*This is a six-session, in-person event held on Tuesdays from Apr 5 thru June 7, 1:00pm - 2:15pm EST. Scroll below for details. Registration closed.
Dear friends,
This spring, Annie invites anyone in the Opening Heart Mindfulness Community to gather together on her porch for six conversations about the book: Living in the Light of Death: On the Art of Being Truly Live, by Buddhist teacher (Insight tradition) Larry Rosenberg.
We know the benefits of having a wide diversity of experience in our sanghas and so we welcome any and all people. We welcome you of any race, shape, size, neuro-diversity, gender expression or form. We welcome you especially if you have ever felt sidelined or marginalized for any reason.
Our meeting location - Annie’s front porch
Where
We would meet for six sessions (in person only - no Zoom available) on Annie’s covered porch in NW DC - an 18-minute walk from Friendship Heights Metro, 3 minutes from L2 bus line. Exact address given after registration. We ask for at least a 5-session commitment so we have trust for deep sharing as this topic is a vulnerable one. No masks or proof of vaccination required.
Accessibility
If you have accessibility needs such as being unable to use the steps to the front porch or if you are deaf, please email us here and we will discuss accommodations.
What to expect
Each session will include a meditation period (20 minutes minimum) and then (dharma) sharing on the section of the book read that week.
Dana
In lieu of fees, we suggest donating to one of the reparations projects or Making-Visible.
Why
“I was inspired to read this book based on my recent medical crisis and I think it could be of interest to many in the sangha because — as the Buddha reminds us — nothing is permanent and everyone will experience old age, sickness, and death. Reading it together wil allow us an opportunity to deepen our own understanding of impermanence and our sangha relationships.”
Description of the book (Amazon.com)
This book presents the Buddhist approach to facing the inevitable facts of growing older, getting sick, and dying. These tough realities are not given much attention by many people until midlife, when they become harder to avoid. Using a Buddhist text known as the Five Subjects for Frequent Recollection, Larry Rosenberg shows how intimacy with the realities of aging can actually be used as a means to liberation. When we become intimate with these inevitable aspects of life, he writes, we also become intimate with ourselves, with others, with the world—indeed with all things.
Review
"Living in the Light of Death is an invaluable primer for virtually anyone who has a body and is old enough to read. Larry Rosenberg dives right to the core of what it takes to be truly alive and, with the lightest and kindest of touches, shows us simple ways to wake up to our lives while we have them to live. A true vehicle for exploring the profound question of whether there is life before death."—Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Full Catastrophe Living and Wherever You Go, There You Are
About the Author
Larry Rosenberg is founder and resident teacher of the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a guiding teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts.
LOCATION
This practice group will be IN PERSON in NW DC, 18 minute walk from Friendship Heights Metro,
3 minutes from L2 bus line - exact address given after registration.
In lieu of fees, we suggest donating to one of the reparations projects or Making-Visible.
Registration closed.
ABOUT ANNIE
Annie Mahon (she, they) is a white, Armenian-American, who was ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh into the Order of Interbeing in 2009.
Annie is the founder of Circle Yoga Cooperative (2003), DC Community Yoga and DC Yoga Week (2005), the Pink House Foundation (2010)—a grant-making organization supporting the development political and social capital for marginalized groups in the United States, moving land, wealth, and power to historically oppressed groups, Opening Heart Mindfulness Community (2014), and most recently Making-Visble (2018), an ongoing webinar series grounded in mindfulness and led by those most impacted by issues of social injustice, internal biases.
Annie has been a student of mindfulness since the early 1990s and has been teaching mindfulness since 2005. Her book, Things I Did When I Was Hangry: Navigating a Peaceful Relationship with Food was published by Parallax Press in 2015.
Annie holds masters degrees in both Computer Science, from the University of Michigan, and Religious Studies from Howard University and became a licensed massage therapist in 2011. Her first yoga teacher training was with Suzie Hurley at Willow Street Yoga Center in 2004, and she was one of the country’s first certified Children’s Yoga teachers. Annie is a certified Focusing professional, Trauma-informed Clinical Practice, Nonviolent Communication (NVC), and many other modalities.
Read more about Annie here.