Meditation
Minnie has been meditating for many years and has practised several techniques.
Having come from an Anglican background, she has studied and read widely in Buddhism, Hinduism, and yoga.
For many years she has been studying Recollective Awareness with Jason Siff and training as a facilitator.
Minnie Biggs has taught RA in a mediation and yoga retreat with Catherine Sherlock. She led several meditation courses at The Yoga Shed and day long workshops at Toxana, in Richmond. Lately she has been leading Quiet Days at her beautiful house in Kurrajong every two months.
Recollective Awareness Meditation was originated by Jason Siff, when he was a Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka in the 1980s. Since then he has published two books on this approach to meditation, Unlearning Meditation and Thoughts Are Not the Enemy (Shambhala Publications).
Introduction to Recollective Awareness Meditation
Recollective awareness meditation is not so much a technique as a way to explore how your mind works in meditation. There are no guidelines, no rules. Just the invitation to sit with the intention to meditate and watch: be with your mind, however it is, wherever it goes. If you feel sleepy, that is fine, feel sleepy and even drift off.
And then the suggestion afterward, to look back and recollect what you can remember from that time. You may write it down, as much to clarify as to help the recollection process. In a group setting, there is the possibility to report to the facilitator who might then tease out more from the experience.
Some of the things that you get to notice is how you relate to your thoughts, emotions, sensations and other experiences. You also develop a greater awareness of the ways in which quiet states emerge. The key is curiosity – about your experience – and always with gentleness and kindness to yourself and the process.