Public Talks, Workshops, and Presentations

Meditation and the Path of Contentment

May 9th - June 6th, 2024

What is contentment? Generally, we think it's having enough money, enough love, enough sustenance, and security. And yet, somehow, it's never enough. "Contentment," in this sense, remains elusive.

In the Shambhala teachings, we regard "contentment" as simply resting in the moment, acknowledging and being with "what is," a state of simplicity. This course provides an opportunity to strengthen one's practice of meditation and explore the foundational Buddhist and Shambhala teachings, with a focus on how we can find contentment amid our daily life experiences. With meditation practice, we learn to meet difficult emotions and life's challenges with gentleness, steadiness, and humor. We begin to appreciate ourselves and the simple human experience.

Sunday Morning Meditation & Dharma Talk [Online] ~ The Three Root Poisons: Exploring the Unconscious Through a Buddhist Lens

February 19th, 2023

Each day we encounter passion, aggression, and ignorance. How can these seeming defilements (“poisons”) be a source for living a more wakeful life? The willingness to contain our poisons in the vessel of gentleness is an alchemical transformation of confusion into wisdom. 

This talk will unpack the intersection of the Three Root Poisons and contemporary psychology’s idea of the unconscious trauma response (fight, flight, freeze). There will be ample time offered for group discussion and questions. 

Contemplative Creativity Lab [Online] : Space and Movement: Remembering our Body Home

November 12th, 2022

Hatha yoga helps us join space and authentic movement while liberating stuck energy. Ordinarily, the experience of our body may be limited to fleeting moments—-when we’re in pain, discomfort, or when we are making demands of it (think sitting on your couch, with phone in hand). This imbalanced relationship can lead to stuck patterning, as the potential to feel your body as an instrument of creativity, power, and joy is forgotten.

In this Contemplative Creativity lab, we present a yogic way of engaging and restoring health, through archetypes and embodied movement. We will move through a series of playful postures that invite imagination and the possibility of recognizing the depth of life in your being. You will leave this lab with tools to integrate into your daily “screen life.” You’ll discover the motivation that despite what may be attached to your hands, you have the ability to respond to a deeper part of yourself, one that remembers who you are. 

Please bring: 

1. Old neck tie or long belt

2. Yoga Mat (helpful but not necessary)

3. If balance is an issue, please have wall space (about the size of a door)

4. If fatigue is an issue, please have a backless chair/stool

New York Insight Meditation Center

Screen life and The Relational Body

Saturday February 26th 2022

For many people, maintaining satisfying human connections includes non-verbal communication. However, in the midst of a pandemic, physical distance creates barriers to connecting with each other and dependency on on-screen communication.

How does technology shape our mind-body? Do the constraints of technology promote ambivalent feelings about our relationships? How can we utilize the experience of nowness and the mind of meditation to traverse digital confines?

Join psychotherapist and meditation teacher Jenny Hannah for this workshop as we explore ways to deepen our relationships, and unstick our image based and verbal processing, both with ourselves and others. Through moving meditation, short investigative talks, group inquiry, discussions, and experiential breathing and movement exercises, we will fully embody our authentic felt presence and communicate with whole body expression.