January 7th through June 2
Mondays 7:00-8:30p ET & three practice weekends
(see full schedule below)
In Person at JP Centre Yoga or Live Via ZOOM
RECORDINGS AVAILABLE FOR ALL SESSIONS
to those who can't participate live and for review
General Description
All sections are combined to create one semester course
or each section can be taken independently, à la carte.
The “Spring Meditation Community” is a comprehensive course and practice group, including: (15) weekly sessions of community based learning, 2 special practice days, and a full retreat weekend.
This Spring Community offers a practical, holistic, and down-to-earth approach to mindfulness and to a variety of key meditation practices within the context of a safe and supportive community. Designed for new meditators and experienced practitioners, each session will include a mix of instruction, direct practice experience, and group discussion. Throughout, Western psychology will mix in with traditional Buddhist philosophy.
Register for the full series (includes everything below) or sign up for any of the independent, mini-courses.or attend the courses and classes that interest you most:
$890 Value
SAVE $140 when registering for the complete course
Payment plans available (upon checkout)
Tiered pricing and BIPOC Discount Available
Course Facilitator:
Noel Coakley
BCCP Director, Psychotherapist, Meditation Teacher
Noel (he/him) is a mental health counselor and former school teacher (special ed.). He has been practicing meditation since 1996, initially with Indo-Tibetan traditions and then Yundrung Bön. Noel has been fortunate to learn from over 100 teachers, including HH the Dalai Lama and HH the 34th Menri Trizin.
Beyond his professional life, Noel is a loving father, husband, brother, musician, and friend to his dog, Clementine.
Detailed Description
The course kicks off on January 7th with a 2-hour morning of practice dedicated to establish intentions, cultivate mindfulness, and develop compassion. The emphasis will be on direct practice and supporting one another as a sangha (practice community).
The first 4 of the Monday evening class series will serve as both a solid introduction to the foundational practice of mindfulness meditation for beginners as well as a refresher course for experienced meditators on root aspects of all practices.
Next, we have an afternoon of meditation focused on practices that familiarize ourselves with cultivating and sharing love and compassion for ourselves and others. You will gain further understanding and experiential knowledge of bodhicitta (love & compassion as natural qualities of the heart/mind).
Then we have the deep dive sessions. This series of Monday classes is only open to those signed up for the full course. These sessions survey a number of meditation topics and styles. We will first reinforce the core elements of practice that we revisit at all levels of experience: Love & Compassion (Bodhicitta), Concentration (Samatha or Zhi Gna), and Insight/Awareness (Vipassana).
From there we will build on additional visualization practices as well as learn the ‘the preliminaries’, all of which support the cultivation of the core three elements. The preliminaries help create supportive conditions, positive habits of mind, and antidotes to unhelpful habits. Through the preliminaries, we’ll look at how we can lean into the felt sense of support from all of those who have loved us into being (refuge), how to let go of the past (confession), and how to reduce attachments (mandala offering and paramitas).
The course will culminate in a weekend long Spring Practice Retreat Weekend. In this retreat, we’ll see how all of the practices interweave experientially.
This longer immersion will give us a chance to increase our familiarity with practice as we settle into longer practice sessions.