Group Meditation, Yoga Breathwork (Saturdays)

Stella Han (kinshipyoga.com) Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly

Yogini Stella Han, social worker at heart

Yogini Stella Han leads us in Meditation and Breathwork on Saturdays.

Meditation is a practice where individuals use mindfulness techniques (presence of mind, staying in the moment, full awareness and acceptance of what is) to focus the mind on objects, thoughts, or activity to help cultivate attention, expanded consciousness, and heightened awareness.

This is done in an effort to enjoy mental clarity, decrease stress and worry, and return to balance. It is the higher training of the mind following the higher training in ethical conduct and stillness. 

• SCHEDULE — KINSHIP HIGHLAND PARK (kinshipyoga.com)

ABOUT: Stella Han (stella4yoga@gmail.com) is a passionate full-time yoga instructor and former social worker from Los Angeles She earned a master's degree in social work degree USC) and has many years of experience in the fields of social work and psychology.

• FREE/donation: Group Meditation and Breathwork at Kinship Yoga Studios, Saturdays, 2023, 5:45 PM | Meetup
• PasaDharma: Group Meditation and Breathwork, Saturdays, 2023, 5:45 PM | Meetup
• Nature Center: Group Meditation and Breathwork, Saturdays, 2023, 5:45 PM | Meetup

What is "mindfulness"?

This is a question that doesn't get asked nearly enough. It is not mere "awareness." It is paying attention to the present moment without giving in to the habits of

• being fond and attaching to the pleasant,
• being dejected and rejecting the unpleasant
• being bored and inattentive to the neutral (neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant).

Mindfulness is therefore a special kind of awareness or presence of mind, wakefulness, vigilance that gives attention to whatever is in the present moment with radical acceptance, letting it be, and letting it go (just for the moment).

Simply being aware in the woods in not being mindful at all. Mindfulness (Sanskrit smirti, Pali sati) is remaining mindfully aware, dispassionate, detached, fully attending to without being entangled in that of which one is aware.

If lust or greed come up, be with them as a watcher without getting sucked in. If annoyance or anger creep up, be with them without becoming hostile. If boredom or mental-wandering arise, note them. That noting, that sudden awareness that the mind has wandered, is mindfulness.

Now it all becomes clear to me.

Now, bring it back to the present moment -- without becoming angry, frustrated, or dejected that wandered off, as mind by its nature will do.

Casting back to the past or forward to the future is the habit of the mind that mindfulness remedies. As Ram Dass famously said: "Be here now."

There is something magical about remaining in the moment. But we'll never know it if we never practice it until it becomes habit.

It is the way to happiness, contentment, and peace -- if done correctly, dispassionately, softly. It leads to clarity and vision, to knowing and seeing, and is essential for awakening.

The Buddha, in the famous "Fourfold Setting Up of Mindfulness Discourse," gives the four groups of things of which to be mindful:

1. body,
2. feelings,
3. mind, and
4. mind-objects.

• (See the Satipatthana Sutra)
• Sati-sampajañña: mindfulness and clear comprehension
• Tranquility and insight: samatha-vipassana