1019 E Main St #202
Bozeman, MT 59715
USA
Compassion Practice Morning
Half-day open practice session, for the whole community
Saturday, April 1st
Drop in between 9:00 am – 12 noon
guided by Suzanne Colón
The Dharma Center offers a half-day, open practice session on one Saturday per month, as the schedule allows. As a variation on our usual theme, this morning will offer guided practices for you to experiment with bringing nurture, warmth and kindness to your Mindfulness practice.
The day is designed for anyone to come enjoy the warmth of shared practice and experiment with new meditations. No prior experience of any kind is necessary. Participants are also welcome to ignore the guidance offered and do whatever practice they might prefer, as in our usual drop-in silent sits.
Join us for all or as much of this open practice period as you’d like. Due to the guided practices, we prefer that you come and go during the breaks if possible.
The morning will be held in noble silence.
Please be sure not to wear fragrances or scented products. Thank you!
SCHEDULE:
40-minute sits begin on the hour, followed by walking/stretching/break for 20 minutes
9:00 : “Affectionate Breathing” Meditation –
brings warmth and nurture to mindfulness of breathing
10:00 : “Soften, Soothe, Allow” –
This meditation uses internal, mental notation with the words soften, soothe, and allow – or whatever synonyms work for you – to open more deeply to our experience.
(Internal mental notation means you whisper the words silently to yourself.)
It’s a basic Mindfulness of the Body practice with encouragement to:
Allow – Recognize, be aware and willing to feel
Soften – relax any resistance to the experience
Soothe – bring warmth, nurture and self-compassion
11:00 – Traditional Compassion Practice (Karuna) – for self, others and all beings
11:45 – 12:00 Gratitude and Appreciation, Closing Meditation
About these practices
Affectionate Breathing and Soften-Soothe-Allow were developed by Drs. Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer and are taught in their Mindful Self-Compassion 8-week course. They are offered freely online and in Neff’s audio course available on SoundsTrue. Click on their names to go to the recorded meditations pages of their individual websites.
More on the Mindful Self-Compassion Course may be found here.
About the Facilitator
Suzanne Colón has been meditating in the Insight (Vipassana) tradition since 1992 and has been a member of the Bozeman Insight Community since moving here in 1998. She is currently in Sprit Rock Meditation Center’s Community Dharma Leader program. She has also spent 12 years exploring modalities of western psychology (as a lay person) and how the tools of meditation can be used in psychological and emotional healing. She joined the Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) Course Teacher training in 2016 and is currently offering the 8-week MSC course locally with Dr. John Christopher. More on those local courses can be found here.
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