For a few months now, I've had the honor and pleasure of offering meditation with the team at Sanctuary Acupuncture + Holistic Health. In my incredibly biased and well-informed opinion, Sarah Biffen, Kristin Cash, and Heather Clark have created one of the finest new, forward-thinking community spaces in the city. (Sarah is my fiancee, Kristin and Heather are close friends.) Their clinic is a peaceful oasis right where the Bowery peaks in its glory intersecting with Canal St. The meeting of the Lower East Side to Chinatown, the traffic from the Manhattan Bridge to and from Brooklyn, a dash of Little Italy, a dusting of the Diamond District... It's like having a hammock in the eye of a hurricane. The knowledge and care that this team provides out of the space are unparalleled. 

The Meditation Series is offered once a month on Monday evenings after work. It is intended as a service. The cost is $10 which is not for the meditation. Meditation is free. The 10 bucks is for the space, the tea, the time, the effort... and goes back to paying the rent and keeping the lights on.  This is one of the key principles of our practice. In the modern world, meditation is sold to us as "good for us". Sometimes it is good for us, but it is essential to acknowledge that this element did not originally reside in the exercise. In the original training is the intention to step out of the wheel of good and bad, and do something different. An acknowledgment that we each live in this cycle of good and bad, yes and no, black and white, and all the grays in between. Meditation is a reprieve from that. Something else available now, already happening and intentionally quiet.

We usually start with this reminder and discuss the material for the evening. For instance, last month it was the Principles of Work, a 4-part taxonomy offering an open and complete philosophical approach to any and all work. Tonight it will be the Aspects of an Action, a 9-point flow based in Buddhist practice breaking down every ideal action to 9 individual parts. Spoiler alert, it begins and ends in stillness. 

Then we meditate. After that, we discuss observations, questions, thoughts, ideas, ruminations, etc. The evening is closed and we continue our separate - yet interconnected lives. Please join us if you're in the New York City Area tonight at 6 or for a future Monday. You can find the dates by visiting Sanctuary here.

• 6-8pm, $10
• Sanctuary Acupuncture + Holistic Health
• 80 Bowery, Suite 303