Meaningful Life Center is a special place in Knoxville, TN that welcomes anyone interested in exploring and discovering a personal and unique path to a fulfilling and meaningful life. The Center’s workshops and activities are designed to support each person’s journey toward that goal. Please come in and explore.
Click HERE to see a sample of some of our offerings.
We’re busy adding new programs for you to explore. Check back often to see what’s new.
A Workshop for Men and Women as they Approach and Pass that Amazing Milestone of 60 Years.
Somewhere along the way, as our lives approach 60, then move on to 65, to 70, and beyond — the questions change, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically. But there are still questions. Profound questions. And decisions. And opportunities.
For a very long time, reading and contemplating sacred texts has been a powerful practice in many spiritual traditions. Lectio Divina (Latin for “Divine Reading”) is a traditional Benedictine practice of scriptural reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation intended to promote communion with God. Some version of this practice has been used in all faith traditions.
Participants in this workshop will learn the discipline of sacred reading and then participate, as a group, in the practice using texts from different traditions. Join us for an evening of exploring the world of sacred reading.
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The simple act of sitting in one place and not DOING something has been a gateway for liberation for millennia. There is a reason it “works”. Yet it is the willingness to show up and simply sit that transforms us. The reasons are not relevant. Neither is reading about it, thinking about it, or talking about it.
To access this ancient avenue, one must experience it. In these morning meditation sessions, you will have an opportunity to experience an extended meditation in a supportive environment.
If you have a meditation practice and would like to sit regularly with a group of practitioners, please consider joining us every Wednesday morning at the Meaningful Life Center. We sit in silence for a period of 45 minutes, beginning at 10 am. Our first meeting will be on March 23, 2022.
We welcome all participants, whether you are accustomed to meditating by yourself at home or you sit with another group. Our purpose is simply to offer the opportunity to meditate regularly with an informal group. Many people find that sitting with others offers a strong support for their practice.
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Meetings, Classes and Events
“When you allow yourself to be in a sangha the way a drop of water allows itself to be in a river, then the energy of the sangha can penetrate you, and healing and transformation become possible.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
Sangha is the traditional name for a gathering of spiritual friends who are practicing the path of awareness. Our Sangha meeting includes guided meditation, a period of teaching, and discussion. It is suitable for both experienced and new meditators.
Unconditional Love, Part 4
with John Blackburn
4 Sundays beginning November 4
2:00-3:30 pm
Knoxville Community of Mindfulness at The Meaningful Life Center & On Zoom
This class continues to build upon the practices and teachings offered in Parts 1, 2. and 3. Part 4 will explore the awakening mind with practices which offer a direct experience of our true nature, which is Unconditional Love. More info at Knoxville Community of Mindfulness website.
For thousands of years, the world’s wisdom traditions have affirmed that there is more to life than the everyday things on which we spend much of our time. In ancient Greece, the quest for wisdom was exemplified by the frequent admonition of Socrates: “Know Thyself.” He went further, saying, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” Two thousand years later, this current was still going strong in the Western world, with the great mathematician, physicist, inventor, and philosopher Blaise Pascal saying, “It is an extraordinary blindness to live without investigating what we are.”
Meaningful Life Center participants explore, study, and discuss the components of a meaningful life and consider what is most important for their own lives in light of the guidance of a range of ideas from philosophy, psychology, science, art, music, literature, poetry, and the world’s wisdom traditions and practices.
By providing resources, encouragement, and support, the Center helps participants know themselves well enough to discover what a meaningful life might look like, and it facilitates each person’s ability to find such a life for themselves.
During the past 20 years, several hundred people in East Tennessee, ranging in age from 25 to 80, have participated in workshops given by David White. These workshops, which in the past were known by word of mouth only, are the starting point for the Center.
The goal now is to provide access to these programs (and others being developed by past participants), to anyone who might be interested. By establishing a physical home for the Center, as well as a non-profit organization to manage its activities, it is hoped that a community will grow and develop with the purpose of nourishing the personal growth of all who participate.
As this time of crisis continues, one important action each of us can take is to cultivate a sense of peace and calm within ourselves, and then share those energies with anyone with whom we have contact, whether in person or via the various electronic devices we use.
The other thing we can do is find ways to help others through this crisis. Some are in a position to take actions that will affect many other lives, but the rest of us can find small things to do for those we know and for those most in need.
Resources for finding inner peace
It’s hard to know what each of us can do to solve this great societal crisis. But each of us can make a monumental effort, deep within ourselves, to find inner peace and calm, and then share those qualities with everyone we touch (however that happens, in these extraordinary times).
Follow this link to various resources we’re compiling that you may find helpful in your journey to create inner peace.
Resources for Helping others
Besides finding and sharing peace and calm, the other thing we each can do is help the people around us, and those in the most need. If you do this, it will not only help you as an individual, but if enough of us do this, it will change for the better who we are as a community and as a country. Help your neighbors and friends as much as you can, if you have the resources. Here are some organizational efforts that seem to be responding in a valuable way to this crisis.
We’re located at 116 Carr Street, Knoxville, Tennessee
For general information about the center we can be contacted by –
Phone: 865-333-5833 or
email:contact@meaningfullifecenter.org
A unique assortment of books has been assembled to enhance the ideas and programs of the Center – to be loaned, free of charge to participants in the Center’s programs. A list of books in our collection can be viewed here – Lending Library
