VERSION FRANCAISE

Registration open

Biography

Saki Santorelli, EdD, MA. is an educator, meditation teacher and writer.  In 2018 he retired as executive director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society, director of the internationally acclaimed Stress Reduction Clinic, the place of origin of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), and professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.  His entire career in medicine and healthcare has been oriented around the integration of mindfulness into public health.  Through his vision and leadership the Center for Mindfulness transmitted the ethos, practice, teaching, and science of MBSR to individuals and organizations around the world.  Saki teaches and presents internationally and is the author of Heal Thy Self: Lessons on Mindfulness in Medicine translated into eleven languages.

Clic here for full biography.

Description

« Dialogue and Inquiry is the communal, heart-throbbingly beautiful conversation that is the hallmark of MBSR and, by extension, all authentic mindfulness-based programs (MBPs).  Oriented toward the love of truth and emerging as a fluid, multifaceted exchange with program participants, this intimate dialogue is, by its very nature, self-revealing, deeply human and ennobling.  Identified as one of the central capabilities in the development of mindfulness-based teachers, inquiry is often reported to be a major source of apprehension and uneasiness for MBP teachers.  This is not surprising.  Untethered from course content and structure, inquiry asks us to meet each person freshly, each moment non-conceptually.  A gesture of love and bravery, standing in such open space is not easy. Yet, this is the way it is when we say we want to teach.

To work with and hopefully dispel this fear and learn to meet these moments more openly, this course is oriented around the practice of dialogue and inquiry. As a community of learners, we’ll devote a portion of each day to silent practice, with particular emphasis on the cultivation of the heart quality, and the remainder of the day to the spoken practice of dialogue and inquiry.  Joining silence and speech, our practice of dialogue and inquiry will unfold through:

• Viewing and reflecting on video recordings from Saki’s MBSR classes,
• Practice Teaching in small and large groups as a way of learning to respond to common themes that program participants speak about during weekly sessions,
• Inquiring into the nature of inquiry itself as a way of disclosing the fears associated with being in this ‘conversation’ and that inhibit our capacity to be present and open,
• Learning to weave dialogue with one person into the communal conversation and consciousness,
• Offering and receiving peer and instructor feedback,
• Identifying personal strengths and areas needing additional attention, and
• Recognizing within us the sources from which dialogue and inquiry springs and flows forth.

The invitation is to practice diligently and to speak honestly about what we find difficult, delightful (and everything in between) in our teaching.  The intention is to support one another as friends, students, and evolving MBP teachers. The essential aspiration is to serve others by becoming more embodied, heartfelt, and relationally wise teachers. »

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