A Four Week Online Course
with Tias Little
Meditation
Foundations of Practice
Wed Jan 22, Feb 5, 12, 19 (7 - 9pm EST)
Course Description
Students who take this course will:
- Explore the link of the senses to the mind, and see that sensory stimuli can either be an obstacle or support to meditation
- Read verses from the Upanisad that map the mind in three states: waking, sleep and dream
- Practice using the body as a means to harness meditative awareness
- Gain insight into yoga meditation as process of reflection, attention and discernment
- Study the Eightfold Path of the Buddha’s teaching
- Practice Vipassana Meditation and Shamatha (calm abiding)
- Explore the Four Foundations of Mindfulness within the early Buddhist teaching
- See how in Mahayana Buddhism the very nature of the mind is empty
COURSE INCLUDES:
4 Live, Interactive Zoom Sessions
4 Q&As with Tias
4 Downloadable Videos & MP3s
Course Readings
10 Embodied Philosophy Credits
10 Yoga Alliance Cont. Ed. Credits
Private Pop-Up Facebook Group
Course Outline
There is evidence in early Indian, Greek and Persian cultures that physicians and spiritual alchemists established concentration practices in order to cultivate luminous states of meditation. In this module, we explore the early references to meditation within the Vedas and use selections from the Mandukya Upanisad to map fours states of consciousness-- waking, dream, sleep and “sivam” the state of tranquility.
In this week we will see how verses from the Bhagavad Gita and sutras from Patanjali’s Ashtanga Yoga underscore meditation as a gateway to yoga liberation. We investigate the “inner limbs” within Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras --pratyhara, dharana, dhyana and samadhi—as a means to “stopping” the mind.
In this module we explore the insights of the wandering sage who became the Buddha. Rooted in meditation and mindfulness, the Buddha’s awakening gave birth to numerous schools of meditation. We explore the foundation of mindfulness and see how all things are transient, inter-dependent and not “me”.
Tias Little earned a BA from Amherst College where he studied Buddhist Philosophy with Robert Thurman. He earned a Masters degree in Eastern Classics from St. John’s College in 1998, studying Sanskrit and the wisdom traditions of India, China and Japan. He has lived in Santa Fe New Mexico for thirty years and directs his school Prajna Yoga with his wife Surya. He is a long time student of Iyengar Yoga and Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga and made trips to Mysore, India in 1989 and 1995. He is a licensed massage therapist and is highly influenced by cranial-sacral therapy and the work of Ida Rolf, Moshe Feldenkreis and Thomas Hanna. Tias is a long time student of Tsoknyi Rinpoche in the Dzogchen practice of Tibetan Buddhism. Tias is author of Meditations on a Dewdrop, Yoga of the Subtle Body and Practice is the Path (forthcoming July 2020, Shambhala Press).
