In the late 80's, I was working as nanny for a wonderful family in Israel. The mom was an ex-dancer, full of heart but perhaps a little neurotic. The dad was an engineer and I thought he was so full of wisdom.
Even though I was an adventurer
and had been traveling alone for almost a year, I was still very young and very naive. I remember the dad always telling me that I was ignorant, naive.
I can also remember my response, how do I know if I do not know?
I, of course had my fill of life challenges, like rejection from my family that resulted in overuse of alcohol and drugs during my 20's and have since faced a loved ones murder (which I would have never made it through without my mediation practise)
I never had a desire to be "better" I always had a desire to know more. To understand more and to know what I did not know.
Then in my early 30's, someone gave me a book about meditation. I connected with it like nothing else I had ever connected with. I wanted to try it, to understand it and to master it.
It is now 20 years later, tons of books, tons of meditation practice, 10 more years of travel - all in search of "the truth about me" and I can finally say that I have made some real progress.
I learned so much about the things I did not know - and of course this opened an infinite can of worms of unknowingness!
The result (for now) was also unknowable. Like I said, I never had a dream to be better I just wanted to know. Well, I did not know I needed to be better - better as a person in the world and better able to find peace with myself. I did not know.
Meditation brought me along a path I had no idea existed. I have found things that I did not know I was missing - like peace and happiness, contentment and generosity.
I have developed a meditation program that is easy to use and downloadable. I want to share what I found out.

meditationvillage.ca

Everyone is welcome
In dharma,
YeShey

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Hi YeShey,
Thank you for your message.
Where in Israel have you lived? I lived 1.5 yrs in Haifa myself. While my path back than (1990+) was far from spiritual - the foundation was established. I found meditation to be very helpful - that is if person has discipline and sometime courage to continue with practice.
You seems to be able to summarize your experiences and findings in an audio program. It should be quite valuable for beginners.

Feel free to share more of your insight!

Gleb

Dear Gleb,

I was pretty young then too. This was in 1988. I lived on a Moshav near Beersheba and then was a Nanny in Tel Aviv. I really enjoyed it in Israel. I lived there almost a year. I would have stayed longer but the first Gulf War was on the horizon and they began handing out gas masks!
Thanks for saying so, and it is likely obvious to any reader of my post, but I did not relate my time with the family as the beginning of my spiritual journey - but it was.
I totally agree with your comment about discipline and courage to practise. I moved the Asia to get the full spiritual experience and indeed received alot of teachings from great masters. I stayed for 6 years. I could see my perspective changing but this was also a result of living abroad and being faced with your own pre-conceived concepts of how life is or should be. But in fact, my real, deep and lasting shift began when I started to practise every day.
As a short side note: the program I developed is fantastic for beginners but it is also very helpful for experienced meditators. I have taught some of the basics to large groups of experienced practitioners and received shocking feedback. Many learn some of the higher practices first because they seem more romantic or maybe they are believed to be the speedier path. But unless we can hold the mind steady long enough to actually look at the mind, our meditation session is filled with interruptions of random thoughts and emotions.
The first 60 days of the program works on this aspect and then we move onto insight meditation. Not beginner like at all!
What do you think?
YeShey

We arrived to Israel in 1990 and been through gas masks, plastic covered "panic rooms" and rockets exploding few hundred meters from us. All kind of fun stuff.
Your path is quite interesting. Being taught by masters and living what you teach is a great way to teach.

By the way - I am also web/SEO guy myself developing membership software for wordpresss blogs (wordpress membership plugin MemberWing). Part of my audience are webmasters with blogs who want to deliver courses online.

In fact many clients are with self-help industry - which is great trend that i am happy to be part of.
I wonder if you'd give me some feedback on delivering your lessons online. Do you do it manually or use some automation tools?
What kind of automation features would make it helpful for you? Something like regular automated delivery of lessons after user join perhaps?

Feel free to contact me offline (gleb@memberwing.com) about this as I don't want to distract meditation thread with too much technology

Gleb

Dear Gleb,
Wow, I did not know about the panic rooms. What were you doing in Israel?

It sounds like you have a meditation practise. I would love to hear about it.

I mostly practice Tibetan Buddhism and teach calm abiding and insight meditation. I learned to meditate in my home country and when I go to India I immediately connected with the Tibetan Buddhists but their practises are mostly tantra. I am not close to being qualified to teach it, but it is my main type of practise. I love it and an very thankful to have it in my life.

YeShey

Gradually, I started noticing an openness, a spacious quality of mind. My meditations became more peaceful. I could sit and watch the fluttering thoughts and feelings, no matter what the content, without getting too worked up about it. Meditation is just this way right now. It doesn't have to be anything else.

Dear Deborah,
Nicely said!

YeShey