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Welcome to the place that everywhere becomes here,
the place that everywhen becomes now.
Learning To Listen Yoga & Meditation Center is a nonprofit community committed to offering tools that promote conscious living. For the most part our offerings are grounded in the wisdom traditions of Asia, particularly those born in ancient India. Our central guiding lineages are that of Patanjali's Classical Yoga and Buddhism. In addition to our central practices of yoga and meditation, we also honor any practice that supports the cultivation of mindfulness; all things if done mindfully can contribute to one's growth.
Principles that we hold dear are: simplicity, integrity, compassion, mindfulness, council, ceremony, personal practice, celebration, listening, breath, presence, movement and stillness, participation, silence, service, support, community, and growth. Our goal is liberation, to allow freedom for all — especially freedom from oppressive mind thoughts. We feel that the result of this freedom will be world peace.
Learning To Listen is not an effort to stand out; it is an effort to live an outstanding life. Not until you feel at home everywhere, will you feel at home anywhere. WELCOME HOME.
SHORTER TERM EFFORTS
This site acts as an introduction to what Learning To Listen offers. Currently Learning To Listen's primary offerings are collaborative retreats and the supporting of it's Teaching Collective. The Collective offers a wide range of tools for conscious living, including: yoga, meditation, chi-kung, T'ai Ch'i, tea as practice, satsang, Sanskrit chant, transformational coursework, Ayurveda, artistic expressions, bodywork, family services, mindful relationships to food and environmental consumption, and activism.
We also offer a monthly newsletter, please consider signing up. Please feel free to contact us and contribute your thoughts and/or participation.
LONGER TERM EFFORTS
Learning To Listen Yoga & Meditation Center is a 501(c)(3) tax deductible nonprofit. By pooling our resources: financial, creative, professional, and supportive, we have embarked on the voyage of creating a retreat center to be located in the North Bay, the scenic oasis that is north of San Francisco. The process has just begun, and thus, we have started collecting people, ideas, money, and the like. Everyone who is interested in participating will be utilized in some capacity. This project is monumental, it is a reflection of the monument to freedom that each of us carries within. We hope to see you, and to be seen by you — for it is sangha, community that rounds off the edges of truth.
For more information on the retreat center, click here. To find out how to donate financially, click here. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us, even if just to say hi and to support our effort by letting us know that you know of it.
Learning To Listen has little idea as to what direction it will ultimately grow; the community as a whole, will determine this. Be well, and thanks for visiting — love always, and kindness.
Listen with your ears: hear music in all sound, be present to what others have to say, be interested and hold space for sharing. Listen with your eyes: see things - witness them for what they truly are, allow things and people to see you, make eye contact with people. Listen with your nose: be sensitive to smells — allow them into your being, be available to the subtle. Listen with your tongue: taste life and food, be aware of what you say and its impact. Listen with your skin: touch and be touched, feel air holding you, move maturely, act. Listen with your heart: love, and allow yourself to be loved; be kind, and forgive yourself, and meditate. Listen.
"When we listen as if we were in a temple and give attention to one another as if each person were our teacher, honoring his or her words as valuable and sacred, all kinds of great possibilities awaken. Even miracles can happen. To act in the world most effectively, our actions cannot come from our small sense of self, our limited identity, our hopes, and our fears. Rather, we must listen to a greater possibility and cultivate actions connected with our highest intentions from the patient and compassionate Buddha within us. We must learn to be in touch with something greater than ourselves, whether we call it the Tao, God, the dharma, or the law of nature. There is a deep current of truth that we can hear. When we listen and act in accordance with this truth, no matter what happens, our actions will be right."—Jack Kornfield, from A Path With Heart
