Mindfulness Practice Group of Annapolis - Meditation

Every Sunday in the Young Room of UUCA. Beginners always welcome. We start with 20 mins. of guided meditation, followed by a dharma discussion of the week. Sometimes the topics come from books we have made available, Sometimes we do another meditative practice after the initial sitting meditation, such as meditative walking. Plenty of time for questions. Ask to be on our e-mail list to receive notices of both Sun. & Thurs. topics.
All Sunday sessions are, as noted in Meetup, 9:00-10:00 AM Sundays in the Young Room on the lower level of UUCA. Please leave extra time for finding your way around construction. After we are all downstairs at start time, there won't be anyone to guide you at the door. At the moment construction is going on at the main entrance to the church & sanctuary. When you arrive do NOT park at the main entrance & try to reach the side door of the main building. Drive past the main entrance to the church & park in the rectangular lot in front of the Fahs House, a 2 story frame building behind the church. Please walk past the Fahs House on a paved walk toward the main church to the side door on your left. On Sunday mornings walk downstairs to the left as soon as you enter, then turn left in the lower floor's hallway.

Sensei Bob Ertman leads Reading & Writing Haiku (& other forms of short poetry) as the practice of attention & connection. This is not a class but a peer group of writers/explorers who may like to share something with the group or may simply sometimes like to encounter haiku. Beginners are welcome. You may enter at any time, since it is not a class, but your questions are welcome. Message us for the link & password. Time is actually the Zoom 40 min.

Sunday Dec. 1, 11:15-12:15 in the UU Sistehood Rm.
Our spiritual practice in every Death Cafe is Deep Listening to what each person brings, puzzlement, fear, anger, stuckness in rumination, longing, sorrow. We moderate so that everyone is heard. No one may try to convert another to a particular religious or philosophical position. What is said in Death Cafe stays in Death Cafe. In addition to these rules from International Death Cafe HQ in London, we follow their stricture "Speak [only] of death & eat cake."
There will be an optional meditation practice with Buddhism's Five Remembrances of Death & Loss at 9-10 AM in the UU Sisterhood Rm. led by Sensei Robert Ertman.

The international Death Cafe Movement has led to tens of thousands of Death Cafes on all continents including at the American station in Antarctica. It is meant to counter what the English & Swiss founders believed is a late 20th century refusal to acknowledge death as a natural phenomenon every person will face, probably numerous times. The English still believe that their "stiff upper lip" is the greatest danger to personal & familial healing & bringer of estrangement & misunderstanding. The American movement believes that the culture of North America is the peak of death denial, producing more fear & unreadiness by chasing scientific salvation. Death Cafes aim to make conversation about this great fact of life as natural as talk about births & illness not a "morbid" failure to "move on." The basic aim is to demystify a great part of life so that we can all think about it as we wish without less fear & no denial.

2 sessions, noon & 6:30 PM 6 Mondays from Oct.- Dec. 16. We will need your e-mail to send you the Zoom links. Facebook will not let us show all these dates. You can message us with that or -mail [email protected]. We'll send the links to everyone who's signed up c. Oct. 25.
Mr. Lowery is definitive in his denial that there is any permanent or separate self, & he offers sociological, psychological, & historical evidence for continuous construction of & efforts to maintain a self-identity which is not only in a constant state of flux but expanded or shrunk or modified by every social contact we have face to face or via impersonal information every single day. He never discusses Zen per se nor uses its terminology, but he is perhaps harder core on the depth of Interbeing than is Thich Nhat Hanh, the founder of the Order of Interbeing. He describes an emptiness of identity without using the term. Another word which may describe part of the continuous process he lays out is Zulu ubuntu, which he does use in one chapter. He discusses the power of stories we share to maintain identity but notes that no adopted part of identity is cost-free. At the end, however, he argues that hope for humanity & society lies in recognizing how we benefit from our construction of each other. Pro-tip: It really does matter who your friends are.
Sessions of the MBC will observe Thich Nhat Hanh's 4th Mindfulness Training on Loving Speech & Deep Listening. "Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I am committed to cultivating loving speech and compassionate listening in order to relieve suffering and to promote reconciliation and peace in myself and among other people, ethnic and religious groups, and nations." In action, that will encompass such standard practices as refraining from repeated speech until at least a few others have spoken, addressing the whole group & not a single person, using "I" language, etc. We will also have opening & closing words & ring a bell pausing for 3 breaths at opening & closing. You are invited to bring opening & closing words from what we are reading or something related. Zen Peacemaker Council Practices are also a good guide (based as they are on Thich Nhat Hanh's practice!)