Becoming Familiar with Your Mind: Calm Abiding Meditation 2024

A series of three meditation courses

Open meditation on-site at Nalanda West    10:00 am – 10:30 Pacific

Meditation class session (both on Zoom and on-site)   10:30 am – 12 Noon

Saturdays

Calm Abiding Meditation – January 27 and February 3, 17, 24
Analytic Meditation – March 23, 30 and April 6, 13
Four Foundations of Mindfulness – May 4, 11, 18, 25

Through meditation we become familiar with our mind. Meditation gives us space to examine how our conditioned mind works. This examination eventually frees us from our painful habits, struggles and confusion. Through meditation we discover the fundamental openness and ease of our mind which brings compassion into our daily lives. In this three course series, students will explore the foundational methods of meditation and their precepts.

The first four week session, Calm Abiding Meditation, starts in January and offers instruction on Shamata, or calm abiding meditation. The class is designed to help beginners establish an ongoing meditation practice.  It includes basic meditation instruction such as posture and breathing as well as guided meditation. Discussion focuses on getting to know your mind and how to work with thoughts and emotions from a Buddhist point of view.

The second four week session, Analytic Meditation, begins in March. Often called “clear insight”, or vipashyana, this practice builds on the foundation of shamatha and teaches how to investigate or analyze the true nature of mind – how your mind creates the world you experience. Through practicing analytic meditation, you learn to harness the active, inquisitive qualities of your mind which allows you to identify and gradually transform mistaken beliefs about the nature of experience.

The third four week session, Four Foundations of Mindfulness, has deep roots in Buddhist teaching. Taught by Buddhist monks for over 2000 years it is the practice of meditating on the body, feelings, mind and phenomena – the four foundations of our daily experience. The practice of the four foundations of mindfulness is recommended at all stages of the path.  It is taught that  students should return to these practices again and again.

You may register for one or all of the classes in the series.

Rysiek Frąckiewicz connected with the Kagyü lineage at age 19 and sought instruction from teachers including Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche and Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche before meeting Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche at Nitartha Institute in 1998, formally requesting to become his student a year later. Rysiek has facilitated Nalandabodhi study and meditation curriculum courses in Seattle for several years and is also a dharma photographer, with portraits printed in Shenpen Ösel, Bodhi, and Lion’s Roar magazines, as well as books by Wisdom and Shambhala Publications. Through the great kindness of his teacher, Rysiek had the opportunity to accompany and photograph H.H. the 17th Karmapa on several visits throughout the USA. He works as a technology professional, currently instructing IT bootcamps as part of a diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative.

You are invited to attend classes either onsite at Nalanda West or online on Zoom.

If you are attending on Zoom, please keep your camera on during the session.  In this way, we all support the contemplative container for meditation.

All classes will be recorded and available for five weeks.