Foundations in Buddhist & Taoist Contemplative Practice
The opening course, and deliberately the gentlest. Before you study any system, you need a working relationship with your own attention — this course establishes that through direct meditative practice, drawn from Buddhist and Taoist sources, rather than through doctrine. It runs five weeks, one core text and one week of guided practice at a time.
The discipline of meditation itself — breath, posture, attention; the core Buddhist teachings on suffering, non-attachment and insight; and the Taoist idea of wu wei, effortless action. Each week opens with short teaching and guidance from Benjamin before that week's reading and exercise, so you leave with both a daily practice and two contrasting frames for understanding it, not one tradition's doctrine alone.
A daily sitting practice throughout the five weeks, paired with one short written paragraph each week — each a self-contained entry in a personal meditation handbook you keep, a record to return to whenever you sit again. The course closes with a longer written contemplation that draws your five paragraphs together, completing the handbook and preparing you for your 1-to-1 tutorial with Benjamin.
No prior meditation or study experience is assumed — this is deliberately the gentlest course, and the recommended starting point.
The course centres on a real daily sitting practice, not only reading about one.
Courses 03 and beyond draw on the meditative grounding built here.
Work through the short, curated reading list above at your own pace.
Follow the specific topics of investigation raised by each text.
Complete the course's practical activity and exercise.
Your exercise becomes the basis of a personal 1-to-1 tutorial with Benjamin.
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