News
Hundreds Pay Respects to King

Three Trails in 30 Years

Around the Area

Briefs

Range of Projects Displayed at Expo

Estancia Teen Gets Worldwide Education

CNM To Offer Courses in Edgewood

DWI Memorial Needs Help To Stay Open

Bidding Process To Start on Arts Center

Mother of 5 Arrested in Fatal Stabbing

More
News

HOME	CLASSIFIEDS	OBITUARIES	SPORTS	OPINION

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Workshops Offer Refuge

By Matt Gomez
Mountain View Telegraph
    For many, the East Mountains provide a quiet refuge from the hustle and bustle of the big city.
    Area resident Jay Cutts works to facilitate that same peace and quiet on a more personal level.
    Cutts, who has done "meditative work" since 1971, offers workshops that help participants turn down the noise in their busy lives and enjoy a quiet atmosphere as a method of learning more about themselves.
    Cutts' workshops, titled "Clarifying Meditative Work: A Fresh Look," are geared toward helping participants discover new aspects of meditation and thought they might have previously overlooked, by facilitating discussion among workshop participants, Cutts said.
    The workshops allow attendees to "explore more deeply what meditative work is and how it sheds light on the concerns of our lives, not theoretically, but from a quiet listening that includes others and myself," Cutts' Web site states.
    "We're very used to being active but we're not very used to noticing who we are and what we're bringing to situations," Cutts said Monday. "This shift to a sensitivity inside and outside— it's really a shift to a different way of being. It's a shift from being reactive ... to listening more carefully and being able to respond to things."
    Cutts' workshops provide time for participants to sit quietly and meditate, then come together to discuss virtually anything, he said. Topics can range from real-life concerns like how to interact with others, to more existential topics like death, he said.
    Cutts began offering the meditation workshops 10 or 12 years ago and has offered them consistently for three years, he said. When not leading meditation workshops, Cutts works at a job helping prepare people for graduate school entrance exams, he said.
    "There's a need for it as I see it," Cutts said. "There's a lot of meditation places around ... but there's very few, maybe no other places where there's not a particular tradition being overlaid onto it."
    Avoiding an overarching tradition, Cutts said— such as transcendental meditation or Zen Buddhism— can allow participants to explore topics they might have never encountered before because each participant comes from a different background and has experienced different things.
    "As much as possible ... there's nothing in particular that holds (the meditative group) together," Cutts said. "Hopefully that makes us freer to be able to question any of the things that come up."
    Cutts has attended retreats led by Toni Packer at the Springwater Center in western New York state for 30 years, he said. These retreats are what gave Cutts the idea for his workshops in Albuquerque, he said.
    Packer is involved in "exploring how thought constructs images of self and other, how authority is created, how separation and conflict come into being, and what happens when there is awareness and insight," according to the Springwater Center Web site.
    Cutts also offers multiday retreats at his home near Sedillo Hill. The retreats provide a place for participants to experience living in silence, with once-a-day discussions and time to listen to some of Packer's previous talks, Cutts said.
    The meditation workshops and retreats are open to anyone— even those with no previous experience with meditation, Cutts said.
    "If somebody has never done any meditation, then we can talk a little bit about what to do in that quiet sitting time," Cutts said. "Most people actually seem not to have any trouble when you say it's going to be quiet time. They just somehow sit quietly for half an hour."
    The next meditative discussion will be held 2-5 p.m. Feb. 10. The workshops are held at the WAT Temple in Albuquerque at 145 Madison NE. Donations up to $5 are accepted.
    Anyone with questions about the workshops, retreats or meditation can call Cutts at 281-0684 or visit his Web site at http://www.swcp.com/jcutts/meditation/.