This month’s Mindful Creativity class is on Mindful Flower Arranging. Join Erin Strickland on Sunday, March 10 from 1-2:30 PM for a workshop on flower care and maintenance. Learn some simple floral design basics and how to practice mindfulness through the experience of flower arranging. Flowers provided. Please bring shears if you have them and a vase if you want to take your arrangement home. Space is limited; please register here.
Hosted by Bozeman Insight Community and led by Suzanne Colón, this Inner Critic workshop on Saturday, March 2, will clarify the difference between Wise Discernment and Self-Judgement. We can motivate ourselves, work toward behavior change, and hold ourselves accountable with an Inner Compassionate Voice rather than by beating up on ourselves. Register here.
Ann Marvin returns to our SoundGate program on Friday, March 1, with her glowing Tibetan crystal bowls to treat us to a healing vibrational soundscape. SoundGate meets from 7-8 PM. No registration necessary; donations welcome. Any funds collected will be split evenly with the guest artist.
Join the Bozeman Zen Group for this half-day sit focusing on the Foundations of Mindfulness. Bozeman Zen Group offers half-day sittings appropriate for beginners who wish to try a retreat practice opportunity as well as for experienced practitioners to deepen their practice. Regular retreat practice is a cornerstone of Zen practice. Join us for periods of sitting and walking meditation as well as a dharma talk with Zen priest, Karen DeCotis. Register here.
Buddhism Basics offers some of the core fundamental teachings in the Buddhist tradition. Great for those new to meditation and Buddhist practice. Join us for one class or the whole series! Register here.
Week 1: Buddha’s story, the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path
Week 2: What are these different lineages? The three poisons, three refuges, and three marks of existence
Week 3: Precepts, Brahmaviharas
This month’s Mindful Creativity class is Visual Haiku. We will use color and mark making to capture the essence of our present moment experiences. Just as traditional Japanese haiku evokes a moment in time using just a few words, we will practice bringing forth feelings and sense impressions onto paper. You don’t need to know how to draw or consider yourself an artist to participate. Paper and art materials will be provided. There will be crayons, colored pencils and watercolor pencils to play with. Bring an open mind and your good practice! Register here.
On Saturday, February 3, Suzanne Colón will lead a 3 hour workshop featuring a guided exercise that uses imagery and inquiry to work with difficult parts of ourselves or our experience. Developed by Lama Tsultrim Allione (Tibetan nun, author and teacher), this exploratory practice of self-compassion has been shared with practitioners across Buddhist lineages, to powerful effect. In this morning workshop, Suzanne will offer the practice, along with guidance for how to use it safely and beneficially. Register here.
February’s SoundGate meditation features Brian Sparks offering a healing symphony of Tibetan bowl harmonics. Brian has received his spiritual teaching from several masters in the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. His teachers blessed his bowl work by giving him the specific “Prayer of Aspiration” and granted him many Buddhist empowerments. He has toured with notable Tibetan musicians, actors, and at the Garden of One Thousand Buddhas in Arlee.
He offers his practice of playing bowls in service of healing, compassion and awakening. No registration necessary! Donations gratefully accepted. Any funds collected will be split evenly with Brian.
Sit with the Bozeman Zen Group on Saturday, January 20 from 9am-1pm. Bozeman Zen Group offers these half-day sittings monthly which are appropriate for beginners who wish to try a retreat practice opportunity as well as for experienced practitioners to deepen their practice. Regular retreat practice is a cornerstone of Zen practice. Join us for periods of sitting and walking meditation as well as a dharma talk with Zen priest, Karen DeCotis. Register here.
There will be 5 periods of meditation and breaks for stretching and tea.
Join MindSpace co-leader, Kerry Neal, for the reboot of our Mindful Creativity program on Sunday, January 14. Poetry from Emptiness is a technique from the Daoist literary tradition of China. It promotes creative friendship through shared verbal images and the pleasure of just quietly sitting in tranquility.
You do not have to think of yourself as a poet to enjoy Poetry from Emptiness. You only need to be open, curious, contemplative and spontaneous. Poetry from Emptiness is not based on a philosophy or religion. It only requires a mind empty of preconceptions.
