This handbook is organized around six lessons and is progressive and gradual in difficulty level. Click below ⏵to hearAri Kaplan preview the content from each of the six chapters [3:40].
Why, "Toronto Method"?
Click ⏵to hear Ari Kaplan explain [1:56] the origin of the title, Toronto Method Mindfulness Handbook.
Adopted in this handbook are the two subscales of mindfulness, being curiosity and decentring that were developed in the Toronto Mindfulness Scale (Lau et al., 2006), a widely used empirical instrument in psychology research papers.
Decentring is the process of having an embodied awareness experience in a moment. It is an intentional process of observing your thoughts and feelings as temporary events that pass away separate from yourself. The task of decentring is done through the “three Ds:” distancing, disidentification, and d’meta-awareness.
Mindfulness meditation can help you decentre from yourself, or as Sam Harris says, to realize that “as a matter of direct experience, you are simply the space in which sensations, or thoughts, and anything else you can perceive, is appearing and changing in each moment.”
There is always a choice between noticing what is arising in your mind and body in each moment and not noticing. To not notice is to live in a trance of thought-spell, which is as unreal as anything.
