you want to go beyond your habitual reaction to things like stress, anxiety and intense emotions and learn to respond to them with skill and flexibility, to be mentally resilient
3. there’s a part of you asking some of the deeper questions that we face, such as “who am I?”, “why am I here?”, “what’s my purpose?”, and you’re searching for a systematic approach to spiritual development that can lead you to discovering the answers for yourself

If one or more of the above ring true for you, then the Mindfulness Crash Course might be a good fit for you.

Mindfulness is the Ultimate Practical Skill

Developing the skill of mindfulness is hands-down the most practical thing I have ever done to improve my life, and believe me, I’ve tried a lot of different things! I believe that mindfulness is so important, so fundamental to living well as a human being, that I decided to turn my back on a successful career in software to focus full-time on teaching this skill to others.

Mindfulness is a Trainable Skill

If you’ve watched any of my YouTube videos or taken my free 7 Day Meditation Kickstart program on Facebook, you’ll know that I treat mindfulness as a learnable and trainable skill. And the most effective way to develop this skill is through mindfulness meditation.

After responding to many, many questions from beginning meditators about the correct way to meditate in order to develop mindfulness, it became clear that I needed to put my teaching on hold for a while and put together an online program that could help those new to mindfulness and meditation learn how to get started.

That’s how the Mindfulness Crash Course was born!

Avoid my Mistakes

In my own meditation journey, I spent years of wasted effort going down blind alleys and it took a long time before I learned how to meditate correctly, in a way that really made a significant difference to my quality of life. This course is the helping hand I wish I had when I was getting started.

What you Need to Develop Mindfulness

If you want to bring the benefits of mindfulness into your life, you need two things:

1. precise, straightforward meditation instructions so you know exactly how to meditate correctly to develop the skill of mindfulness
2. daily practice so that your mindfulness develops to the point that you can put it to practical use in your day to day life

The main goal of the Mindfulness Crash Course is to show you #1.

To do this, I give you clear instructions and a progression to follow, so you know exactly what to do and how to do it, based on my more than 20 years of meditation experience.

And because it’s not enough to just say “hey, go do this!”, I also teach you enough meditation theory so that you have a good idea why you’re meditating in this particular way, which will help to motivate you to continue practicing each day.

Instruction without Action is Useless

And because the best instruction in the world is useless unless you put it into action, I give you a bag of tips and tricks for developing your meditation into a regular, daily habit.

The fact that you’re online, reading this, looking for information about mindfulness shows that you have the commitment and determination to put what I’ll teach you into practice in a way that can make lasting changes in your life. I know you can do it!

And to help you even more, I’ll send you a weekly email showing you the most straightforward ways to apply the skill of mindfulness to transform your relationship with things like stress, anxiety, anger and other difficult emotions.

These emails will help motivate you to keep practicing and help you discover new ways to use mindfulness in your daily life.

They’re also a great weekly reminder to continue with your daily meditation practice!

The Nuts and Bolts

The Mindfulness Crash Course is an online, video-based course designed to help you begin to develop a solid foundation of mindfulness skills. Whether you use these skills to relax and de-stress after a crazy day, to handle ongoing stress at work, or probe the depths of your mind searching for answers, this course can help.

I include three 15 minute guided meditations in this course. These guided practices are designed to take you from complete beginner (if that’s where you’re starting) all the way to learning how to be mindful of everything in your conscious awareness.

Become an Independent Meditator

As much as I like guided meditations, it’s been my experience that, once you have the fundamentals down and know what to do, you will progress much faster if you don’t use a guided meditation when practicing.

That’s why I’ll also show you how to progress beyond the guided meditations in this course, so you can “take the training wheels off the bike” and become an independent meditator.

Take it for a Test Drive

Here’s an outline of the entire course, as well as some sample videos that you can watch, so you get an idea of how I teach the material and so you know it’s a good fit for you.

Module 1

The Big Picture

What Mindfulness is and What it Isn’t (available when you register)

Cut through all the confusion out there about mindfulness. Learn what mindfulness is and what it isn’t, so you will know exactly what it means and how to practice and develop it.

How to Train Mindfulness Using Meditation

The most effective way to train mindfulness is through mindfulness meditation. Here’s how to do it properly.

Module 2

A Taste of Noting Practice (available when you register)

Let’s start by jumping right in and having you try a mindfulness meditation for a couple of minutes. After the meditation, I’ll explain what you did and why in more detail, so that you’ll understand how to practice correctly on your own.

The Meditation Object (available when you register)

In this video I answer the questions: what should you use as your meditation object, and why? How long should you stick with the same object before moving on?

The DSM of Meditation

There are three main things that are critical to any type of meditation: Directing attention, Sustaining Attention and Monitoring Attention. I’ll explain each of these in turn and show you how to apply them to meditate more effectively.

Module 3

Getting the Most out of your Meditation Practice (available when you register)

How to maximize the effectiveness of your limited practice time, and avoid some of the common mistakes that beginners often make.

Progression and the Importance of Daily Practice (available when you register)

How to make progress and quickly graduate to doing the meditations on your own, without the guided practice.

Where do you go from here? (available when you register)

Now that you have the fundamentals of mindfulness meditation under your belt, where do you go from here?

Guided Meditations (available when you register)

1. Guided Meditation for Beginners (15 min)
2. Guided Meditation for Intermediates – Level 1 (15 min)
3. Guided Meditation for Intermediates – Level 2 (15 min)

How much does it cost?

In a nutshell, there is no set fee for taking the Mindfulness Crash Course.

Huh?

The Buddha’s teachings are priceless, so I offer this course to you for dana.

What’s dana?

Dana is a Pali word that can be most simply translated as “generosity”

There’s a long tradition going back to the time of the Buddha (over 2500 years ago) of offering these teachings to whoever would listen to them (they were given orally back them – no super internet streaming video techo-wizardry in those times).

In exchange, the student is asked to reflect on what this information is worth to them and make an appropriate financial contribution to support the work of the teacher and the continuation of the tradition.

This is called “giving dana” or “practicing dana”.

I practice dana, or generosity, by offering these teachings without a price tag. You can practice dana by making a financial contribution.

Your contribution allows me to continue offering the teachings to others (and helps defray some of the costs of keeping this website running, video hosting, etc).

I know, I know, this may seem a little archaic in this day and age!

But it’s a great opportunity to step out of our habitual materialistic patterns of behaviour and relate to each other on a deeper, more meaningful level.

If you’d like to practice dana, there will be a “Dana” section on the Mindfulness Crash Course website (that you get access to after you register for the course) where you can make your contribution.

Ok, How do I Take the Course?

To get instant access to the full Mindfulness Crash Course, just enter your email address in the form below and click the “Take the Crash Course!” button.

Take the Crash Course!