Starting March 3, 2020, a new series of Meditation classes will be taught in Woodstock, NY. Dan Globus, Director and lead Meditation & Mindfulness teacher of The Compassion Center will be teaching these classes at Mountain View Studio and Euphoria Yoga in Woodstock.
There will be four special classes in March at Mountain View Studio, located at 20 Mountainview Ave. Two of these classes will be Intro to Meditation classes and the other two classes will be classes dedicated to people who wish to learn techniques to alleviate and remove anxiety and stress.
Mountain View Studio in Woodstock, NY
The Intro to Meditation classes will be held on Thursday, March 19th from 6:30-7:30pm and Sunday, March 22nd from 11am-12pm. These are not simply for people that have never meditated before. They are also for those who have never had formal training in Meditation as well as those that seek to restart their Meditation practice. It is for adults as well as children and teens. If your child can sit quietly for an hour without fidgeting, they are most welcome to come.
Our two classes called “Anxiety & Stress Solutions for Everyone” take place on Thursday, March 26th from 6:30-7:30pm and Sunday, March 29th from 11am-12pm. If you have been living with anxiety and possibly even experienced panic attacks, these classes will teach you techniques to reduce the symptoms of anxiety. If these techniques are practiced on a regular basis, and combined with a regular Meditation practice, a person can completely eliminate their anxiety symptoms.
“We have had great success working with people in NYC that suffer from anxiety. There are three groups of people that we have worked with. The first group is made up of people that have been on anti-anxiety meds for years and want to get off of them. The second group is made up of people that have been told by a therapist, psychiatrist or medical doctor that they should take anti-anxiety medication for their anxiety. These people are radically opposed to doing this. And the last group is made up of people that have been suffering with anxiety for a long time, have tried various ways to deal with their anxiety, and nothing has worked. Within only a few short weeks of coming to The Compassion Center, all groups of people have experienced different levels of relief.”
Starting Thursday, March 2nd, Dan will teach a weekly Meditation class from 6:30-7:30pm at Mountain View Studio. Each class will have a “theme”. These themes are intended to help people to address various challenges that they are facing in their lives. This includes reducing and eliminating anxiety and stress, understanding the causes of depression and how to eliminate depression, identifying the roots of our anger and learning how to address anger, learning to unconditionally love ourselves, learning forgiveness, and so many more themes.
The classes at Mountain View Studio are by donation with a recommended donation amount of $10. You can see the Mountain View Studio Meditation class schedule and reserve your seat here.
The classes at Euphoria Yoga, located at 99 Tinker Street in Woodstock, will be held each Tuesday from 5:30-6:30pm starting Tuesday, March 3rd. These classes are open to both beginners and experienced meditators alike. Each class will utilize traditional Tibetan Buddhist, Vipassana and Mindfulness Meditation techniques. They are non-religious.
Euphoria Yoga Woodstock NY
Who is Dan Globus?
Dan has been teaching Meditation classes to groups, individuals and corporations under his organization names, The Compassion Center and its corporate parent company, Meditation House Ltd. He has just recently moved to Woodstock and has committed to teaching ongoing classes.
The type of Meditation that Dan will be teaching is unique. Dan started his training 10 years ago under the tutelage of Venerable Thupten Phuntsok, an ordained Tibetan Buddhist monk of the Gelug school. Dan started as a student, ultimately partnered with Puntsok, as he likes to be called, and founded The Compassion Center in Staten Island. His Meditation technique combines traditional techniques with an insight that is unique to Dan. He has an understanding of the pain that many of us have experienced and are going through. This allows him to guide people towards healing.
“Like most teachers, when I first started teaching Meditation, I taught a very basic form of Meditation that involved relaxing the body, focusing on the breath, and then bringing the attention to whatever phenomena that appears in the mind’s eye (that space that we imagine seeing when we close our eyes). Now, my classes incorporate these basic steps and I work on visualizing and guiding people towards experiencing changes that people seek and need in their lives.”
The primary reason that people were coming to The Compassion Center may not be the reason you think. Of course, people were interested, or at least curious, about Meditation. Some had even tried Meditation via an intro class, Apps, or watching YouTube videos. However, the primary reason why people came to Meditation classes at The Compassion Center was because they were really stressed and/or filled with anxiety. They were desperate for a method to reduce and remove the anxiety and stress without using prescribed medication or intoxicants (i.e. alcohol, pot, opiods, etc.).
Each class that was taught at The Compassion Center had a theme. The intent of focusing on a theme was to help people to address the underlying cause of their stress and anxiety. The themes of the classes dealt with various childhood traumas, abusive parents, loss and grief, substance abuse, overindulging in food, anger, forgiveness, and self-love and compassion.
What can you expect and not expect at a Meditation class in Woodstock?
- Expect to be surrounded by people who are probably seeking the same things as you. The people sitting in the same place may look different, but there’s a very good chance that they are struggling with something and seek a “natural” way to address it.
- Don’t expect to be forced to sit on the floor cross legged like the people pictured in so many images. Most people that come to our classes sit on chairs. Still, if you want to sit on a cushion or a special Meditation chair on the floor, one will be provided to you.
- Expect to have a very positive experience. At the end of the class, you will feel very relaxed, probably happy, and you may even feel like a weight has been lifted from you.
- Don’t expect to have a “mystical experience”. It could happen, but most new meditators do not have such deep experiences until they have been practicing for a while. This is not to say that you won’t have a deep and profound experience.
- Expect your emotions to become very consistent if you come to class and practice at home on a regular basis. In other words, you will no longer go through extreme lows and highs and ping pong between the two.
- Don’t expect any very deep routed emotion to disappear quickly. It takes time to address the imprints that have been left in our minds and hearts.
- Expect to become a happier person.
- Don’t expect a quick temper or sadness to disappear right away. It takes time.
And this last one may be the most important of all things you should and should not expect….
Try not to judge your experience with our Meditation classes strictly based upon your first class. Unless you have a horrible experience in your first class, give yourself the opportunity to come back to a second class and see how the second class compares to the first.
“My first class, with my first teacher, was not very positive. Still, there was enough there for me to be curious enough to want to come back and have a second experience. Had I not come back to that second class, I may never have experienced the profound joy and happiness that I have derived from my Meditation practice.
The 5 Steps to Successful Meditation Classes
1. Don’t Expect Miracles from Your First Meditation Class
There is a perception that you will resolve whatever issue you are trying to address by simply taking one Meditation class. The beneficial effects of Meditation take time. For some, they can see their lives improving within only a matter of a few short weeks. For others, their lives may only slowly change over a period of months. Whatever issue you have brought to our Meditation class has probably grown and multiplied over a very long period of time. We cannot undo within one hour what has possibly taken years to create. You should be fair and kind to yourself. Give yourself a few weeks to start seeing a difference. Just like anything you study, the more you do it, the better you will become.
2. Make a Daily Commitment and The Beneficial Effects of Meditation will Happen Quickly
Meditating only on occasion will mean that the issue(s) that you are trying to address via Meditation will take some time to resolve. Think about an exercise program. If you go to the gym every day, you will see noticeable progress within a very short period. However, if you only go to the gym once a week, you will see a difference, but it could take many weeks before that difference is noticeable. Meditation works in the same way. If you make a commitment to meditating daily (even for only 5 minutes) and come to Dan’s classes once a week, within only a few very short weeks, you will start to experience very noticeable differences. You will feel happier, your focus will be much sharper, you will smile more, people will start to react very differently to you, and there will be many other positive changes.
3. When First Learning to Meditate, Set Reasonable Limits and Expectations
After your first Meditation class, don’t go home and try to meditate for 20 or more minutes. Set 5 minutes as your goal. If you feel that after 5 minutes you want to keep meditating, then keep meditating. Think about how difficult it is when you first take a Yoga class or go to the gym. But the more you do it, the easier it becomes and you can do more and more. To help you, there are a good number of free Apps available that will allow you to set a time. We recommend and use the Meditation Timer (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/meditation-timer-free/id515571863?mt=8). It’s free and allows you to choose how long you wish to meditate for.
4. You Must Be Comfortable When You Meditate
It’s not essential that you start a Meditation practice by sitting cross legged on the floor. It is perfectly acceptable to sit in a chair. You must be comfortable or you will never be able to sit still and get into a deep Meditation. If you sit in a chair, just remember to sit upright with your back slightly away from the back of the chair and keep your feet flat on the floor. If you wish to use a Meditation mat, but have problems sitting cross legged, try using one of the Meditation Benches from Dharmacrafts. These keep you sitting erect, take all the pressure off your hips and off your knees. When you attend one of Dan’s classes, please ask him about these and he will show you how to use one during your Meditation.
5. Set Your Intention Before Each Meditation
Here is the Golden Gift I have for you. No matter why you want to meditate, your Meditation practice will reveal things to you that you didn’t realize or were unaware of. For example, several months ago, we had a man visit us who explained that the reason why he came to Meditation class at The Compassion Center was that he needed to “shut up that little guy who keeps talking in his head”. So his “intention”, in the early stages of his practice, was to quiet his mind. What he will discover, after he continues to meditate for a few weeks (or possibly a few months) is that there is a reason why the chatter in his head is so bothering. There are deep rooted feelings, issues, experiences, and events that we all bury deep into our subconscious. That constant chatter is a way for the mind to tell you that these things are there and they want attention. Once we quiet the chatter and acknowledge these feelings, the chatter starts to subside.
The best piece of advice I can give anyone who is interested in Meditation is to be patient with themselves, make a commitment to practice meditation, wake up each day and meditate for as long as you can (even if it’s only 5 minutes) and within a very short while, you will be able to address whatever your intention is and you will become a much happier person.
“Personally speaking, meditation has changed my life and made me a much better person. I am so grateful to have learned meditation with Puntsok. If you attend our Intro class, I applaud you for taking a step that will ultimately make you a better person.”
