Meditation Beyond the Temple

My take on meditation beyond the temple of religion, cults, and capitalism.

One of the challenges for those who left a meditation / yoga / religious group disillusioned after revelations of abuse by our teachers was knowing what to discard and what to retain from the teachings and practice. Now 6 years after I walked away, my meditation practice (what little there is of it at present) has settled into something non-religious, based on vajrayana but pared right back to essentials, and that is a powerful tool for well-being.

What ‘works’ for me may work for others, so I decided to share what I know in an easily-digestable format, particularly in a place where I might help young people seeking meditation instruction in a world in which misconceptions and predators abound. So I’ve have a TikTok channel now https://www.tiktok.com/@simplybeingcreative. I also share my discovering-I’m-autistic journey and other aspects of my unique life in the rainforest. And I’ll be posting just the videos on meditation on the Beyond the Temple You Tube channel as well. You’ll find them on a playlist there titled ‘Meditation Beyond the Temple’.

This is the approach to meditation I take after 20 years of meditation practice & Buddhist studies followed by intense disallusionment with anything religious, cultish or dogmatic.

My emphasis will be on active and imaginative meditation, particularly with nuerodivergent people in mind – I have discovered that I am one!

I don’t think one can avoid the relationship between meditation and spirituality, given that the process of meditating uncovers that generally hidden aspect of ourselves, but it can be divorced from the worst excesses of religion and commodified dogmatic ‘spiritualiy’.

So watch the videos if you’re curious to see where I’ve landed in relationship to meditation, if you’re struggling with your meditation practice or it needs some extra inspiration, or if you’ve never meditated and are looking for some form of meditation that isn’t boring.

See all the videos in this series here.

(Note that there’s only one there at the time of posting this.)