Releasing into Presence: Meditation, Mantra & Movement with Lopön Chandra

Come experience the benefits meditation, mantra, and movement have to offer our body, mind, and soul. Classes will be relaxing, rejuvenating, and fun, enhanced by community and collective practice. Weaving together mystical stories, meditations, mantra, movement and singing chants, Chandra offers practices that facilitate releasing into presence with ease and comfort. All are welcome.

Aug/Sept Theme: Finding your “Yes” in the midst of Samsara

On August 20, Releasing Into Presence will resume its Tuesday night slot. Moving forward, each month will rotate through various themes related to Buddhist Tantra, meditation, mantra, source texts, and more. For the final weeks of August and all of September we’ll focus on this theme of “Finding your ‘Yes’ in the midst of Samsara.”

Locking into what feels right and good is about finding and knowing your “yes.” But once you’ve found your “yes,” how do you stay in the groove and expand those moments? Meditation and Dharma is all about finding those “yes” moments, becoming intimate with them, with life, with reality, with ourselves, and with others. And then from that intimacy, we then learn to dissolve dualism, collapse the “cave of duality” as they say in Dzogchen, into a state of nondual bliss/emptiness. Let’s explore what all of this means in light of the teachings on Mind Training (Lojong), which we will be wrapping up over the next few classes.

Meditation: Experience a richness of techniques for developing shamatha, calm abiding, and vipashyana, insight. These will include mindfulness of breathing, an especially effective approach to soothing the body and calming the discursive mind, and more advanced techniques called “settling the mind in its natural state” and “awareness of awareness.” Tonglen (sending & receiving) guided meditation will also be offered.

Mantra: Explore mantra recitation and chanting, both with and without musical accompaniment. Chandra will share a variety of mantras and melodies from the Buddhist and Hindu tradition, including melodies from her 21 Taras Collective project.

Movement: Practice gentle and accessible yoga and/or meditative movement to bring more comfort and ease to your meditation and life. We suggest you come wearing comfortable clothes. No need to bring a yoga mat.

Logistics:

1. There is a large, free parking lot. For detailed directions, see: https://berkeleyalembic.org/contact
2. Doors will LOCK at 7pm. Please arrive early so you don't get locked out!

If you are unable to attend in person, this class is livestreamed to the Releasing into Presence playlist on the Alembic YouTube channel each week.

Dorje Lopön Chandra Easton is a teacher, author, and translator of Tibetan Buddhist texts. She has taught Buddhism and Hatha Yoga since 2001 and co-translated Sublime Dharma: A Compilation of Two Texts on the Great Perfection, published in 2012.

While her training is rooted in Tibetan Buddhism (Mahayana and Vajrayana) and the Great Perfection (Ati Yoga; Dzogchen), her primary interest is making these traditional teachings relevant and accessible for our modern experience.

She is a Vajra teacher, Dorje Lopön, at Tara Mandala Retreat Center, founded by Lama Tsultrim Allione, where she serves on the Upaya Council, Prajna Council, and the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Council, which address the underrepresentation of people from different cultural, racial, sexual orientation, and social backgrounds in the Dharma. She is the author of Embodying Tara: Twenty-One Manifestations to Awaken Your Innate Wisdom (Shambhala Publications, 2023). To learn more about her teaching schedule, writings, and music, visit www.chandraeaston.com.

Host or Publisher The Berkeley Alembic Foundation