“Spending your time with true spiritual friends will fill you with love for all beings, and help you to see how negative attachments and hatred are. Being with such friends, and following their example will naturally imbue you with their good qualities, just as all the birds flying around the golden mountain are bathed in it’s golden light.” ~H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
We have been leading a number of online groups since 2014.
These groups are a small, time-limited, online, closed groups of caregivers* committed to practicing mindfulness meditation for their own understanding and welfare and the welfare of others.
These groups are intended to support the establishing and maintaining of individual practice, monitoring and nurturing its natural unfolding while contributing and drawing upon the collective wisdom and shared experience of a like-minded community.
* caregivers: psychotherapists, health care professionals, chaplains, ministers, yoga teachers.
Overview of Online Groups
Closed groups of 8-10 therapists/ caregivers commit to deepening their meditation practice alone-together for a period of six months.
Groups meet once a month online for 90 minutes.
Sessions open with a guided meditation followed by teaching, a brief check in with each person’s practice, group discussion, and Q & A.
Structure & Expectations
In order for a sangha – a community of like-minded practitioners – to be cohesive and sustaining, members are asked to commit for six months at a time, at which point there is an opportunity to review and recommit.
Meetings occur on Zoom, an audio-visual conferencing program with audiovisual recording. For those of you who have not tried this kind of interface, we think you may be surprised at how effective and meaningful it can be.
Practicing 5 times per week for 30 minutes is a baseline expectation.
The effect of meditation practice is cumulative, yet establishing a meaningful, sustainable daily practice is challenging for many of us. Working with resistance around this is fundamental to the development of practice. Commitment to regular practice is the glue that supports the collective intention; it brings a sense of positive accountability.
Meditation study and practice assignments are posted each month.
These teachings and exercises orient monthly practice for the group, so that members are focusing on the same aspect of meditative experience both on and off the cushion.
Between meetings, members write about their current practice experience in a private online forum.
This can deepen the sense of community, clarify growing edges in one’s practice, and develop the ability to articulate personal nuances within meditative experience.
Online buddy meetings with one or two members of the group between each meeting are central to deepening the cohesiveness of the community.
These groups are offered on a dana basis.
Our view of dana is expressed here.
Please let us know you are interested in being part of such a group.