Neil McKinlay Meditation

06/06/2026

Images Of Wakefulness
Insights From The Online Gatherings
www.NeilMcKinlay.com

05/15/2026

A Flash Of Insight
(Friday May 15, 2026)

05/02/2026

Finding Our Path
A Short Meditation of Discovery
In the Living Meditation Network

Support your efforts to bring meditation to life by stepping into the Living Meditation Network for this short, free Zoom event.

Together we will settle into embodied experience and dialogue the knowing that is always ready to guide and support. Before closing, we will have a few moments to share experiences with one another.

04/12/2026

Thought Of The Moment
(Saturday April 11, 2026)

04/04/2026

Finding Our Village
A Short Meditation of Connection
In the Living Meditation Network

Support your efforts to bring meditation to life by stepping into the Living Meditation Network for this short, free Zoom event.

Together we will settle into embodied experience and welcome the village of relatedness that is always ready to support and nourish. Before closing, we will have a few moments to share experiences with one another.

03/12/2026

01/25/2026

The Van Winkle Diaries
Waking Up After Years In A Cult
by Neil W McKinlay

I have been quietly writing on Substack this last little while. What has emerged from these efforts is a series of reflections and rememberings about existing in and recovering from a spiritual community whose inner circle operated in a cult-like manner.

A link to my most recent post can be found in the comments. If you wander around, you’ll see a fair number of other pieces have already been shared.

Should you decide to take a look, I hope you find something resonant and affirming.

01/19/2026

Missing Person

Someone who once belonged to our online meditation community reached out over the weekend to let me know her adult daughter was missing.

Kerem Yadin has not been heard from since early December 2025. Her last verified location was Seattle, Washington. According to her family, there are now some indications she is in Canada.

If you have seen Kerem or have any relevant information, please use the contacts listed here.

Feel free to share this post.

01/14/2026

A Two-Way Street
Wednesday Night Meditation Class
(www.NeilMcKinlay.com)

It’s easy to think of meditation as a one-way street. I do this myself. Unfortunately, I often reinforce this impression when teaching.

“Let’s slow down,” I say at the beginning of a practice session. “Slow down and let your attention surrender to the absorptive draw of somatic mindfulness. Then let somatic mindfulness guide you into this embodied moment, help you settle into the fullness of this embodied instant.”

This is the basic instruction I offer over and over and over again. I share it in classes and workshops. To beginners and more experienced practitioners. Online and in-person. Slow down, surrender, and settle.

Without qualification or correction, this is also the one-way street mentioned above. Travel down Meditation Avenue. Cross Slow Down Lane and Surrender Crescent. Keep going until you find your way to Settle Boulevard.

Someone in an introductory class once took this impression to it’s logical conclusion. Raising a tentative hand she said, “So I guess at one point you get to a place where you’ve mastered this. Where you just settle and that’s that.”

Only meditation really doesn’t work this way.

In spite of the countless number of downward arrows I sketch out on whiteboards both real and virtual, the meditative journey is more accurately depicted by a long series of alternating pointers. There’s one down, then one up - and over again for as long as we practice.

Put another way, meditation is a constant alternation between settling and unsettling. We slow down, surrender, and, yes, we do settle - at least to some extent. Wait another minute or two, however, and that relatively restful attention will rise up and begin wandering again. This is simply what mind does.

At which point, we return to those three handy instructions: slow down, surrender, and settle. Until we’re not so settled anymore. Then we slow down, surrender, and settled again. Until we’re not so settled anymore. Then we…

Well, I’m sure all of us know the drill. Despite the assumption so many of us slip into - despite the assumption I slip into - I’m sure all of us know meditation is actually a two-way street.