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Back to Burgs & The Art of Meditation
Where to Start with Burgs & The Art of Meditation: A Beginner's Guide
For Beginners

Where to Start with Burgs & The Art of Meditation: A Beginner's Guide

Start with The Stillness Programme. Burgs designed it as the front door to The Art of Meditation, the organisation he founded and has run for over 25 years of hosting retreats.

B&
Burgs & The Art of Meditation
Oct 13, 2026
4 min read
Read · 7 sections

Where to Start with Burgs & The Art of Meditation: A Beginner's Guide

The single best entry point

Start with The Stillness Programme. Burgs designed it as the front door to The Art of Meditation, the organisation he founded and has run for over 25 years of hosting retreats. It introduces the fundamentals of meditation without assuming any prior practice, covering posture, attention and the basics of technique. It is self-paced and combines guided meditations with reading and audio materials, so you can work through it on your own schedule.

If you want to hear his voice before paying for anything, his audio library, podcast and YouTube channel let you sample his pacing and manner first. But if you are ready to commit, the Stillness Programme is the place.

The next places to go

Level 1: The Art of Meditation. This is the natural second step. It works systematically through concentration (samadhi) and mindfulness (sati), the two pillars that underpin everything else he teaches.

The anxiety course. If anxiety is what brought you here, it stands on its own, and you don't need to finish Level 1 first.

Level 2: Healing Meditation. Once your concentration and mindfulness are steady, this applies them to emotional and psychological wellbeing.

Beyond these sits Internal Alchemy, his energetic self-cultivation work drawing on chi kung and breathwork. Treat it as a later destination, not a second stop.

If you like music alongside practice, his recent singles, including "The Long Out Breath" (December 2025) and "A Loving Arm Around You" (June 2026), are short, easy ways in. They are not a substitute for the courses.

What to expect on a first encounter

Expect patience and precision. Burgs meets beginners without condescension and without rushing them toward esoteric material. The tone is serious but not austere. He treats meditation as a long inquiry into what it is to be alive, and he is explicit that it is not a science. He calls the goal an "art of just being." You will not find "evidence-based" or "neuroplasticity" marketing language here.

The courses are self-paced, so the discipline is yours to supply. There is no hook-and-upsell structure designed to keep casual browsers engaged. You show up, sit, listen and read.

Common beginner misunderstandings

Treating it as a quick fix. This is not a ten-minute-a-day stress hack. Burgs frames meditation as a years-long journey, and people who want a productivity tool tend to bounce off.

Expecting a single simple method. His curriculum spans concentration, mindfulness, vipassana, healing meditation and energy work. Beginners sometimes panic at the breadth. Ignore most of it. The courses are sequenced so you only need the next step.

Assuming you must be Buddhist. His teaching draws on Buddhist frameworks, but no religious belief is required to follow the foundational work.

Assuming the art is decoration. Calligraphy, crafts and thangka painting in his retreats are treated as genuine practice, not add-ons. Burgs has written of healing his own brain after a traumatic injury, and he found art and craft a real help alongside meditation.

When this work lands hardest

It tends to land hardest when you are tired of commercialised mindfulness and want something with more depth. It also suits periods of anxiety or emotional strain, when the anxiety course and Healing Meditation have something concrete to offer. And it suits anyone ready to commit months, not days, to a practice. Burgs's own recovery from brain trauma gives the healing material a lived grounding, which people in a hard stretch of life often find reassuring.

A one-week starter plan

Day 1. Enroll in The Stillness Programme and read the opening material. Sit for the first guided meditation. Don't judge how it went.

Day 2. Repeat the first guided meditation at the same time and place. Consistency matters more than quality.

Day 3. Move on to the next lesson in the programme. Notice where your attention wanders and simply return.

Day 4. Do the guided session, then spend a few minutes with the reading or audio material.

Day 5. Listen to a recording from his podcast or YouTube channel to hear how he talks about practice outside the course structure.

Day 6. Sit twice if you can, once guided and once on your own in silence for a short stretch. Let it be uncomfortable.

Day 7. Review the week. Did the practice settle anything? If so, continue through the Stillness Programme and plan for Level 1. If anxiety was your reason for coming, look at the anxiety course next.

If the week goes well and you want more, his retreats in the UK and northern Portugal, some held mostly in silence, are there when you are ready. Check theartofmeditation.org for current dates.

B&
AboutBurgs & The Art of Meditation

Burgs founded The Art of Meditation after more than 25 years of leading retreats, and his path was shaped by healing his own brain after a traumatic injury through meditation and c…

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