PLEASE NOTE: THE MONDAY NIGHT MEDITATION CLASSES ARE CURRENTLY ON A BREAK. CHECK BACK SOON AND WE WILL ALSO ANNOUNCE VIA NEWSLETTER WHEN WE START CLASSES AGAIN.

What: Senshi Meditation & Mindfulness Practice
When: 7-8pm Monday nights. starting Nov. 9th (please be in the meditation hall a few minutes before 7pm)*
Cost: Free
Where: Meditation Room at Boulder Integral (2805 Broadway Street, Boulder)
Facilitator: Keith Martin-Smith

“Senshi” means “warrior” in Japanese, and this is warrior training for your body, your mind, and your spirit. Becoming an accomplished athlete, artist, businessperson, or author requires discipline of practice. Our spiritual practice is no different.

Senshi Meditation takes seriously the idea that there is nothing more important in your life right now then waking up. Every minute spent asleep is another minute spent in bondage, in contraction, in ignorance, in servitude to old stories, patterns, and obsessions. This is a life and death practice, and we will take our seats as warriors dedicated to our path.

OVERVIEW

• This meditation class will begin informally at 6:45pm, where any questions can be answered, we can talk, warm up, and drop in.
• Meditation will go from precisely 7pm until 8pm.
• We will sometimes engage in one or all of the following as part of our practice: mindful physical embodiment, energy work, and/or discussion of the Dharma.
• The sit ends at 8pm, but there will be another optional 15 minutes of post-sit discussion for anyone interested in staying and discussing anything that might have come up.

DETAIL

• Meditation practice will follow the Rinai Zen tradition, which is derived directly from the Japanese Samurai. Rinzai, more than any other meditative discipline, embodies the energy of spiritual practice as warrior practice. When you take your seat in a Rinzai Zen sit, you take your seat as a warrior, and you resolve to face whatever arises during the sit — emotional, physical, or spiritual — without movement of any kind. No scratching, no shifting in your seat, no adjusting your posture, no eye wandering. The body remains utterly, completely still, as a service to yourself and to those around you. We will use concentration meditation as a way to Clear Deep Heart/Mind and Samadhi (unreasonable joy).
• Physical Embodiment Practice will follow the stretching, breathing, and strength-building used in Northern Shaolin Kung Fu. The focus will be on mindful execution and mindfulness practice, no matter what discomfort the body is experiencing.
• Energy Work will include qi gong movements and sitting qi gong practice.
• Discussion of spiritual classics and other suggested books will fine tune our philosophical understanding of our practice.
• Mondo Zen Protocols (deconstruction and reconstruction of the ego) will occur by appointment only, outside of class time.

PROTOCOL

Will be explained before we seal the container of our group. Instruction will be provided for other activities at the appropriate time. No unnecessary speaking or eye contact during the hour of formal practice — this is a sacred space dedicated to our Awakening!

METHOD

Boulder, CO has many strengths, but a sharp and clear lineage of spiritual discipline, taught in an uncompromising way, is not one of them. While emotional processing, the honoring of all perspectives, and go-at-your-own pace models all serve our emerging, post-conventional selves, they can be toxic to the spiritual path. “There is a way between voice and presence where information flows. In disciplined silence it opens. With wondering talk it closes.” —Rumi

ABOUT THE FACILITATOR

Keith Martin-Smith began studying the Dharma in 1996, and took Red Tara Empowerment and Bodhisattva Vows with Lama Tsering Everest in 2001. In 2007 he met Jun Po Roshi and became a formal student of his, and was given the Dharma name “Ko Gen” (“Tiger Eye”). Keith/Kogen has been authorized by Jun Po Roshi to teach the Mondo Zen deconstruction/reconstruction protocol and meditation.

Kogen is also the most senior disciple and only lineage holder of Grandmaster Jeon Hoon Jeon, 3rd Generation White Tiger Master, and has been given the title of “Co-Master” in the instruction of Northern Shaolin Kung Fu and Qi Gong. He has been training since 1994 and teaching since 2003. His training in Kung Fu and Qi Gong is ongoing on the way to becoming a Master. He has also studied Jin Woo, Hung Gar, Wing Chun, and Jinqui Qi Gong.

“What is better, satisfying 1,000 desires or conquering one?”

INTEGRAL FRAME FOR THOSE INTERESTED

An absolutistic (Amber) frame for teaching has been used for millennia in spiritual and physical disciplines, but has been increasingly abandoned as we moved into modernity (Orange) and postmodernity (Green). But we are seeing in places like Boulder, CO, some of the problems when one throws out the Amber, hierarchical frame for teaching: namely, it is the most effective way to create change. Amber is wonderful at helping to break the body and the mind into a difficult discipline. Orange interpretations of these disciplines can focus too much on the status and ranking of the student, while Green interpretations are, among other problems, reluctant to force one kind of training and philosophy onto students. The result of the loss of Amber teaching methods applied to marital arts and spiritual practice has been a reduction in the quality of students and of their overall competency.

We can add Orange and Green emergent truths and understandings into pre-and-post practice structures, to honor the insights of those worldviews. But putting those structures into the Amber frame destroys the pressure that Amber has been so carefully formatted to create, and lengthens the entire process when it doesn’t destroy it utterly.