prakasa yoga studio

cultivate radiance of being

Meditation Course

We offer wonderful courses to expand your understanding of yoga beyond the usual practice of asana/poses. These courses include meditation, philosophy and more.

Coming March 2014:

Foundations of Maha Mudra Meditation
An 8-week exploration & discovery of body-mind-spirit.
Michael Shandler (RD), EdD

March 27 - May 15
Thursdays @ 6-7:30pm


Interview with RD: Intro to Maha Mudra Meditation Course.mp3
Details: www.prakasayoga.com/courses.cfm
Course Fee: $160/person
Please register by mail, our online system is currently down.

The journey IS the goal. Learn the transformative introductory practice of Mahamudra – the ancient Buddhist Tantric Yoga training system that relaxes and heals the body, balances emotions, and prepares the mind for deeper meditation.


About Meditation:

Meditation is meant to wake us up to the possibility of becoming responsible for our lives and engaging the world with our full potential - with courage, compassion, and contentment.  Mahamudra provides a tool bag of experiential practices through which the conditioning that causes us unnecessary suffering is dissolved.  Mahamudra is rigorous, specific and highly experiential, placing emphasis on direct, unmediated experience. 
The fruits of meditation practice are improved relationship with (any/all) experience and a greater felt sense of peace and well-being. 

 

Course Overview:

•  10 point Mahamudra Meditation Posture: Learn a meditation posture (whether cross-legged or in a chair) that opens the body’s energetic channels and facilitates the balanced flow of prana or life force in the body.

·          The Mahamudra Entry Protocol: a foundational psychophysical practice that awakens awareness in the body and facilitates immediate direct, non-conceptual experience and produces a deeply peaceful state.

·         Experience Earth Breathing the Ground Mahamudra transmission
at the beginning of the path we are shown the goal.

·         Learn and practice meditation processes that build on the foundation of quiescence, further stilling the mind and establishing the foundation for exploring the immeasurable expanse of being.

·       Discover the yogic locks, gates, channels, and winds of the body and how to use them for opening into Shamatha (quiescence) and self-healing.

·         Learn methods of “tethering” and “untethering” awareness in various ways, and the role of each approach in meditation. Work directly with awareness. 

·       Share the journey through lively discussions about meditation with a community of dedicated practitioners.

 

Note: These foundational teachings focus on specific physical and energetic body-mind training. They are powerful practices that enable us to enter into direct, non-conceptual experience that helps us develop quiescence or calm abiding (Shamatha), a spacious doorway to the exploration of extraordinary seeing (Vipashyana).  

 


What is Maha Mudra?

MAHAMUDRA (“great seal” in Sanskrit)
In Indian and Tibetan Tantras 
Mahamudra refers to the pinnacle goal of all meditative practices: the “awakened mind” or “natural mind”


Mahamudra is not only code for life’s deepest spiritual goal it is also one of the oldest and most respected meditative training traditions in the world.  Mahamudra is a system of mind-body training that evolved over hundreds of years in India and Tibet. Although the body of teachings stem from these ancient traditions, these practices are free of any religious or cultural overtones and progress on the meditative path relies on direct experience rather than dogma.


 Instructor:
Michael Shandler, Ed.D. (Ravi Dass - “RD”) has spent the past forty years studying and practicing meditation in Hindu yogic traditions as well as in Buddhist nondual contemplative approaches.  In early training R.D. practiced intensively under the guidance of Baba Hari Dass, a silent yoga master in the Kriya yoga lineage.  In addition to his yogic training, R.D. studied Ayurveda, the Indian body-mind medical system.  He has been a long-time student of modern Advaita and nondual Buddhism.  He is the author of Between Pleasure and Pain: The Way of Conscious Living and The Marriage and Family Book: A Spiritual Guide.  R.D. holds Masters and Doctorates in counseling psychology and organization development from the University of Massachusetts. 


Testamonial:
“What I love about the Mahamudra approach is how it offers a clear and replicable technology for getting out of my head and deeply into my body where gateways to being lie hidden and untapped and await the caress of awareness. Meditation is really about forming a relationship with one’s experience and these tools are grounding and helpful in predictable and unpredictable ways! Until very recently much of this work was practiced in secret and we are fortunate to have access to such profound and useful teachings. Ultimately, meditation is meditation without meditation, with no effort, but we need a base of quiescence and this requires effort and practice. The body-based meditation processes in this course are powerful and really open the space for deeper work. ”     - RD Shandler

 



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