From the Ground Up
- Beginning Buddhist Meditation -
Six weeks, live, starting Sunday 23 August.
Most people are taught the technique and never given the ground it stands on. That is why their practice keeps collapsing. This is your chance to learn meditation in a live setting, with opportunities to ask questions and get real answers.
Almost everyone I teach has tried to meditate before.
They downloaded something, sat for a few days, found the mind wouldn't stop, and concluded they were bad at it. Then they stopped. It is the most common story in the room, and it has almost nothing to do with talent.
What is usually missing is the ground. The Buddha taught meditation in an order - how you live, then a settled mind, then seeing clearly - and the order is not decoration, it is cause and effect. The practice starts before we sit on the cushion. Take a technique out of that order and hand it to someone on its own, and it works for about a week.
This course puts the order back.
What you will learn
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Sit with a steady body and an easy breath, without strain
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Settle attention on one thing, and come back when it wanders, without judging yourself
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Feel the body directly, from the inside
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Catch feeling-tone - the pleasant or unpleasant flavor that arrives before every thought - and meet a reaction at its root
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Recognize the five hindrances by name, and know what to do about each one
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Practice the four divine abidings: metta, karuna, mudita, upekkha
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Watch experience arise and pass, and see anicca for yourself rather than take it on trust
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Build a sustainable daily practice you designed, and can continue into the future.
The six weeks
Week 1 - The ground, and the breath.
What practice actually is. Sila, the five training precepts, and where a settled mind actually comes from. Then anapanasati, mindfulness of breathing - the first technique.
Week 2 - Finding Calm.
Samatha. Serenity or peaceful meditation. Learning to concentrate the mind, including common problems and misconceptions. Dealing with the "monkey mind" - the wandering mind - the attitude you return with matters more than how often you were distracted.
Week 3 - The body, and the flavor of things.
The first two of the four foundations of mindfulness. Body from the inside, walking meditation, and vedana, feeling-tone.
Week 4 - The mind, and what blocks it.
The third foundation. The five hindrances and their remedies, and the faculties and awakening factors as a map for balancing a practice. You leave with that map and an understanding of how meditation develops over time.
Week 5 - The heart.
The four divine abidings, trained deliberately. Loving-kindness, compassion, gladness at another's good fortune, and equanimity, which is the one that keeps the other three from burning out. Training the mind towards happiness.
Week 6 - Seeing clearly, and a practice for life.
Anicca, dukkha and anatta, held lightly. Impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and non-self in simple terms. Then you build your own daily practice which suits you and leave with it.
There is also an optional week before we begin, for anyone who feels nervous about starting. Five minutes a day, no technique and no theory. Just proof that you can sit down and nothing bad happens.
What a session looks like
Ninety minutes, every Sunday.
We settle. You say how the week's practice went and hear how it went for everyone else, which is often the most useful part of the whole thing. About twenty minutes of teaching. A guided practice together. Then questions, with real time for them, not four minutes at the end. We close with the week's home practice.
Every session is recorded, so a week you cannot make is not a week you lose.
What it asks of you
Ninety minutes on a Sunday, and a sit at home most days. It starts at about twelve minutes in week one and grows to around twenty-five by the end.
The home practice is the course. The Sunday session teaches you what to do and answers what came up in the week. What changes anything is the sitting you do alone, on the ordinary mornings, when nobody is watching.
If you are not willing to sit most days, this is the wrong six weeks. If you come, come committed.
Who this is for
This is for beginners and those who struggle to practice. People who have never sat formally, and people who tried and decided it wasn't for them. It's for people who want to learn meditation from the beginning.
You do not need to be Buddhist. You do not need to believe anything, and nothing in these six weeks asks you to. The teaching is given as it was given, and you test it against your own experience... which is what the tradition asks of you anyway.
It is also for people who have practiced for a while off the back of an app or a video, and can feel that something underneath is missing. And for those who think they should meditate, but don't know how to be consistent.
Meet your teacher
I'm David. I teach meditation, yoga, and dhamma on Koh Phangan, in Thailand, with my wife Kira.
I came to this the long way round. For over twenty years I lived with depression, anxiety and addiction, and when everything fell apart at once I did not rebuild it. I walked 3,500 kilometers through the Appalachian Mountains instead, twelve hours a day, with just a tent and my own thoughts. That walk turned into the longest meditation retreat of my life. It eventually led me to vipassana, then to nearly five years living and teaching at a meditation retreat center.
I have sat, assisted, and led numerous vipassana retreats, given many dhamma talks, and hosted meditation retreats of my own. I have been teaching since 2021, to a few thousand people in total. I also completed 200 and 300 hour trainings in yoga amongst many other trainings.
The practice is what found me when nothing else had and it has completely transformed my life. I teach beginners and advanced students... we start from the beginning because many times we forget about the foundations and leave ourselves on shaky ground.
A note on care
This is practice for wellbeing. It is not therapy, and it is not treatment for any medical or mental health condition.
The heart and insight practices in the later weeks can bring things up. If you are carrying something difficult, or have a history of trauma or panic, tell me privately when you enroll and I will make sure you have a gentler way in. Nobody is asked to push through anything here.
The details
Dates: Six Sundays, 23 August to 27 September 2026
Time: 15:00 Thailand / 11:00 Israel / 10:00 Europe / 09:00 UK
Length: About 90 minutes, online
Recorded: Every session
Places: 15 maximum
I've set the limit to fifteen because the session has real time for questions and for one to one support.
Price
199 EUR
If the cost is the thing stopping you, and you are willing to commit to the six weeks, get in touch and we will work it out.
Join
I will send you the payment details and add you to the group. Enrollment closes Saturday 22 August, the day before we begin.
If you are not sure whether it is for you, message me anyway and ask... being unsure is a reason to ask, not a reason to stay out.
Common Questions and Answers
What if I am bad at meditating?
That is who this is built for. The mind wandering is not a fault, it is what an untrained mind does, we will learn how to manage it and drop expectations of what meditation should be. Everyone can meditate, even you.
Do I need to sit on the floor?
No. A chair is fine and having a comfortable seat is preferable. We spend time in week one on a posture that works for your body.
What if I miss a Sunday?
Every session is recorded and you will have it the same day. The daily practice carries you through, and you can bring anything that came up to the next session.
Do I have to be Buddhist?
No, and you are not asked to become one. The practices are taught as they were taught, with their own names, and you test them against your own experience. There is no faith required - all religions and beliefs are welcome.
Is 15 minutes a day really enough?
For six weeks, yes. It is enough to build the habit and to have something real to bring back each Sunday. Longer sits come later, once sitting is not a fight.
Can I do this from the US?
The live sessions are timed for Europe, Israel and Thailand, so 15:00 Thailand is very early in the Americas. The recordings work fine, but you would be practicing without the live room, which is a good part of what you are paying for. A self-paced version will come later.
What if this is too expensive for me?
Message me and say so. If you are willing to commit to the six weeks, we will find a number that works.