View a short VIDEO with past participants’ insights
via Spirit Rock Meditation Center
ONLINE: 17-week Class
WEDNESDAYS: April 28 - August 18 6 - 8 pm PT
Would you like to have skillful ways to be in the midst of this critical time?
If so, the teachings of the 8-Fold Path directly shows us how we can use our wisdom & heart-mind training to support our behaviors with these qualities:
Wisdom in:
Skillful Understanding / View
Skillful Thought / Motivation
Enacted through Heart-Mind trainings/meditations & practices in:
Skillful Effort
Skillful Mindfulness
Skillful Concentration
To foster behaviors of:
Skillful Speech
Skillful Action
Skillful Livelihood
These 8 aspects are taught as ways to live an intentional life of non-harming. Each week you’ll be presented with traditional & social justice-oriented contemporary frames to understand & apply these aspects in real & every day ways. You’ll be able to learn & practice how they make sense for you in your life now & not just as theories & concepts.
Inquiring into, understanding, and responding to the causes & conditions that have brought about our collective suffering of racism, this course will offer a variety of instructional/guided meditations, reflective writings, and mindfulness practices along with interactive exercises to support grounding, settledness, & wise action. Connecting to how you have agency/power (in yourself & with your communities) in the midst of racial conditioning is the best “medicine” for these times. We’ll practice skills for staying in discomfort & resilience through cultivating an open-hearted intimacy with suffering, invoking anti-racism to have impact in the world.
Class format will alternate between a session of teachings & a home practice assignment (attended by everyone) with a week to discuss what came up for you in the home practice that week (small groups to foster brave-space intimacy; in BIPOC-affinity & white-identified-affinity).
REQUIRED BOOK:
8 Mindful Steps to Happiness by Bhante Gunaratana
Other digital-based readings will be included
Open to those who acknowledge systemic racism & are committed to open engagement in examining the impact of being part of such a structure. Open to all levels of practice. A variety of meditations will be available.
