The Power of Presence
A 4-session mindfulness meditation course.
There is so much chaos and turmoil in the world. And we all have our personal lives as well. Wouldn’t it be nice to go through your day calm, focused and empowered?
The Power of Presence is a 4-session live course in mindfulness that will help you stay grounded in your own power in the midst of everything else that is going on.
Join 11 other people in tapping into and expanding our power - power that we will use to move the world toward health and well-being for everyone.
Course Description:
This course will focus on grounding into the holidays. It will offer tools to build and strengthen your meditation practice. You will get an introduction to mindfulness, or a refresher (if you have previous meditation experience). You will gain accountability, tools, and support for maintaining a meditation practice. We will explore the power of being present in everyday life - to reduce stress, improve communication, increase the ability to focus, and much more. You will expand your own power by being present!
Course Dates/Location:
Thursdays - Nov 10, Nov 17, Dec 1, Dec 8 2022 6-7 PM Mountain Time / 7-8 PM Central Time
The class will be delivered via Zoom.
Cost:
The course will be offered free of charge. Optional dana donations can be given via Venmo @Sarah-Berkeley.
Class Format:
Each class begins with a check-in among all participants during which we will share new insights and raise questions.
Following the check-in, we have guided meditation periods starting with very short amounts of silence and gradually increasing the length of silence throughout the course.
Each class will end with setting 1 intention for the day.
No reading is required for this course although optional readings may be recommended.
The only prerequisites are a willingness to learn and to be kind to others.
Class size is capped at 12 participants to facilitate communication in a small group.
Curriculum:
Session 1: Introduction to Mindfulness
On this first day, we will create the container for learning in a supportive, inclusive environment. We will do brief guided meditations around grounding and working with an anchor. We will lay the foundation of a structure for regular practice. We will explore what mindfulness is and what it is not.
Session 2: The Power of the Breath
On Day 2 we will build on the skill of anchoring from day 1 and practice mindfulness of the breath and body. We will explore different ways of anchoring and how body awareness can be a portal for powerful presence, improved relationships and reduced stress.
Session 3: The Power of the Body
On Day 3 we will build on the mindfulness of the body from Day 2 to explore the connection between body and emotions. We will practice radical presence with ourselves.
Session 4: The Power of Thoughts
On Day 4 we will play with the monkey-mind, experimenting with grabbing onto and letting go of thoughts. We will layer awareness of thoughts on the learnings from the previous sessions getting to know ourselves as simultaneous observers and participants in our own lives.
This class will end with a reflection on the experience of the course.
Meet the Instructor
Sarah Berkeley
My experience with formal meditation began when I was thirteen and my parents started attending Centering Prayer Retreats with Father Thomas Keating at St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, CO. After returning from their retreat they began meditating daily sitting on the floor in their bedroom in the dark every evening, which they invited me to join. Weird as it seemed, I did sometimes join in.
Many years later, in the fall of 2009, I came back to meditation through the Korean Zen Buddhist Temple of Ann Arbor, MI. I attended Sunday services and daily morning meditation practice Monday-Friday from 6:00-7:30 a.m. For a 30-day period each day after meditation, chanting, prostrations and a silent breakfast, I walked the same route to a park in my neighborhood and took a photograph of the sky in the same location. When I got home I wrote down everything I could remember from my observations of the outside world as well as my interior world. These photographs and writings became my MFA thesis.
I took the precepts through the Buddhist Society for Compassionate Wisdom - Zen Buddhist Temple of Ann Arbor, MI in July 2011, which included 8 weeks of meetings, study, thousands of prostrations and daily practice. It culminated in a 5-day silent retreat in Toronto, CA. During this retreat, I felt a lot of conflict about the male-dominated, authoritative structure of the organization. Despite my instinct to run away from the temple as fast as possible, I stuck out the retreat and completed the ritual.
When I moved to Chicago after my MFA I began dharma guardian studies at the Zen Buddhist Temple of Chicago. After several months, I felt that following the rituals precisely and studying the teachings in depth was not the right path for me. Integrating the essence of the practices taught by the Buddha into everyday life was more what I was looking for. I also had a sense that my practice was broader than Buddhism or any specific religion. I realized that Buddha wasn’t a Buddhist. Christ wasn’t a Christian. Mohammed wasn’t a Muslim. They found their own ways to wisdom. Maybe I could too? Around the same time, I had the opportunity to assist artist, Wolfgang Laib, with his installation Unlimited Ocean, which involved pouring rice on the floor in small piles every day for a week. I asked him if he had ever studied meditation formally or practiced Buddhism and he said, “This is my practice” referring to his artwork. His words and example gave me the encouragement to follow my intuition that I needed to find my own path. I decided to follow that example and stop mastering pre-determined rituals, but to follow my own inner voice. The groundwater connecting all religions and all beings is what I seek to tap into.
Later, while living in Lincoln, NE, I found very few meditation resources so I started teaching meditation - first out of my home and later in a yoga studio. Participants found the classes useful and at the same time I felt unprepared to respond to some of the real-world struggles they brought to the class. Simply giving meditation instruction was one thing, but helping people apply that to life outside the class required more training. Although I knew a traditional path of Dharma transmission in the Buddhist tradition was not for me, I wanted a meditation teacher training program that would give me the knowledge, support and blessing to share the practices I had found so powerful in my own life.
In 2020 I began the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program led by Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield. This program includes bi-monthly meetings with a mentor and peer group as well as live sessions, readings, recorded classes and a practicum. To my delight, it also includes a significant DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility) component with more readings, recorded classes, live sessions with a mentor and affinity group meetings. I was relieved that this program addressed some of the inequities I experienced in my previous trainings. I am currently in the second and final year of this program and beginning my teaching practicum with the Power of Presence. I am excited and well prepared to share these powerful teachings with you.
Meditation has been consistently helpful to me both in my personal and professional life. I am honored to be able to share this practice with others. I hope that this meditation group is useful to all of us in anticipated and unanticipated ways!
If you have questions about the course, feel free to email me at sberkeley@gmail.com.