Laura Simms will go deeper into how storytelling functions in tandem with meditation and why it's a powerful tool in today's modern life. Her practice of Dharma Art originating from the teachings of Trungpa Rinpoche uses canvas space, form and energy as a canvas and perception as our tool. The workshop is comprised of a series of activities such as space awareness, slowing down games, conversations in dyads and creative story making. Though the emphasis will not be on performance, you will taste how clarity of intention in the telling transforms your ability to tell a tale with penetrating effect. You'll move from focus on story as text into a direct experience of its meaning evoked through story as a process of dynamic engagement. Each participant will create a unique personal tale of transformation.
Laura Simms is a senior teacher of Shambhala Buddhism and Shambhala Arts, as well as a professional storyteller, writer and activist working worldwide for peace and human rights. She has been practicing meditation since 1973 and conducts storytelling workshops that integrate Dharma Arts, meditation practice and the wisdom tradition of engaged storytelling. She performs for audiences of all ages worldwide.
Laura has served as an artist-in-residence for the Lincoln Center Institute and teaches at the University of Milwaukee, New York University and The Naropa University. She is a Senior Research Fellow for the Rutgers University Human Rights Center and directs the 25-year running Laura Simms Storytelling Residency. She has appeared in festivals in Romania, United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, Norway, Republic of China, Bhutan, Mexico and Austria. She has been featured at A Traveling Jewish Theater in San Francisco, New York's Provincetown Theater and the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, Tennessee. Her most recent performance piece is called Rejoice Regardless and is inspired by 35 years of mindfulness awareness practice.
As a writer and editor, Laura has served as contributing editor for Parabola Magazine since 1996. After 9/11, she spearheaded the publication of Stories to Nourish the Hearts of Children in a Time of Crisis (Holland & Knight). She assembled A Key to the Heart and Other Afghan Tales (Chocolate Sauce) to benefit children's education in Afghanistan. With a Hasbro Grant she wrote Becoming The World (Mercy Corps, Inc.) that has inspired thousands of teachers worldwide in addressing issues of tolerance and resilience. She won the Sesame Street Sunny Days Award in 1999 for her contribution to children around the world and has received many awards for her books, tapes and projects. Her most recent adult title, The Robe of Love: Secret Instructions for the Heart (Codhill Press), is a book of traditional love stories. Her new book, Our Secret Territory: The Essence of Storytelling (Sentient Books) will be published June 2011.
Laura founded the Gaindeh Project, an international initiative using storytelling, creativity, meditation and reconciliation for individuals and communities. She is currently working on a new training process and workbook of stories for those displaced by natural disaster for Mercy Corps, Inc. Collaborative projects include The Lion's Roar, The Lifeforce Project and Next Generation Environmental Program for the Murie Center for the Environment with Terry Tempest Williams. She is the mother of best-selling author Ishmael Beah who wrote A Long Way Gone.
www.laurasimms.com
Nyam Gur is a Tibetan term meaning Realization Song. It is a Vajrayana meditative practice of writing spontaneous mystical poetry that is a reflection of one's own dharma realization. Nyam Gur was especially favored by Milarepa and the Second Dalai Lama.
Being present and listening as our inner voice speaks deepens our knowledge of the dharma, of the nature of reality, of our profound, spontaneous, intuitive responses. What our inner voice says is a message about the state of our inner life and being. By listening carefully and studying what we create through reflective self-expression we create a space for wisdom and awareness to unfold. If we are forever intrepid in this inner listening process, we grow closer to the indestructible, immortal core of our existence.
In this workshop I will share my own poetry, some of Milarepa's and the Second Dalai Lama's, as a catalyst for inner listening that will guide us to self-expression through poetry. We will let go and let reality or dharma speak through us, we will meditate together and write down the words and meaning that comes.
We are all voyagers on the eternal journey. Living fearlessly as part of nature, embracing ourselves as human beings who emanate from the grace of the primordial source, we grow beyond our humanness to become aware of our immortal nature and our potential as beings of light.
Writing down what occurs to us in open moments is a true gift of renewal, of growth in our dharmic understanding of the ultimate bodhi mind, of the dharmadhatu. As we listen and learn we transform, gradually blossoming and unfolding the truth of our Buddha nature.
Stephanie Arena is a Buddhist Tantrika and poet specializing in spontaneous mystical poetry. She received a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition for outstanding and invaluable service to the community for Wounded in America, which chronicles stories and portraits of gun violence survivors. She has been an Urban Gateways Artist in Residence in creative writing. Her work has been published in the Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine; WISCONSIN, The Milwaukee Journal Magazine. She has spoken on CNN, at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, at the University of Chicago, at Cal State Los Angeles. She holds degrees from the University of Chicago (English Language and Literature) and from the University of Illinois at Chicago (Communication and Theatre). She is Co-Director of the Rime Foundation of Chicago and Vice President of the Buddhist Council of the Midwest.
"Beginner's Mind" in the Chan tradition (Zen in Japanese) describes a fresh and open attitude toward life in the "now" moment, free from all preconceived ideas and expectations. It is a mind open to genuine understanding and self-awareness.
Whether you are new to meditation or a long time practitioner, a Beginner's Mind Workshop is an ideal way to begin your Conference experience. It is a wonderful opportunity to discover Chan meditation. This workshop will introduce methods to practice mindfulness in challenging situations on and off the meditation cushion. Besides seated meditation, simple techniques applicable to daily life such as standing and sleeping methods will be demonstrated.
Rikki Asher was introduced to concepts and theories of Ch'an (Zen) meditation methods and yoga practice by the late Chan Master Sheng Yen in 1976. It was through Master Sheng Yen that she realized the benefits of meditation in daily life. She is a graduate of Lehman College, City University of New York (CUNY) with a Master's in Fine Arts (MFA) in painting, and a Doctorate in Art Education (Ed.D.) from Columbia University and combines her background in art and education with meditation. Mindfulness and yoga techniques find their way into her CUNY Queens College classes for art education training, in work with inner-city teenagers, and various adult and senior adult groups. As a certified yoga and meditation instructor, she has taught yoga and meditation in synagogues, local Y's, yoga centers, community centers, the Omega Institute and the Dharma Drum Meditation center since 1999. She has led one and three day retreats since 2004.
This workshop will consist of contemplative exercises to awaken our senses as we explore the creative process. Based on the teachings of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and aspects of Shambhala Art, we will examine the source of creative inspiration. We will empower our creative and viewing processes, and discuss how filmmakers have manifested their genuine expression.
Doreen Bartoni is the Dean of theSchool of Media Arts and Professor of Film & Video at Columbia College Chicago. In addition to her work as an educator, Ms. Bartoni has maintained an active professional life as a filmmaker and scholar. She has lectured at numerous professional organizations throughout the country including the University Film and Video Association, International Digital Media Arts Association, Shambhala Center in Austin Texas, the National Council of Jewish Women, and the Society of Cinema Studies. Her films have been screened both nationally and internationally, winning awards from the Chicago International Film Festival, Herland Film Festival, Oswego International Film Festival, and Festival of Illinois Film and Video Artists.
Zen Master Gensa said, "The whole universe in ten directions is one bright pearl." How do you understand this? It never dawned on me that the holocaust or that my recent sesshin in Auschwitz and Birkenau was actually part of the one bright pearl.
But neither the holocaust, over 65 years ago, nor my recent trip to Poland can be just setaside or hidden. It is the experience of both grave universal suffering and the very relative conditional pain of so many people, including me. "The one pearl goes directly through ten thousand years: the eternal past has not ended, but the eternal present has arrived. The body exists now, the mind exists now," Gensa continued.
When I found myself speechless, unable to keep a written record of my journey there, what arose was a series of paintings, the emergence of my own creative expression through a visual language that we will explore during this workshop.
Masters Dogen and Gensa taught us that nothing is outside of the one bright pearl – not even the demon's cave. Not even Birkenau. That's hard to sit with when we struggle with pain and loss, not wanting to remember, and never wanting to forget.
If it is all one bright pearl, does this help us to understand, or observe, does it make us live in a different way? Is our bearing witness eye of practice more open, wider and sharper? This visual language is quite healing and is indeed part of one bright pearl.
Sensei Tricia Teater, MPA Sensei Tricia L. Teater is a Zen Buddhist Chaplain and Priest in affiliation with Udumbara Zen Center of Evanston and is Director of Udumbara's National Chaplain Program. She sits on the Board of Directors and is the past president of the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and coordinator of death row visits to Pontiac. Tricia has worked in maximum security prisons and on death row in Indiana and Illinois for over 10 years, conducting Buddhist meditation services, offering spiritual support and hospice care. She is a long time team member with Horizon Hospice and Palliative Care. She received her Master's Degree from Roosevelt University and is certified in conflict resolution and mediation. Tricia is the Director of Human Resources for Cook County Clerk David Orr.
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