About Us
Meditation to Change
We aim to provide meditation and mindfulness classes at a location near you. The aim is to introduce you to meditation and mindfulness, whilst helping you set up a regular meditation practice and develop a strong habit so you can carry on with your practice going forwards.
This classes are secular in that they are not connected with a specific religion or spiritual beliefs. The classes are therefore available to anyone from any background, and teach the fundamentals of meditation and mindfulness in the practical sense, being tailored to suit the modern day developed world.
We hope to help you take your first step on the path, and to support you in your meditation journey, giving you the chance to create your own practice, whilst finding your unique inner peace.
Your Class Instructors
Roger
Greetings, my name is Roger and I am husband and father of two young children with a day job. I have been lucky enough to train with Daizan Skinner (shown above, I am the one with a bit more hair!!) who was the first Englishman to go to Japan and become a Roshi, aka Zen Master, in the Rinzai tradition of Zen. I am his student and have 200 hours of meditation training through Zenways who license me to conduct the meditation and mindfulness course.
My path to meditaiton
I came across mindfulness as part of counselling well over 10 years ago, and whilst I found it fascinating I didn't take it any further. Over the years, I have tried several meditation apps but found it hard to handle people telling me to just focus on one thing, so I seemed to ignore all the reminders and rarely managed to fit just a short session into the day. Too many things to do, and too much going on in my mind... at least that was the rationale, one which I am sure is all too common.
I attended a yoga & meditation weekend retreat with my wife many years ago, and whilst it was a healthy and productive weekend, the meditation part of it didn't really inspire me, as it was focusing on the breath whilst trying to ignore the thoughts. To be fair, the weekend was perhaps slightly impinged by the hen do that was taking place next door, whoops!
I have visited a local Buddhist centre near me, but again it didn't seem to resonate. In hindsight, I should probably have stuck that out but in the busy modern world it can be really hard to fit something new into the daily schedule, and easy to dismiss something which doesn't seem to have an immediate impact.
And so it was, when I found myself suffering with various mental health challenges again, I believed that I should explore meditation and mindfulness as I knew I had to consider a different route. Several things conspired, some might say it was meant to be, and I ended up on a weekend meditation retreat in the hope it would help me actually have a chance to see what the benefits of meditation and mindfulness are. This is where I met Daizan who has been an inspiration. A truly kind and generous man who exudes compassion and clearly has a focused intention to bring meditation and mindfulness to as many people as possible.
Perhaps the most powerful part of the weekend was realising that I didn't have to focus on something all the time whilst meditating, this is known as the broad focus. We are able to use the breath, or counting as an example, to act as a focal point but importantly, when the thoughts arise we just let them come. We don't have to try and stop them, and we don't have to chide ourselves for wandering off. We simply return gently to the breath, for example, and carry on until the next thought arises. This was a revelation and led me to complete 100 days of meditation culminating in attending the secular meditation and mindfulness training course.
I am likley to be running all the courses on offer through Meditation to Change at the moment. If you live too far away, I will organise a course with other accredited teachers who are also affiliated with Zenways.
