One of the most prolific and brilliant Buddhist scholars of our generation is the German Theravāda monastic, Ven. Anālayo. His vast research on the texts and doctrines of Early Buddhism …
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Sean Feit Oakes, PhD
This month at Satsang (March-April 2018)
Insight Meditation Satsang
Tuesdays 7-8:30pm
Hi friends,
For March and April at Satsang, we’re looking at the beautiful and precise mindfulness meditation instructions given by the brilliant and inspiring Western Theravāda monastic, Ven. Anālayo Bhikkhu. Anālayo is a scholar-practitioner who has done incredible work with the early Buddhist text material, both in Pāli and Chinese, and has constructed a method for practicing the 4 Foundations of Mindfulness, or satipaṭṭhānas, that draws on his research around what the earliest layers of Buddhist practice may have looked like. It’s a deep but accessible practice sequence, and we’ll spend these two months learning it step by step. Both beginners and experienced meditators can benefit from this work.
Further on, topics in the wings for 2019 include:
- samādhi – working with anxiety & distraction
- anattā – Buddhist approaches to identity & culture
- sīla – social action as contemplative discipline
As always, talks and practices weave together personal, relational, and systemic inquiry, exploring the inseparability of individual and collective liberation.
Insight Meditation Satsang
Tuesdays, 7-8:30pm
Namaste Yoga + Wellness
2820 7th st, Berkeley
Most Recent Talks
5 Foundations of Practice: Giving, Ethics, Heavens, Dangers, Renunciation
We begin 2019 with a series on foundational practices: what the Buddha often taught as the beginning of a series of "progressive instructions." This is a style of teaching that …
Liberation and Finality: Does this Path have an end?
A series of talks on the difficult descriptions of liberation in the Theravāda system: the Four Paths and Fruits. We talked mostly about Stream-entry, emphasizing some of the most mysterious …
Thanksgiving, Gratitude, and Converting (or not) Your Parents
On TG week, a talk about gratitude, focusing on the very traditional practice of being grateful for our parents (no matter how they voted), and how it's impossible to repay …
Dive into the ocean of ideas, practices, and culture that evolved into modern yoga. Designed for serious students of yoga and meditation, this is a university-level introduction to Yoga history from an engaging scholar-practitioner.
An exploration of one of the most gorgeous and enigmatic Mahāyāna Buddhist texts, The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom, or “Heart Sūtra.” The course, hosted by our friends at The Sutra Project, combines a new practitioner-oriented translation by Dr. Oakes and Dr. Christopher Wallis
Teaching Schedule
Ongoing
Meditation with instructions based in the Insight Meditation tradition and its sources in Thai and Burmese Theravāda Buddhism. The focus of the group is on deepening in both traditional Buddhist practice as understood in the Theravāda traditions, and exploring the links between individual & systemic liberation in the form of social justice and collective healing practice.
Tuesdays 7-8:30pm (Namaste Yoga+Wellness, Berkeley)
Buddhism and Yoga, two of the diverse lineages of South Asian spiritual practice, are much more related than commonly thought. New historical evidence reveals a deeply interwoven relationship between these ancient siblings, and we will explore this history through learning practices shared by both.
April 27, 2019 (Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Woodacre)
Summer Meditation & Yoga Retreat
4-night retreat
I’m thrilled to return to the gorgeous Double Bear Retreat Center for a 4-night retreat this summer. This will be an intimate retreat for students of Insight Meditation and Yoga seeking to integrate the practices of movement and stillness, dynamic breath work and precise mindfulness meditation. We will work with the Haṭha Yoga Sadhana movement form, including intuitive āsana and classical prāṇāyāma, and the Open Circle practice from the discipline of Authentic Movement, embedded within a mostly traditional silent Insight Meditation retreat structure.
May 30-June 3, 2019 (Double Bear Retreat Center, Boulder Creek, CA)
Moving into Meditation:
Mindful Yoga & Embodied Dharma
6-day retreat (reg opens 5/29/19)
I’m delighted to be joining my colleagues Anne Cushman, Leslie Booker, and Dawn Mauricio for a 6-day retreat integrating mindfulness-oriented Yoga āsana with Insight Meditation (vipassanā).
Sep 30 – Oct 6, 2019 (Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Woodacre)