Engaged Mindfulness Ithaca, 3rd Sundays of the Month, 11:30am-1pm
Just Be Cause Center, Ithaca NY
Engaged Mindfulness Ithaca is a once a month community mindfulness group that meets downtown at Just Be Cause Center on the 3rd Sunday of each month. The intentions of this group are to practice and study engaged mindfulness and the teachings of nonviolence, both for personal and societal wholeness and healing.
After the 2016 election, many people have become aware of the deep divisions that seem to separate us from each other. The hopeful sign is that more citizens are also resolving to become more actively engaged in the community, with the goal of creating a just and compassionate society. The way of mindfulness gives us the foundation to build that society.
We will practice various forms of meditation (sitting, walking, contemplation) and learn from the writings of teachers such as Thich Nhat Hanh, Martin Luther King Jr., Pema Chodron, Dorothy Day, Ghandi, Joan Halifax, Joanna Macy and others. The group will be a safe space to discuss our struggles in pursuing the path of compassion within ourselves and out in the world, especially with those we don't understand and even those toward whom we feel resentment and fear.
Everyone, regardless of experience with mindfulness or spiritual lineage, are invited to come. The group will become what we make it. Anise Hotchkiss and Nancy Koschmann, both students of Thich Nhat Hanh and members of Ithaca's Cedar Cabin, and Heather McCarty, student of the Insight Meditation community, will help facilitate the meetings in the beginning but hopefully participants will step up to help guide the group. Anyone interested in taking on a leadership role, no matter how big or small, please reach out.
