On Christmas Day, Wednesday December 25, from 5 – 6 PM, give yourself the gift of quiet contemplation and shared practice in this Metta Christmas –drop-in hour of silent meditation. Stay as long as you like. No registration necessary.
Join us on Friday December 20 from 6 – 7 PM for a winter solstice celebration. Meditate to bells sounded by Jessie Solon and share candlelight, intention, and sacred practice to welcome back the sun. No registration required. This event is in-person only. Freely offered, donations gratefully accepted. Any funds collected will be split evenly with Jessie Solon.
Enjoy an afternoon making cards with friends on Sunday December 15 from 2:30 – 4 pm. Cardstock, stamps, ink pads, and markers will be provided. You don’t need to be an artist or know how to draw to create beautiful cards to send to people who need connection. Space is limited. Please pre-register.
Join leaders and members of all sanghas who meet at the BDC on Saturday December 7 from 9 AM to noon for a mahasangha half-day sit! Group leaders will offer practices from our various lineages along with meditation, chanting, bowing, and readings.
Schedule
9:00 Welcome
9:05 Joining Rivers – Plum Village Morning Chant
9:30 Stretch/Walking Meditation
9:40 Tergar – The Three Refuges in Tibetan & English
10:05 Stretch/Walking Meditation
10:10 Insight
10:35 Stretch/Walking Meditation
10:40 Zen – On Rohatsu
11:00 Stretch/Walking Meditation
11:05 MindSpace
11:30 Stretch/Walking Meditation
11:35 Palyul – Tibetan Prayer
12:00 End
108 Bell Rings and Metta Practice with Megan Hollingsworth
November 30, 2024 10:00 AM to Noon
Lost Species Day is a chance each year to explore the stories of extinct and critically endangered species, cultures, lifeways, and ecological communities and provides an opportunity for participants to make or renew commitments to all who remain. It is also a time to develop creative and practical solutions.
With special attention to genocide and anthropomorphic species extinction, our practice on Remembrance Day for Lost Species (also known as Lost Species Day) will include silent meditation, Metta practice (guided loving kindness meditation), 108 bell rings, and open sharing.
108 bell rings represent the 108 human vexations. Each strike of the bell clears one of these to bring forth joy that remains when we are fully present. Practicing 108 bell rings on November 30th, the last day of the month, aligns with the original practice as it is thought to have begun at Zen temples in China.
Megan Hollingsworth, MS, is a writer with an interdisciplinary education in community health and environmental studies. Her work is deeply influenced by her Quaker upbringing, Engaged Buddhism, and faith in essential goodness. Meg is creator of the spiritual practice Extinction Witness. She began participating in international Lost Species Day activities in 2014 and has also served on the leadership team. Meg is currently an East West Psychology and Art PhD student at California Institute of Integral Studies. https://www.meganhollingsworth.com and Remembrance Day For Lost Species
Dave Smith will be offering an online workshop on Cultivating Emotional Balance on Saturday November 23 from 9 am to noon.
Emotions lead us to our greatest joys and most painful sorrows. They also provide the inspiration for what is most meaningful in our lives. When they become destructive, we are lost in the grips of anger, fear, sadness, and overwhelm. As we develop emotional awareness, we find that we are able to become honest about the difficulties in our lives. We can take responsibility for our destructive emotional episodes, diminishing guilt and regret. We learn the power of gratitude and compassion and promote positive change in our lives and in this world.
The Cultivating Emotional Balance training was sparked during a meeting between behavioral scientists, a neuroscientist, a monk, a philosopher, and the Dalai Lama as a new approach to understanding our emotional lives. Combining contemporary scientific research with contemplative practices drawn from Buddhism, this practice provides participants with tools for working with emotion and shows how mindfulness practices can be constructively integrated with emotional intelligence.
During this training, participants will:
Bearing Unique Witness with the Pen Sunday, November 17 from 1:30-3:30 pm.
In this mindful creativity practice, Megan Hollingsworth will support participants in weaving personal and collective experience into poetry and prose. Meg will provide prompts for collective experience and encourages participants to bring references relevant to their personal experience and worldly concerns. Participants are also encouraged to bring their favorite writing tool and notebook or journal. This process of bearing witness to what is really happening is an exploratory and initiatory practice. Previous writing experience is unnecessary.
Megan Hollingsworth, MS, is a writer with an interdisciplinary education in community health and environmental studies. Her work is deeply influenced by her Quaker upbringing, Engaged Buddhism, and faith in essential goodness. Meg is creator of the spiritual practice Extinction Witness and author of Frog Song, an educational book on the global ecological health crisis that features an interspecies love poem illustrated by Bonnie Gordon-Lucas. Meg’s writing has been published in several online journals and print anthologies. She is currently an East West Psychology and Art PhD student at California Institute of Integral Studies. https://www.meganhollingsworth.com
Joining Rivers Sangha and the Bozeman Dharma Center invite you to a full Day of Mindfulness on Saturday, November 2, from 9:00am – 3:30pm with Plum Village Dharmacharya Greg Grallo.
Meeting our ancestors fearlessly: Transforming, healing and nurturing the seeds we inherit: Thich Nhat Hanh’s powerful Touching the Earth practice invites us to place ourselves in the stream of spiritual and blood ancestors and see ourselves as their continuation. When what we have received is positive, this is an inspiring contemplation. But difficult experiences in our church, biological, or adoptive families can cause lasting distress. We may not want to carry those actions of our ancestors.
During this Day of Mindfulness, we’ll learn ways to find peace with both our skillful and unskillful ancestors and what continuation can mean.
We will enjoy sitting and walking meditation, a Dharma Talk, and a mindful meal. We will craft a personal Touching the Earth practice that directly speaks to our own lived experience.
Practitioners from all traditions and previous experience are welcome.
About Greg: Dharmacharya Greg Grallo received the Lamp Transmission in Plum Village in June 2018. He practices with Open Way Sangha in Missoula, MT and serves as a chaplain at St Patrick Hospital and the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Missoula. He also is the owner of Foundational Dialogues Mediation and Facilitation LLC, dedicated to providing transformative conflict resolution in organizations, couples, and families.
The Greater Yellowstone Threshold Singers return to offer rich harmonies and lovely melodies for our SoundGate program on Friday November 1 from 7-8 pm. Singing simple songs adapted from classic Theravadan Buddhist chants, listeners can soak in sound or join in the singing if they’d like.
The mission of Threshold singing groups is to bring comfort, beauty, and companionship to those at the threshold of life. They offer the balm of music to soothe listeners in deep transitions- healing and easing into life or death. No registration needed. Any donations collected will be split between the singers and the BDC.
Find inspiration and support for your practice by sharing words of wisdom in this month’s mindful creativity class on Saturday October 26 from 10-11:30 am. Participants will make a small book of quotes, using their own cherished mantras, words, phrases, haikus, or short poems, and adding new ones gathered from others in the class. By transcribing these quotes and adding images or illuminating the pages with patterns, drawings, and color, you will be creating a book of collected wisdom—as well as collecting the encouragement and good wishes from the gathered sangha.
Bring a selection of words, quotes, phrases, haiku, short poems that inspire you, and support your practice. Have 5 or 6 or more to choose from. These will be used for your book and to support others.
Some optional things to bring:
Please pre-register so we can ensure that we have enough space and supplies!
