Student Life

It is Naropa's tradition in the middle of each semester to suspend classes and business for a day to engage as a community in individual and group contemplative practices and activities. Contemplative education becomes more than a noble idea when we gather in this way. Even if you do not have a contemplative discipline, when you stop your normal routine and create a gap in your schedule, space occurs that can allow you to be more present and to appreciate the subtleties of your life and your surroundings. In the morning, there is a group sitting meditation with a featured speaker.

Throughout the day, there are practices from different traditions, plus activities that embody the notion of service as practice. These could include loving kindness practice, listening circles, walking a labyrinth, Japanese Tea Ceremony, centering prayer, contemplative gardening, sacred chanting, aikido, Mudra Space Awareness and others. It is an opportunity for members of the Naropa community to share their particular practice or discipline with each other.

PRACTICE DAY 2010 SCHEDULE

9–10:30 a.m. Community Sitting and Walking Meditation, Nalanda Events Center

10:30–11:45a.m.: Movement Practices

Choose one of the options below:

Room 9175: Contemplative Dance with Katharine Kaufman
The improvisational practice of Contemplative Dance encourages deep play. We begin by sitting, will then move to personal awareness practice and then open space and sitting. We find the spontaneous delights within stillness at any moment—alone and together. No dance experience required.

Room 9185: Body-Mind Centering with Wendell Beavers
Body-Mind Centering is a creative process in which we learn to meet and recognize ourselves and others through the exploration of embodiment. Each person is both the student and the subject matter. Principles and techniques are taught in the context of self-discovery and openness. We learn to engage ourselves and others non-judgmentally starting at the place where we are and the place where others are. In this way we seek to find the ease that underlies transformation.

Room 9180: Yoga with Deb McNamara
Join yoga teacher Deb McNamara (Naropa Alumnus 04’) for a gentle, restorative and contemplative sequence of asanas for practitioners of all levels, including beginners. Postures in this practice will promote self-reflection as we engage inward-focused forward bends. Come to nourish yourself, deepen in your practice of self-care, and to strengthen your intentions as we prepare for the outward expansion of Spring through the gentle opening of our hearts.(Please bring your own personal yoga mat.)

Student Lounge: T’ai-Chi Ch’uan with
Bataan Faigao
Exploring some of the principles of t’ai-chi ch’uan.

Room 9171: Mudra Space Awareness
with Lee Worley
Mudra Space Awareness is a set of exercises designed to develop and strengthen one’s basic approach to presence and mindfulness in activity.

Room 9195: Aikido with Jude Blitz
During intense encounters we often lose our embodied consciousness—our capacity for being truly present and self referencing. Aikido practices help us come home again and again to our own multi-leveled intelligence, so we might be a force for kindness, creativity and peace during intense times.

11:45a.m.–12:30 p.m.: Keynote Speaker: Carole Clements, Chair of BA Contemplative Psychology, Nalanda Events Center

12:30–1:30 p.m.: Breaking Bread: Community Lunch (free of charge), Nalanda Events Center

2:30–5:30p.m.: Afternoon Sitting Practice with Acharya Gaylon Ferguson, Lincoln Meditation Hall, Arapahoe Campus

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