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Community Practice Day
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Naropa University, Nalanda Campus
6287 Arapahoe Ave, Boulder, CO
Parking is free! Please remember to bring your lunch!
Morning Practices
9:00-11:00 a.m.: Community Sitting and Walking Meditation, Nalanda Events Center
(From 9:00-9:15 a.m., meditation instruction will be provided for newcomers or those who want a refresher)
9:30-10:30 a.m.: Yoga Movement and Meditation with Luke Aiken, Nalanda 9180 (Dojo Room)
No prior experience necessary. Please wear loose, comfortable clothing and bring a yoga mat if you have one. Some yoga mats will be available. Luke Aiken has been studying and practicing yoga for seven years with Nataraja Kallio, Richard Freeman, and Bryan Kest. He has been teaching yoga classes at Naropa for two years and is currently working on an MA in Religious Studies.
Community Dialogue
11:00 a.m.–12:15 p.m., Nalanda Events Center
"Toward a Culture of Peace: How Do We Live With Difference?" Facilitated by Roger Dorris, Rev. Don Matthews, and Graduate Students
Are there times when you have felt different, not a part of the Naropa community? How can contemplative practices help us deal with the personal suffering and societal conflict that arise from differences? Through contemplation and small-group dialogue we will explore how we can be in authentic relationship with ourselves and with each other and we’ll envision the community and society we would like to create. This process will be facilitated by Religious Studies faculty Don Matthews and Roger Dorris, as well as Masters of Divinity students who are training in chaplaincy, community service and societal transformation. They are looking forward to working with the larger Naropa community.
Reverend Don Matthews, PhD, associate professor and lead faculty member of the Masters of Divinity Program is the former Director of Black Studies at the University of Missouri and was chaplain at the Bay Area Center for Pastoral Care. He is the author of two books, Honoring the Ancestors: African Cultural Interpretation of Black Religion and Literature and Can This Church Live? Church, Neighborhood and Social Transformation. He is interested in how various cultures develop multi racial and multi cultural programs in religious settings.
Roger Dorris, PhD, associate professor in Religious Studies has been core faculty at Naropa University since 1995 when he helped establish the Masters of Divinity program. His doctoral work focused on community-building and large group transformation. He has worked extensively with marginalized populations including the homeless, those incarcerated and those suffering from addiction.
Afternoon Workshops & Service Opportunities
1:30–3:30 or 4 p.m.: Service Practice ~ Various Locations
Service opportunities have been arranged by Sarah Steward of Naropa’s Career and Community Engagement Center. Some of the organizations that we will be helping are: The Boulder Housing Partners, Boulder Parks and Recreation, Carillon Senior Retirement Community, Community Food Share, Out Boulder, and Sister Carmen Community Center. **Participants must sign up in advance with Tashi Browder in Student Affairs, located on the 2nd floor of the Administration Bldg. Registration begins on Wednesday, October 5**
Workshops on the Arapahoe Campus
12:30–4 p.m. Japanese Tea Ceremony with Michael Ricci, Naropa Tea Master, Arapahoe Campus Tea House
Small groups of five people will participate in the traditional Tea Ceremony in three sessions throughout the afternoon. Michael spent two years studying Tea with Hobart Bell, head of the Boulder Zen Center, before being accepted to study at Urasenke Headquarters in Kyoto under the guidance of 15th generation Grand Tea Master of the Urasenke lineage of tea, which is the biggest practicing tea lineage in the world. **Seating is limited, participants must sign up in advance with Tashi in the Student Affairs office on the 2nd floor of the Administration building**.
1:30–3:00 p.m.: Maitri Practice with Giovannina Jobson, Lincoln Meditation Hall
Giovannina is a senior student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and experienced maitri instructor. She is a Buddhist minister (upadhyaya) and teaches Buddhism, contemplative arts, and spirituality at Naropa University. **Seating is limited, participants must sign up in advance with Tashi in the Student Affairs Office on the 2nd floor of the Administration building.**
Workshops on the Nalanda Campus
1:00-4:00 p.m.: Walking the Labyrinth as Contemplative Practice with Jo Ann Mast, Nalanda 9171
Drop in anytime during the afternoon. Jo Ann, a senior student of Dr. Lauren Artress, consults and teaches in faith communities, universities, seminaries, and for community organizations of all kinds. As a business woman, spiritual mentor, mother and grandmother,
she encourages all to embrace life fully and invites everyone to experience the intensely personal journey of the labyrinth.
1:00–2:30 p.m.: Ikebana with Karen Roper, Clinical Support Professional, MA Contemplative Psychotherapy, Nalanda 9124 (Art Studio)
Class is limited to twelve students; please arrive early to avoid disappointment. Karen has been a meditation instructor since 1974 and was a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. She studied Ikebana for 28 years with Mrs. Kyoto Kita and holds Teacher Level Jonin Sanyo in the Sogetsu School of Japanese flower arranging.
1:00–2:30 p.m.: Mindfulness-Awareness Meditation Instruction with Acharya Gaylon Ferguson, faculty in Interdisciplinary Studies and Religious Studies, Nalanda Meditation Hall
Gaylon has led meditation retreats since 1976. His article, “Making Friends with Ourselves,” was selected for inclusion in The Best Buddhist Writing 2005 and a selection from his first book, Natural Wakefulness, was included in The Best Buddhist Writing 2010.
1:00–2:30 p.m.: Introduction to T’ai Chi Principles with Tom Weiser, Nalanda 9180 (Dojo room)
Tom has an MA in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism from Naropa and is currently adjunct faculty teaching T’ai Chi I. He has studied T’ai Chi Chuan with Maggie Newman, Wolfe Lowenthal, Lenny Friedland and Bataan Faigao, among others.
1:00–2:30 p.m.: Paganism: Diversity in Modern Earth-Centered Traditions and Practices, Nalanda 9175
With Anne Parker, Professor of Environmental Studies, and the Naropa Pagan collaborative group of faculty, students, alumni, and staff including William Ashton, Lindsay Michko, Tina Fields, and George Allen.
Anne Parker is passionate about leading towards an environmentally sustainable, socially just, and balanced present and future world. At Naropa she teaches about geography, new science, environmental leadership, pilgrimage, sacred landscape, and related subjects.
Later Afternoon Sessions
2:45–4:15 p.m.: Sitting With the Prairie Dogs: Members of our Community Whose Voices are Different from Ours, on the Nalanda South Lawn
With Sherry Ellms, faculty, Environmental Studies; Tina Fields, MATP/ Ecopsychology Core Faculty; and Costen Aytes, Naropa Landscape Manager. We will engage in compassion practices and ritual to honor our common suffering, connection, and appreciation of all life; ending in song. Please meet at the south (Arapahoe Street side) entrance to Nalanda and dress for the weather.
Sherry has led wilderness solos and other nature-based programs that facilitate a deep connection with the power and insight of the natural world. For the past twenty-five years she has been conducting retreats and teaching meditation in secular settings such as Outward Bound, as well as in spiritual settings throughout out the country. Tina’s work mainly focuses on the vital questions of how to foster respect for the more-than-human world and how to find joy instead of deprivation as we shift to planetary-life-sustaining behavior. Costen believes that to be of service to others and to the Earth is the highest calling. As a Colorado native with twelve years of professional experience in the green industry, he has a well rounded perspective on what does and doesn't work with respect to urban landscape, arbor care, water delivery and sustainable landscape design on the front range. He has been in many leadership roles and helps cultivate authentic teambuilding.
2:45–4:15 p.m.: A Musical Meeting of Sufi and Hindu: Singing and Intoning Kirtan, Zikr, Bhajan, Qualli, Mantra and Illahi with Chaitanya Mahmud Kabir, faculty, Traditional Eastern Arts; and his Devotional Singing Students, Nalanda 9180
Kabir is a unique scholar and devotee whose work bridges mind and heart. He has studied, taught, performed, and composed Indian music in the United States and India for more than thirty years.
2:45–4:15 p.m.: Body Based Meditation Practice with Jackie Ashley, Nalanda 9171
In this workshop we will start by lying down on the floor, doing a guided relaxation, and moving gradually up into an upright seated meditation posture. The view is that if we come into the meditation posture from a place of relaxation and body awareness our practice will be less hampered by physical discomfort, a parallel process going on with our minds. Our awareness is on body sensations, alignment of the body and resilience. This practice is based on the work of Will Johnson. Jackie Ashley is head of Contemplative Practices for the MA Somatic Counseling Psychology Program and Meditation Instructor for that department’s students. Her meditation instruction emphasizes body sensations and awareness as the foundation on which clarity of mind exists. She is adjunct faculty in MSCSP and MACP supervising students in their internships. She is a registered Dance/Movement Therapist, Equine Facilitated Psychotherapist and a senior clinician with Windhorse Community Services.
2:45–4:15 p.m.: Loving Kindness Meditation Practice with Acharya Dale Asrael, Nalanda Meditation Hall
This heart-based practice, an ancient meditation, is a powerful and up-to-date method for working with aspects of our lives--in relationship with others, and in relationship to ourselves--which have been marginalized. Through lovingkindness meditation we can explore and befriend what currently seems hardest to accept. Dale leads intensive meditation retreats, Meditation Instructor trainings, and practice-and-study programs internationally. Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche has appointed Dale the Dean of Meditation Instructors, responsible for the compassionate activity of meditation instruction in Shambhala, International. She is a teacher of Qigong in the Taoist lineage of Eva Wong.
3:00–4:30 p.m.: Contemplative Brushstroke with Keith Kumasen Abbott, Associate Professor, Writing & Poetics, Nalanda 9124 (Art Studio)
The Instructor will provide all materials; the workshop is suitable for beginners who wish to learn the rudiments of brush technique as well as those with experience who want to improve their brush skills. The class is limited to 15 participants, please arrive early to avoid disappointment. Keith teaches fiction, nonfiction and screenplay writing along with poetry and art at Naropa University. He studied brushstroke with Eiichi Okamota, Kobun Chino Otogawa Roshi and Harrison Xinshi Tu.
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