Stillness Meditation in Ringwood

Stillness Meditation is a natural process of profound mental rest, experienced afterwards as calm, ease, and sometimes deep tranquillity. This approach follows the work of the late Dr Ainslie Meares and is taught as a practical, learnable skill that develops over time. It is not about effort or belief — it is about direct experience. 

What is Stillness?

  Stillness is stillness. It involves an absence of focusing, observing, visualisation and breathing techniques. These single minded (eg focus) states cannot coexist with Stillness in the sense it is meant in Stillness Meditation. Stillness means an absence of mental activity whilst things like breathing proceed automatically. When the mind is Still you dimly know that you remain awake and not asleep. It is afterwards you experience the calm and ease from the profound rest and integration Stillness allows. 

In Stillness Meditation sessions, you simply listen to a few words at the start and  gently relax. You really don't have to do anything.  

Better coping

Nervous tension, anxiety, fear and pain all involve mental activity. Time spent in Stillness helps to reduce or remove them. Better coping means a better life. These goals can be met in a simple, efficient way by relearning a natural human ability. A simple and natural skill that improves over time. It does not happen all at once in an instant but sooner than you think. Firstly, experiencing the mind's own natural mechanism of rest and calm. Secondly, allowing the calm feelings to flow onwards into daily living. 

It's something quite remarkable with a plain name - deep mental relaxation - Stillness Meditation. But, the effects are anything but plain. Calm, peace of mind, tranquility, uncommonly, serenity or bliss. When you know Stillness for yourself, you will truly agree that words fail to adequately describe it.

The process 

Quite simply, one relaxes and experiences a slowing of mental activity. Eventually, the mind profoundly rests in Stillness. Afterwards, a feeling of calm - even more than calm - is felt. The presence of a skilled trained teacher helps the group (or individual) pass into Stillness yet, each helps themselves. Some shift earlier and this helps the others progress towards Stillness too. Afterwards, one feels a release of tension, anxiety etc. If you carry a lot of tension etc you may feel both release and an awareness of the tension etc in the background. A person may notice tension first but when they consider how they feel they also notice a difference due to released tension. For others, they notice a difference and then realise there is background nervous tension too.  They may have been unaware they were carrying this nervous tension. Either observation is perfectly normal. The important thing is that attending class and daily practice results in releases of tension over time that gradually remove the background tension. After that, just calm (without background tension) is felt after Stillness Meditation. 

Touch, hover and a little talk

A few words can help people relax at the start of the session. But, words involve hearing them and mental processing which creates some mental activity. Also, Stillness comes from a place where words do not live. Teaching involves those few words and then people are offered 

• gentle touch (head & shoulders).  

• hands that reach out but do not quite touch (hover hands) instead of in contact touch. 

Touch and hover soothe and calm in a way that words cannot. 

Absence of touch & hover is also offered for those who wish to participate as part of the group.

First, details are provided, questions answered, but the biggest answer is the experience of Stillness itself with individual touch\hover preference built into each participant's experience. 

For a summary of some of Dr Meares' finding's about the benefits of Stillness and conditions helped see here.