Entering the Now
Amelia Barili with Ajahn Amaro
April 6, 2008
Daylong Workshop at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Woodacre, California
The most recent discoveries of Cognitive Science and Neuroscience tell us something that wisdom traditions have known all along: that at all levels of life, mind and matter are inextricably connected. The question remains of how to access the mind through the body and the body through the mind, to realize our full potential as human beings. Join us in a day long exploration of the ending of suffering through the awareness of the timeless quality of now. We will explore practices of withdrawal of the senses that come from yoga, acupressure points that come from Medical Taoist Qigong, and classical Buddhist ways of entering contemplative states that bringing together attention and intention.
These transformative practices and approach can be particularly applicable to counseling and healthcare professionals and will be integrated with explanations and reflections, serving to help open our hearts, to enter the now and to receive the present.
AJAHN AMARO is a senior monk from Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in England. He is the abbot of the Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery, a new branch of the Thailand Forest Meditation tradition, in Mendocino, where he now resides. He has been an interlocutor of his Holiness the Dalai Lama at the Mind-Life Science Institute dialogues about the intersection of western science and various contemplative traditions, and their associated methodologies, psychologies and philosophies.
(This is the second in a series of dialogues with scientists, contemplatives and artists that Amelia Barili began with the workshop "Emerging Consciousness" with Fritjof Capra at Mount Madonna Center.)
***
The Emerging Consciousness
Amelia Barili with Fritjof Capra
December 1-3, 2006
Retreat at Mount Madonna Center, Santa Cruz Mountains, California
The troubled times we live in carry within them an enormous potential for growth and transformation. To successfully meet this challenge we need clarity of vision and the inner strength to bring forth the changes we yearn to see in the world.
In this seminar we will explore together that potential through a blend of ground-breaking analysis, ancient wisdom and lived experience. The subjects to be discussed will include:
* the emergence of a new consciousness in times of crisis and instability
* a new understanding of life, based on recent discoveries in science, which integrates life's biological, cognitive, and social dimensions
* how globalization can be reshaped to make it compatible with the demands of human dignity and ecological sustainability
* and at a more personal level, how to incorporate spiritual practices in your daily life to heal yourself as you serve others.
You will bring home a renewed vision and hope as well as embodied wisdom techniques that will help clear your mind so you can focus most effectively on the task at hand.
* Continuing Education Credit for nurses, MFT/MFCC's, and LCSW's.
AMELIA BARILI, Ph.D., is an award winning UC Berkeley professor and writer, and long time teacher of Classical Yoga and Qigong, who has brought her teachings on personal transformation to many audiences including her university students. To offer them a direct experience of the links between personal and global transformation, she created with Fritjof Capra the course "Globalization and the New Civil Society" with a strong component of "service learning". Capra and Barili also designed and taught together "Deep Ecology in Arts and Science".
FRITJOF CAPRA, Ph.D., is a preeminent thinker of our times. Author of four international best-sellers, including "The Tao of Physics", "The Web of Life", "The Turning Point" and "The Hidden Connections", physicist and ecologist Fritjof Capra, is well known for the clarity of his vision at integrating science, spirituality and concrete steps for social change. He has been the focus of more than 50 television interviews, documentaries, and talk shows in Europe, the United States, Brazil, Argentina and Japan. Dr. Capra frequently leads environmental management seminars for top executives of international corporations. He is a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California and is on the faculty of Schumacher College, an international center for ecological studies in the UK.
***