“La Escuelita de Meditación”
Summer Session 2022
Strengthen joy, gratitude, and resilience through mindful awareness and deep service.
If, by giving up a lesser happiness, one could experience a greater happiness, a wise person would renounce the lesser, to behold the greater.
Dhammapada 290
There’s so much logical wisdom in this statement. Too often we know something is good for us, yet we fail to do that thing. We don’t act because we are stuck in our own mind, unable to disentangle from thoughts that loop us in a never-ending cycle of dissatisfaction and entrapment. This is suffering, and all of us experience it in one way or another.
The amazing thing is that there are some powerful ways to work with our suffering that can help us experience life more fully. This is the point of this summer’s “Escuelita.”
Join me for a six-week mindfulness meditation course meant to help us explore our amazing complexity, learning along the way some time tested skills to help us be at greater ease with ourselves. The course will be via Zoom and each session will be recorded.
The experience of meditation is sometimes described as that of someone stepping out of a smoke-filled burning house and taking a gulp of fresh air. The practice of meditation is finding that there’s a firehose available to put out the fire, learning how to use it, and using it to end the calamity.
About the Class
In these six weeks you will learn the basics of mindfulness meditation and have opportunities to join in a weekly community practice on Friday mornings. The course also includes a journaling component. Finally, you will also incorporate what you are learning through a powerful and transformative letter exchange project with incarcerated women at the Homestead Correctional Institution.
This last part is quite unique. You will be paired with a woman at the prison, and each week you will exchange letters where you both discuss what you are learning from the training. The students at the prison will be taking the same course as you.
The idea is that through the exchange and through your service of writing letters, you will have a stronger opportunity to practice the basic principles of mindfulness. These include kindness, open heartedness, and a non-biased view. These are some of the tools to put out the fire.
Cost
The cost of the course is $120. This is based on an estimated 4-6 hours per week of work I need to put in to plan and deliver the material.
One of the aspects of the course that is most time consuming is the processing of the letters. I need to read each letter that you send to the women at the prison and each letter that is written by them to you. This ensures that Exchange for Change, the non-profit that offers the courses I teach at the prison, can ensure that all communication we have follows protocols set up by the Florida Department of Corrections.
As a soon-to-be grandfather I want to work on leaving my grandchildren a world that is less violent and more affirming and conducive of human flourishing. This course is an outgrowth of that desire. It is meant to help us be more at ease and skillful with ourselves and those around us.
I understand that in order for experiences like this one to be available, they need to be done in a sustainable manner. Understanding that your payment provides a little bit of time for me to offer this course may make your contribution an easier one to make.
If you are unable to pay because of financial hardship, please contact me using the link at the bottom of the page. No one will be turned away.
If you are willing to pay a little more, please consider doing so. This will go a long way in offering those who can’t the possibility of having these opportunities.
Schedule
- June 21
- June 28
- July 5
- July 12
- July 19
- July 26
Each session will start at 8 PM and run for 75 minutes and be recorded via Zoom. Missing a session is not a problem as long as you keep up with your weekly letter.
Friday mornings we will have a community meditation sit at 7 AM via Zoom. These are optional but will be available.
Each week you will exchange a letter with an incarcerated person at the Homestead prison. These letters could be a page in length. You determine the level of exchange you want to have. The theme of the letters will be based on our class discussions, readings, and experiences with meditation.