About urbanMind

I first meditated in a stress reduction series I attended in 1992. The teacher taught us MBSR. I immediately connected with the straightforward technique, the quiet that I experienced and the depth of the conversation around it, Since then, I have spent long and short periods in Buddhist and Yogic centers and places of study in Asia, Africa, Europe and North America learning everything I could about these ancient traditions, how they are practised and how those that teach and practise them live in this modern world.

This adventure not only took me deep into my own mind and my own way of being, it also took me abound the world for extended periods of time for the second time of my life. 28 years of meditation practise, hundreds of hours in group and short retreats in India, Thailand,

Nepal Korea and the west. A total of 6 years immersion practice in India including 6 months formal study a the Buddhist School of Dialectics in McLeod Ganj, India, 60+ days attending the public teachings of The Dalai Lama in McLeod Ganj and Bodh Gaya, India, 6 months formal study and practise at the Root Institute in Bodh Gaya India, 5 two-week courses of Phowa, 2 months of Advanced Yoga Teacher Training in Kerala India, 4 years study with the Asian Classics Institute in Canada. All somatic meditations learned through the 10 years studying the teachings of Reggie Ray

 

My first ‘formal’ meditation experience was a silent weekend retreat in 1993.

I had read some very inspiring books but knew I could not learn to meditate from a book and was hungry to meet people that meditated.

The retreat was awful for me. It was a metta (loving kindness) retreat and in this particular retreat we chanted the words “how I love you, how I love me” to the Canon by Pachelbel for 2 days. This style was not for me; way too fru fru for me. And to make things worse, my ‘finding community’ dreams were shattered when no one talked to me or even seemed to look at me all weekend!! (Now; of course, I realize that during a silent retreat – no one talks to anyone and the eyes are cast down to stay internal – but at the time I did not realize that it was all part of the program and felt quite let down by the experience of the group and the practice.)
This did not deter me from my desire to learn to meditate so I tried to find other groups to go to or learn from but; at the time, my only resource was the phone book and all I really knew was the word Buddhism. (pre-google). No luck.

So in typical Lesley style, I jumped in with both feet: decided that I needed to go to the source and for me, the source was in Asia.

In 1996, I quit my job in as a childcare counselor, sold everything I owned and moved to Thailand. (Not such a shocking move for me since I had already spent the first 2 years after graduating from University living abroad and made it to 3 continents).

After 6 months of exploring Thailand and its ancient sites, but not really running across any teachings; I bought a ticket to India (It was $50 from Bangkok to Calcutta).

In a few short months I found myself in north India at the home to the Tibetans in exile. Finally! I found a place of great learning and a lot of it in English (well, translated into English). I stayed there about 2 years studying philosophy at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics with Geshe Kelsang Wangmo  and at the Tibetan Library of of Works and Archives with Geshe Sonam Rinchen,  attended public teachings of the Dalai Lama (at least 10 times) and attended every meditation retreatI could find.

I loved living in India. I felt completely at home there, loved that the teachings were so accessible and authentic (there are a ton of not so authentic teachers in India but learning to discriminate is part of ‘the traveling to foreign country’ package).In hindsight, I now know that the biggest obstacle for me was that my learning lacked direction and I did not learn the foundations of meditation. I jumped right into higher teachings and practices, merely because I could. First clue: we need to break the ground before we can build the foundation. I had not done that and did not get any advise to do so. I loved doing the meditation practices that I was doing but I knew that my concentration level was super low.
A small interruption as a result of a large theft, left me broke and led me to South Korea where I worked for a year and studied in a female only temple. Myong Bap Sa was lovely but no one spoke English and my Korean certainly was not beyond making store purchases and giving directions to a taxi driver. I learned by rote, writing and chanting and sitting silent, but most of the time, I just wondered what I was doing. Somehow I knew, that side by side wit

h the ruminating mind; mindfulness would also occur, but it was not very easy!

When I got back to India; I moved down to Bodh Gaya and met my first teacher, Ayang Rinpoche, and took on a wonderful laundry list of practices. (That took me the next 12 years to complete). Bodh Gaya is also a hot spot of learning and practice and I drank it in like a schoolgirl. I remember my Argentinean friend and I would take courses that lasted until midnight and then we would sit on the balcony until the wee hour

s of the morning drinking tea and talking about the incredible things we were learning and how excited we were to really practice them.
If we were not in a course, we would be sitting under the Bodhi Tree doing the practices. My mind was still quite discursive but I did see that periods of concentration were increasing. Now, many years later, I can see that a calm abiding teaching would have done me a world of good!!! (Can you see the trend here, and why I came back years later and developed a sequential system?)

 

Pretty much out of money and due to my declining health, I returned to the west with a strong practice and a ton of philosophy under my belt. My hope wast to integrate my understanding of eastern values with the western lifestyle (and clean water!). Working in mental health had its bureaucratic challenges but I found that I had become more insightful, more decisive and I had become a more effective listener.
I continued to work in mental health and started to teach social justice programs at the college level. Having supervisors that understood my long absences certainly did not hurt the situation. To them I am forever grateful for holding jobs for me and even giving me promotions and new opportunities upon return.

A couple of years in the west – one in Vancouver and one in Berlin, and then back to India. This time my goal was to do more practice than book learning.

I lived on an ashram in Rishikesh for about 8 months, went to 2 yoga classes a day, attended philosophy classes and did about 4 hours of meditation a day. By now I had had a daily meditation practice for about 2 years and I could see how incredible it was with and for every facet of my life. Concentration better

but not great; and then, VOILA – I came across a course specifically for developing concentration. It taught me the very basics that I never knew about and even provided me with further insight into obstacles that arise and how to overcome them. This made all the difference for me and my practice. Now I could hold my mind still enough and long enough to actually get deep into the place that I was looking.

Back to the west. Now a traditionally trained and certified yoga teacher I started to teach yoga and continued to work social services. I wanted to teach my yoga students to meditate and began to develop a program that would teach them what I did not know in the beginning. How to calm and steady the mind, how to observe what the mind is doing and how to make corrections if they were required.

After a couple of years at home I felt drawn back to India, to again, completely immerse myself in a lifestyle centered around practice I started doing longer retreats and did my first solitary retreat for 40 days and 40 nights! Incredible.

At some point I came across a book called A Cave in the Snow; about a British woman that was drawn to Buddhism at an early age, moved to India when she was 19 and never really left. At the age of 21, she became a nun and was given the name Tenzin Palmo. Her life as a nun saw the early days of Tibetan refugees escaping to India and these included a ton of great masters that needed to learn English – whom she taught and got to know. She spent many years as a female in a male dominated environment, and 12 years living and practicing in an isolated cave high in the Himalayas. Fate brought her out of India where she was recognized by other westerners as a great master of eastern practices and she traveled the world teaching and giving retreats.

The day after my first solitary retreat, I met Tenzin Palmo. We took a short trip together in India and I met her again at an ashram in the Bahamas and soon after I was asked to be her assistant on international tours.

I got to try out my new program on advanced practitioners while teaching the morning meditation of Tenzin Palmo’s retreats. My theory about needing to learn to hold the mind steady held true and the retreatants were reporting great results from some of the basic techniques I was teaching. Many of them, like me, had access to higher practices from the get go and never learned the basics. Now I knew that my program worked for both the new and the experienced meditator!

Travelling with Tenzin Palmo was a great gift for me. I saw how she lived in this world and it was exactly how I thought a real Buddhist would be. She walked the walk and talked the talk. Sharing hotel rooms with her, I got to see her practice and of course did practice right alongside. I sat through about 50 of her talks and 15 retreats. I sat in on private interviews and answered a lot of her email. Could not have learned more.In 2011, I co-organized a pilgrimage up to her cave in the high Himalayas. There were 30 of us that made the trek and about 20 locals joined us for the last 4 hours.

Since then I have lived in the west, working as a program manager and also as a teacher and coach for my meditation programs. In 2012 I left my job as Program Manager at Hollyhock to concentrate full time on coaching and doing practice.

Though my main practise remains rooted in the Tibetan tradition, I have begin to integrate a lot of Reggie Ray’s somatic practices into both what I am practising and teaching.

urbanMind is the culmination of all that I have learned and all that I know how to teach. I continue to practice and I feel it an honour to teach what I can.