Category Archives: practice

beyond asana

3jewels-buddhistwisdom
If you’re finding 3 Jewels Yoga for the first time or visiting after an absence, you may be wondering where the “yoga” classes can be found.

For 10 years, I’ve been cultivating my teaching practice on the foundations of Movement, Mindfulness + Meditation. Of these three, the movement has transformed the most — expanding from asana-on-the-mat to meaningful movement in our daily life to the dynamic force of gathering as community to generate the energy of mindfulness and embody compassion, skillful understanding and authentic connection.

Over the course of two years, I gradually scaled back my schedule from a full roster of weekly asana (yoga) classes down to seasonal workshops and programs. This was essential not only to discern what I felt most compelled and committed to teaching, but also to honor my long-held desire to homeschool my son. With time and space reclaimed, it became clear to me at the end of 2015 that I had to respond to a deep call to focus on and lift up what first drew me into this practice: its potential to unify, reconcile and restore us to wholeness!

Sri Aurobindo’s adage “all of life is yoga“ has been a centering mantra for my learning and teaching endeavors. As with so many of life’s lessons, we journey through and cycle back to explore, transform, release, refine, and renew our understanding and practice of each of the 8 limbs of yoga. It is how we live fully into the depth and breadth of our human being-ness. We grow and let go, making space for new possibilities.

While I am not eliminating movement-based programs entirely, I have let go of asana as the primary focus of my teaching and am not centering yoga as a fitness/movement format in my public programs. I will continue to offer meditation-focused workshop and will consider requests for private lessons in asana and other movement-based formats. These changes enable me to expand my capacity to hold space for what has deep heart and meaning at this juncture in my life.

In November 2016 (which officially marked my 10th year of teaching), I announced that I would be renewing my commitment to community wellness by exploring professional opportunities to broaden my facilitation skills in health equity and social justice. That decision necessitated changes to the description and design of 3 Jewels Yoga that align clearly with my original vision for teaching. Inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh’s evocative words about the powerful role a Buddhist practice community serves:

3 Jewels Yoga continues as a Sangha —
a Community of Refuge, Resistance + Resilience
for Good Spiritual Friends.

Here’s how you can connect with us and learn, grow, and live into beloved community!

STUDY + PRACTICE IN COMMUNITY:
3 Jewels Yoga Sangha
Workshops

STUDY + PRACTICE PRIVATELY:
Private Lessons for individuals or groups
All Programs + Workshops can be designed for private study.

CURRENT SCHEDULE:
Practice By The Season
Special Events

[updated december 2016]

words to live by | mushim patricia ikeda

Great Vow for Mindful Activists

Aware of suffering and injustice,
I, [tara scott], am working to create
a more just, peaceful, and sustainable world.
I promise, for the benefit of all,
to practice self-care, mindfulness, healing, and joy.
I vow to not burn out.

Burnout and self-sacrifice, the paradigm of the lone hero who takes nothing for herself and gives everything to others, injure all of us who are trying to bring the dharma into everyday lay life through communities of transformative well-being, where the exchange of self for other is re-envisioned as the care of self in service to the community. The longer we live, the healthier we are; the happier we feel, the more we can gain the experience and wisdom needed to contribute toward a collective reimagining of relationships, education, work, and play.

~Mushim Patricia Ikeda
I Vow Not To Burn Out via Lion’s Roar
related gem: spirituality, social justice + healing spaces
3jewels-radicalrest

sangha harvest party

 

our outdoor practice season has come to a close,
and it could not have been a more beautiful fall day!
the abundance was overflowing: a feast of homemade goodies and raided-refrigerator treats, plenty of laughter, a reflection on how each of us is connected and all the overlapping threads we share, and crafting the harvest of herbs from a friend’s garden into bundles of sage, rose petals, mint and lavender that can be dried into smudging sticks.
excited for all that our new season of practice will bring.

words to live by | alice walker

3-jewels-walkerquote

Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
Become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
~Alice Walker
Anything We Love Can Be Saved

gathered + rooted: a new season of sangha

The 2016 Fall session of  the 3 Jewels Yoga Sangha will open on Sunday, October 9 with a deep focus on my oft-referenced endearment (and zen-trendy hashtag), The Suchness of Sangha.

In the Buddhist vernacular “suchness” is the translation of the Pali world Tathātā and seeks to describe the essence of our perceived reality — and all the conditions that make our experience of reality possible — in the moment. It points to impermanence and interdependence. Reminding us that all the elements (people, places, objects, etc.) and our perceptions and responses to said elements in any given moment create a quality of “thusness” or “thatness” which cannot be replicated. Because these very things at this very point in time uniquely converge to form a fleeting experience. It is the vibe, the stuff, all matter seen and unseen, that is gathered and drawn together and felt so deeply. It becomes a knowing, a rooted cellular memory…a dream, an inspiration, the aspiration we seek to nourish.

So we’ll sit in these queries, turn them over, and test them in our daily living:

  • What is sangha?
  • How is it formed, nurtured and sustained?
  • What do we seek in our connection(s) within spiritual community?
  • What do we contribute?
  • How are we transformed?
  • And any number of questions that will emerge from our collective effort to learn and practice cultivating mindfulness together as good spiritual friends.

3jewels.pgulleyquote

Fall Schedule

October 9, 16, 23

    • 10/16 ~ Monthly Mindfulness Immersion
      A half-day retreat including our regular #wholyhappyhour practice, food + fellowship, and an Orientation to Foundational Practices — walking meditation, sitting meditation, and the criteria for skillful communication.

November 6, 13, 20

    • 11/13 ~ Special Workshop | Inviting Mindfulness: The Heart at Rest
      Following our regular #wholyhappyhour practice, this restorative workshop will introduce an embodied meditation in mindfulness to awaken self-compassion and skillful understanding of the relationship between body, breath, mind and environment.

December 4, 11, 18

    • 12/18 ~ Monthly Mindfulness Immersion*
      A half-day retreat including our regular #wholyhappyhour practice, food + fellowship, and an Orientation to Foundational Practices — walking meditation, sitting meditation, and the criteria skillful communication. [*updated on 12/4/2016: new date posted.]

monthly sit-together [8/14]: the stickiness of attachment

Relaxing our grip. Cultivating steadiness in the face of challenge and change. A timeless and always relevant topic was proposed for this Sunday’s monthly contemplation and discussion: Non-Attachment!

alitalibquote.jpg

3 Jewels Yoga Sangha will explore the sticky dimensions of attachment — including in our exploration the relationship of Non-Attachment to Equanimity (steadiness or evenness of mind); the subtle differences we might experience between Non-Attachment and Detachment; and, what the 4 Noble Truths remind us, that suffering arises from clinging or craving.

The Second Mindfulness Training | Non-Attachment to Views

Aware of the suffering created by attachment to views and wrong perceptions, we are determined to avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. We are committed to learning and practicing non-attachment from views and being open to other’s insights and experiences in order to benefit from the collective wisdom. Insight is revealed through the practice of compassionate listening, deep looking, and letting go of notions rather than through the accumulation of intellectual knowledge. We are aware that the knowledge we presently possess is not changeless, absolute truth. Truth is found in life, and we will observe life within and around us in every moment, ready to learn throughout our lives.

______________
RESOURCES:

On Equanimity

On The Four Noble Truths

On The Four Parameters of Clinging + Co-Dependent Arising of Clinging/Craving

On Non-Attachment

On The Mindfulness Trainings (Plum Village)

on ground sacred and fertile

I treasure our Sunday practices and our time together on August 7th was all the more special because, for the second year in a row, I was able to spend my new year in the full embrace of Sangha.

After a week full of celebrations with loved ones (and a few more to come!), I am feeling deeply ALIGNED, AFFIRMED and INSPIRED to honor and lift up WHAT I VALUE, WHAT I WISH TO PROTECT, and WHAT I WISH TO LEAD WITH:

fostering compassion, skillful understanding, and connection through this sacred and fertile ground we cultivate in the form of a like-spirited, open-hearted, wise-minded community of practitioners who revel in silent contemplation, take delight in nature, and find refuge in communion with #‎GoodSpiritualFriends‬.
See upcoming dates below!

gentle yoga with ann lapo
view from my mat
warriors
view from my mat too
warriors exalted
seva crew tends to the labyrinth
tools
blade to blades
seva crew + the tool trailer
woman + a saw
sweat equity
wrapping up
feast
quickles

 

 

3 Jewels Yoga Sangha’s Practice Schedule

August 14 ~ 11 am – 12:30 pm | Monthly Sit-Together

August 28 ~ 11 am – 12:00 pm | Walking The Labyrinth

September 11 ~ 10 am – 1:00 pm | Walking The Labyrinth + Gentle Yoga with Ann Lapo

September 18 ~ 11 am – 12:30 pm | Monthly Sit-Together

September 25 ~ 11 am – 1 pm | Walking The Labyrinth (end of season)

manifestoes on love

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i’m celebrating my 40th year today — reflecting on the journey of the past decade and more recent season of discernment that have beckoned me to live into the deep and urgent call to be an instrument of love and reconciliation.

as many of you land on my site today, i invite you to amplify the good and spread love wherever you see/feel its lack in your circle of connections.

birthday wish: for those near and far — support my efforts to cultivate and abide in the energy of compassion, skillful understanding, and connection by following, sharing, and joining the 3 Jewels Yoga community.

scenes from sangha

“while our society’s goal is betterment of the self,
it is not a narcissistic self toward which we aspire,
but a connected self,
rooted in a loving transformative community.

it is because of our participation in the WE
that we learn to be an I.

“in our communities, we not only learn how to love and grow,
we learn how to forgive, negotiate, compromise, yield, or stand our ground.
imperfect communities teach us
how to love and care for others, how to listen,
and how to share our deepest thoughts and feelings.

They teach us consideration for others,
the limitations of the self,
and again, even most importantly,
how to be an I in the midst of a WE,
how to maintain a healthy individuality
when the pressure to conform to a majority is strong.”
~ Philip Gulley

_____

June 26 | Special Event Series
Walking The Labyrinth + Gentle Yoga

celebrating our community —
with new friends and old

tending to body, heart and mind
with movement, mindfulness + meditation

feasting on soul-nourishing food + fellowship!

a glorious day to stretch out! #upuptothesky #yogitoes
smiles of contentment after gentle yoga with ann lapo
centering for meditation
unraveling out
in and in
bread + jams! #homemade #nosh
friends!
more friends!
sweetness! #toejams
brothers!
the jam goddess! #jamber
a trio of jams. #howwedo
care + tending. #withheartandhand

_____

July 10 | Walking The Labyrinth

Heavy hearts make leaden feet, I remarked after practice.
We were a small group that Sunday morning, and could
have easily completed the meditation within thirty minutes.
But we spiraled slowly inward, then out —
walking with the weight of personal sorrows
compounded by those of the community and country
raw from the heinous brutalities
we witnessed in the days before we met.
An hour later, we emerged from our silent pilgrimage
still tender but together.

still tender but together. #restored
confession: not only was i judging the culprits for littering but for also drinking bad beer! #MICraftBeer
clean-up crew #sanghashenanigans