Eric Harrison established Perth Meditation Centre in 1987 and has since taught 25,000 people how to meditate.His teaching style is rational, practical and free of spiritual or New Age ideas. He offers a range of meditations for relaxation and mental control which he likes his students to adapt to their own purposes. Nearly half his students are referrals from doctors or psychologists and he also works extensively in the corporate world.
Eric’s books on meditation are now published in ï¬fteen countries and thirteen languages, and his magazine articles are available on this website. Read full bio… The Mindfulness Workshops run on Saturdays, once a month, from 9 am to 3 pm. The cost is $210 or $150 concession. The fee includes a copy of the textbook The 5-Minute Meditator which will be sent to you in advance when you enrol, and four guided meditation CDs for home use. The workshops take place at the Subiaco Community Centre, 203 Bagot Rd in Subiaco. There is also one final 4-week course starting on Monday 6 Feb.
Gift vouchers are available for both courses and workshops, and books and CDs can be purchased separately. There is also an Advanced Workshop and a Meditation Teacher Training workshop in February.
The 5-Minute Meditator is the textbook for the Courses and Workshops. It contains 42 long and short exercises, but it emphasises the value of meditating ‘on the spot, whenever you can. Once you know how, you can easily calm your body and mind while you walk, eat, work, wait around or do exercise. See the chapters on the right hand side of this page.
Eric’s latest book, The Foundations of Mindfulness, is a commentary and a fresh translation of the Buddha’s original DIY text on the subject. 2500 years on, this text is still the most lucid and comprehensive explanation of mindfulness available to us. It contains 21 training exercises for observing the body, emotions, states of mind and thought which can easily be adapted to our 21st Century requirements. Because the standard translation is indecipherable to non-experts, modern mindfulness relies more on the Zen practice of ‘Just Sitting, not Thinking’, and knows little about the Buddha’s more sophisticated approach. See the chapters on the right hand side of this page. The fully revised second edition of this book will appear in New York in March 2017.
ADVANCE WARNING: 2017 is Eric’s ‘Transition-to-Retirement’ year, and he is reducing his workload accordingly. Eric has taught nearly a thousand courses of 4-8 weeks duration since 1987, and around 600 one-day workshops. The 4-week course in February next year will be his very last course, although he will continue to do one-day workshops and corporate work. The weekly courses will continue however. Two of Eric’s colleagues, psychologists Mark Craigie and Paul Buttegieg, will step into his shoes and run all the courses at PMC from March 2017 onwards. Mark and Paul are very familiar with Eric’s approach, and have been running courses and workshops on mindfulness now for well over a decade. Their website is perthmindfulnesscentre.com.au