Mindfulness Frame by Frame with Mark Williams

These eight weeks, organised by Oxford Mindfulness Centre, offer a taste of a new course that has been developed for those who have already completed a mindfulness course and want to explore mindfulness more deeply. It is informed by recent psychological findings that offer fresh insights into the way our attention works, how preferences are formed, and predictions are made.

New findings reveal that every waking moment, our understanding of the world is dominated by predicting what actions we need to take next, coloured by what is called ‘feeling tone’ – that is, the moment-by-moment ‘read-out’ of whether any contact with mind or body feels pleasant, unpleasant, or neither. Based on this moment-by-moment ‘read out’, the body elegantly allocates its resources as it gears up for real or imagined action. This can prepare us well for action, but it can also put us at risk of becoming exhausted without our realising it.

Ancient traditions saw feeling tone as a fundamental element of every moment of experience and an important aspect of mindfulness practice. Registering the feeling tone of what is arising allows us to see clearly the very instant where we may become caught up in pursuing or rejecting something and become entangled in a web of emotional distress. Meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein has said that mindfulness of feeling tone is one of the master keys that both reveals and unlocks the deepest patterns of our conditioning.

During these eight weeks we will use meditations that prepare us for, then tune in to our experience of feeling tone frame by frame, providing an opportunity to see more clearly the underlying causes of much of our distress and how to free ourselves from it.

More information and registering for the course here: https://www.oxfordmindfulness.org/news/mindfulness-frame-by-frame/?fbclid=IwAR0B_Rp003ZZMnuC33bxDVlClLZvwzc1tPxm9fah29Yzx5EH3WSf94ig4ps