HOW TO MEDITATE

A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind

A Six Week Course based upon the book by Ani Pema Chödrön

A Westchester Buddhist Center Foundation Level Course

Please purchase the book “How to Meditate Course” by Pema Chödrön before the first meeting.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pema Chödrön is treasured around the world for her unique ability to transmit teachings and practices that bring peace, understanding, and compassion into our lives.  With How to Meditate, the American-born Tibetan nun presents her first book exploring in depth what she considers the essentials for an evolving practice that helps you live in a wholehearted way. More and more people are beginning to recognize a profound inner longing for authenticity, connection, compassion, and aliveness. Meditation, Pema explains, gives us a golden key to address this yearning.

ABOUT THE COURSE
 

This course will be based upon this book and will provide the key foundations to a genuine meditation practice, including:

The basics of meditation, from getting settled and the six points of posture to working with your breath and cultivating an attitude of unconditional friendliness;

How moments of difficulty can become doorways to awakening and love;

The key points of Shamatha, or calm abiding meditation, which is the art of stabilizing the mind to remain present with whatever arises;

And how thoughts and emotions released in meditation can be experienced as opportunities for opening further instead of as obstacles.

  
This six-week workshop style course will consist of guided meditation instruction, practice, presentations, questions and discussion. The course will be taught by Derek Kolleeny, also a student of Pema Chödrön’s teacher, Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, and a Senior Buddhist Meditation Instructor and Teacher in his tradition. Derek began practicing Buddhism in 1976 and has been teaching since 1981; he was Director of Practice & Study at Shambhala Meditation Center of NYC for five years; in 2004 he founded Rime Shedra NYC, which is focused on the study and practice of the classical root texts of the tradition; and in 2009 he co-founded and continues to serve as a senior teacher of Westchester Buddhist Center, which is dedicated to presenting the teachings and practices of of Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche.