SCA              
        

Teacher Training and Workshops 

The School for Compassionate Action: Meditation, Yoga and Emotional Support for Communities in Need is a non profit group of highly skilled  meditation and yoga teachers, clinical psychologists, social workers and contemplative Buddhist psychotherapists. We provide trainings to those interested in teaching and classes for those who might directly benefit from the awareness practices of meditation.

 

We offer a variety of meditation techniques - from mindfulness to loving kindness and compassion. We are skilled in teaching meditation to people seated on cushions, while practicing yoga postures, those needing to learn while lying in a bed, or from a wheelchair. We will show you how to share therapeutic yoga, and postures suitable to different populations – bringing important body awareness into what you share with others.

Whether you are a stressed social worker looking for personal support, a psychotherapist desiring new tools, a yoga teacher, a CEO or a school teacher - we can teach you to calm and brighten your mind, be in the present moment and connect more fully with your body and heart.  We can also teach you how to share these tools with others. All of our workshops are led by experienced and qualified teachers - each dedicated practitioners of meditation, contemplation and yoga.

Our unique approach offers each student guidance in developing, deepening and sustaining a personal practice. We believe that a personal practice not only sustains us while doing this work, but allows for the continued development of compassion, wisdom and insights to flourish.

With continued personal inquiry and practice as our foundation, we can explore a variety of skills to help others. We gain the capacity to be more present, more helpful, caring and practical.

You are welcome to take one or all of the workshops, you are invited to be a part of the mentoring program, and or take part in the supervision groups. Please join us in any way that you feel drawn - we look forward to your participation.

 

Course Objectives:

 Provide a foundation for awareness and understanding of ones own mind, body and heart.

  Introduce and thoughtfully examine a variety of mind/body disciplines and tools that help alleviate or eradicate suffering in others and ourselves.

 Form collaborations, community (in person and on line) and develop fruitful discussions concerning well - being and wellness within the context of the interdependence of our mental, emotional and physical realities.

  Encourage and support creative compassionate action in each participant’s local community. Having provided some tools to take responsible, thoughtful and informed action in the world, we will solicit and publish our participant’s experiences of compassion in action.

 

Our Guiding Principles:

Ethical living and conduct, Authenticity, Compassion (and it’s outgrowth - Action), Concentration, Contemplation, Community.

 

The first semester of the SCA training is focused on  developing foundations for being fundamentally grounded and at home with our own body, mind and heart. Our intention to be engaged and compassionate in the world can flourish if rooted in kindness and understanding of our selves first, before we begin to move outwards towards helping others.

 

For those in the giving traditions – teachers, doctors, nurses, social workers, therapists, etc., there is a poignant and practical need for an additional dose of self - care so that you may continue to thrive while helping others.

2012 Workshops and Trainings will begin in May

 


2011 Workshops

September 11, 2011

Honoring 911: Transforming Trauma from the Mind to the Body with Jill Satterfield, MBC, RYT

There is a welcomed trend of teaching awareness of the body, especially when working with trauma. Jill Satterfield has been teaching mind and body practices for over 25 years and named one of the 4 leading Buddhist and yoga teachers in the country by Shambhala Sun Magazine.  On this poignant and special 10th anniversary of 9/11, join Jill in experiential practices aimed to ease memories from the body with kindness and skill.

 

October 22

Heart Matters: Buddhist Psychology and Contemplative Psychotherapy, Workings with Emotions with Robin Boudette PhD. and Jill Satterfield

Scientific research in the fields of mindfulness and neuroscience demonstrates that we have much to learn from Buddhist traditions. Join Dr. Robin Boudette for an interactive workshop that will include an overview of the current research, introduction to the essentials of Buddhist psychology and presentation of ways to integrate the principle and practices into healing and psychotherapy.

October 23

Moving the Mind: The Body as Vehicle for Transforming Emotions with Jill Satterfield, MBC/RYT

 

It’s not in our cultural vocabulary yet, to practice moving energy, mind or consciousness around in the physical body – but it is steeped in yogic tradition, very accessible and empowering to all. Moving the mind is an experiential not wholly conceptual practice. The applications are as limitless as the capacity of the mind itself and as healing as the heart is boundless.

 

November 12

Inner and Outer Alignment: Experiencing the Influence of the Subtle/Energetic Body on the Physical Body with Jill Satterfield, MBC/RYT

It’s common understanding in Buddhist and Yogic traditions, that there is a central energetic channel within the physical body. As it’s part of the unseen or emotional body, it isn’t as widely accepted in the West, but the experience of it is undeniable. Practicing visualizations, yoga postures and meditation will provide a variety of opportunities for in depth exploration of the channel and it’s affects on the physical form of the outer body.

 

November 13

The Body as Home: The Mind, Body and Heart Relationship with Jill Satterfield, MBC/RYT

We can live in our body without really knowing it - we can take it for granted until it becomes sick or injured. But why not radically accept it by taking care of it and opening the lines of communication between our bodies, heart and mind? We can experience our body as our home and begin to liberate the illusion of separateness of heart, mind and body. Being curious about and intimately knowing our physical and emotional body is a way to feel at home everywhere, to embrace our humanity, to be more engaged and live with more ease.

 

December 3

Meditation in Motion for Youth: Teaching Meditation and Yoga to Youth At –Risk with Jill Satterfield MBC/RYT. Tibet House, NYC

 

Practicing meditation in stillness and weaving it into movement are skills that enhance everyday life, make practical sense and are enjoyed by youth who are constantly on high alert and reactive. This workshop explores seated meditation, walking meditation and skillful ways to practice yoga in meditative awareness as it applies to working with troubled youth.

 

 

December 4

The Body as Home: The Mind, Body and Heart Relationship with Jill Satterfield, MBC/RYT. Tibet House, NYC

 

We can live in our body without really knowing it - we can take it for granted until it becomes sick or injured. But why not radically accept it by taking care of it and opening the lines of communication between our bodies, heart and mind? We can experience our body as our home and begin to liberate the illusion of separateness of heart, mind and body. Being curious about and intimately knowing our physical and emotional body is a way to feel at home everywhere, to embrace our humanity, to be more engaged and live with more ease.

 

 

We are honored to be partnering with the Tibet House in presenting this leading edge program and are grateful for their support and backing of these new ideas and ways of bringing compassionate action into our local communities.