East Bay Meditation Center

People of Color Sangha
2017-12-14 19:00 - 21:00, 2017-12-07 19:00 - 21:00, 2017-11-30 19:00 - 21:00, 2017-11-23 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | East Bay Meditation Center, 285 17th Street, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
The People of Color Sangha is a growing tribe of people of color waking up and getting free!
Thursdays
7:00 – 9:00 PM
For more information, visit the: POC SANGHA WEBSITE

People of Color Yoga
2017-12-14 18:00 - 19:00, 2017-12-07 18:00 - 19:00, 2017-11-30 18:00 - 19:00, 2017-11-23 18:00 - 19:00
Weekly Yoga Practice for Self Identified People of Color led by Satya de la Paz
6:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Build strength and flexibility while cultivating mindfulness in this all levels hatha yoga class. Each class has a unique, inspiring theme and personalized instruction that will leave you feeling joyous and rejuvenated.
No registration required. No mat or special clothes required.

Midday Sangha
2017-12-13 12:00 - 13:30, 2017-12-06 12:00 - 13:30, 2017-11-29 12:00 - 13:30, 2017-11-22 12:00 - 13:30
Midday Sangha at EBMC Wednesdays at Noon!
Join our peer-led multicultural sangha for silent meditation practice and community building.
Every Wednesday
12:00 – 12:45 Silent sitting, standing or lying down meditation with optional walking meditation.
12:45 – 1:35 Potluck lunch with facilitated conversation about our practice and being the dharma in the world
Midday Sangha Coordinating Committee:
Abe Doherty, Bang Nguyen, Jenn Biehn, Kam McCallum, Karen Jackson, Manuel Vasquez, Preston Justice, Shawki, Yvette Flores

Alphabet Sangha
2017-12-12 19:00 - 20:30, 2017-12-05 19:00 - 20:30, 2017-11-28 19:00 - 20:30, 2017-11-21 19:00 - 20:30
A meditation group for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Same-Gender Loving, and Two-Spirit communities. Because that’s such a mouthful, we call ourselves the Alphabet Sangha.
Tuesdays
7:00 – 8:30 pm
For more information, visit the ALPHABET SANGHA WEBSITE

Dharma in Motion
2017-12-12 17:30, 2017-12-05 17:30, 2017-11-28 17:30, 2017-11-21 17:30
A weekly offering of access-centered movement practices for all ages and abilities. Teachers and modalities will rotate every 5-6 weeks. Drop in format, no experience necessary. Please wear clothing that allows for gentle movement.

Every Body Every Mind Sangha
2017-12-10 18:00 - 19:30, 2017-12-03 18:00 - 19:30, 2017-11-26 18:00 - 19:30
Every Body Every Mind Sangha is a weekly sitting group for people living with disabilities, limitations, differences and chronic illnesses.
Sundays
6:00 pm – 7:30 pm
Please come and take part in this time to meditate, share our lives and support with each other, and learn more about the dharma. There is no need to register for these weekly meetings, just come and share this path together!
Teachers include Charlie Johnson, Deb Kerr and others.
For more info, visit the Every Body Every Mind Sangha Website.

Family Practice Class: Opening the Heart through the Buddha's Teachings
2017-12-10 10:00 - 12:30
with Shahara Godfrey, Eve Decker, Michele Ku, Baruch Golden and Keisha Turner.
We invite you to come and help create the diverse family sangha at EBMC. We welcome families with babies, toddlers, and children up to age 13. Children under 5 will need to have a parent/caregiver stay with them.
This class features training on “Family Tea Time” and how mindful practices can bind the family together. We will also explore how meditation and meditative movement can contribute to successful family life. Parents/caregivers and young people will meet together and separately during the class. We are committed to creating a diverse family sangha. No prior experience is necessary.
Please bring a snack (without nuts) to share.
Registration: Registration is required and space is limited. Click here or the link below to register.
https://eastbaymeditation.org/ebmcreg/?event=dec17family
Cost: There is no registration fee for attending this event, nor most EBMC events. However, EBMC is not independently funded. The Center and the teachers will be sustained only by your voluntary donations (the practice of generous giving, or “dana”). Please donate generously, in proportion to your ability:
* Either online (you will be offered an opportunity during the online registration process to donate to EBMC; the teachers will not receive any part of this online donation).
* Or at the event, in the two baskets at EBMC, one for the Center, the second for the Teacher.
Thank you for your generosity. EBMC will be only be sustained through our collective generosity.
Fragrance-free: In order to protect the health of community members with environmental illness, please do not wear fragranced products (including “natural” fragrances) or clothes laundered in fragranced products to EBMC.
EBMC is wheelchair accessible.

Book Blessing & Community Celebration
2017-12-09 18:30 - 21:00
with Spring Washam & Friends
All are invited to come out and celebrate the release of Spring Washam’s long awaited book! This will be a community celebration. In A Fierce Heart, Washam shares her contemporary, unique interpretation of the Buddha’s 2,500-year-old teachings with powerfully written chapters that get to the heart of mindfulness, wisdom, and compassion. Woven throughout the book are stories from the author’s life, family, and community, along with many soulful, heartfelt stories from all over the world. Washam’s teachings truly focus on strength, courage and wisdom, making the Dharma welcoming to as large and wide a community as possible. Anyone who has suffered will benefit from the life-saving teachings of this charismatic teacher. Her humor, enthusiasm, and energy are a balm.
This joyful celebration will include delicious vegetarian appetizers, live music, readings from the book, and lot’s of fun!
6:30pm – 7:30pm (Refreshments)
7:30pm 8:30pm (Book reading & Dharma Reflections)
8:30pm – Hangout & book signings
Registration: Registration is required and space is limited. Click here or the link below to register.
https://eastbaymeditation.org/ebmcreg/?event=dec17fierceheart
Cost: There is no registration fee for attending this event, nor most EBMC events. However, EBMC is not independently funded. The Center and the teachers will be sustained only by your voluntary donations (the practice of generous giving, or “dana”). Please donate generously, in proportion to your ability:
* Either online (you will be offered an opportunity during the online registration process to donate to EBMC; the teachers will not receive any part of this online donation).
* Or at the event, in the two baskets at EBMC, one for the Center, the second for the Teacher.
Thank you for your generosity. EBMC will be only be sustained through our collective generosity.
Fragrance-free: In order to protect the health of community members with environmental illness, please do not wear fragranced products (including “natural” fragrances) or clothes laundered in fragranced products to EBMC.
EBMC is wheelchair accessible.

ONLINE: Multiracial Peer-Led Deep Refuge Group
2017-12-09 09:30 - 11:30
The Multiracial Deep Refuge Group is a monthly exploratory Deep Refuge Group for and by people who identify as multiracial. Our meetings include periods of mindfulness meditation and sharing of narratives and perspectives as we come together to be seen and to see one another. By sitting and exploring our own unique stories, we can come to know and care for the common threads that bind us together. Our collective work bravely expands the narrative that informs multiracial experience today. Meets 7pm-9pm on the second Saturdays of every month. Online and occasionally hybrid (in-person at EBMC + online).
Newcomers welcome- please contact us before your first visit: mrdrcoordinators at googlegroups dot com

EBMC Teen Sangha: Fall 2017
2017-12-06 18:30 - 20:30, 2017-11-29 18:30 - 20:30
EBMC Teen Sangha – Fall 2017
Wednesdays: September 6 – December 6 (no meeting on November 22)
6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Open to teens, ages 14-19
EBMC Teen Sangha is a weekly meditation group for teens, ages 14-19. Our focus will be on creating deeper relationships with ourselves and each other, having fun, getting real and supporting each other. Learn mindfulness meditation and explore the dharma (Buddhist teachings) in creative and practical ways. No experience necessary. We are committed to maintaining a Sangha (community) that is welcoming to people of all identities, cultures, beliefs and ways of being.
Led by the EBMC Teen Sangha Team: Raúl Kahlil Betancourt, Anthony “T” Maes, Sarwang Parikh, Adrienne Price, Syra Smith, and Phoenix Soleil
Registration: Registration is encouraged and space is limited. Click here or the link below to register.
https://eastbaymeditation.org/ebmcreg/?event=sept17teen
Cost: There is no registration fee for attending this event, nor most EBMC events. However, EBMC is not independently funded. The Center and the teachers will be sustained only by your voluntary donations (the practice of generous giving, or “dana”). Please donate generously, in proportion to your ability:
* Either online (you will be offered an opportunity during the online registration process)
* Or at the event, in the two baskets at EBMC, one for the Center, the second for the Teacher
Thank you for your generosity. EBMC will be only be sustained through our collective generosity.
Fragrance-free: In order to protect the health of community members with environmental illness, please do not wear fragranced products (including “natural” fragrances) or clothes laundered in fragranced products to EBMC.
EBMC is wheelchair accessible.
Raúl Kahlil Betancourt began his buddhist studies when he was 16 in L.A. and has been studying steadily since. He has studied Vietnamese Zen in LA and Soto Zen in Santa Cruz and SF as well as Green Gulch and Tassajara. He spent a year as a personal student to a head instructor from Eijeiji, at his home temple in Japan. He also earned a black belt in Aikido. He eventually found his spiritual home at EBMC in Oakland. He is currently teaching science at a high school in SF where he is also a teacher meditation leader.
Anthony “T” Maes was born and raised in the East Bay. He has practiced Buddhist meditation since 2003 including long retreats and living in a monastery in Thailand. He has volunteered on many teen meditation retreats since 2009 where he enjoys leading mixed-heritage liberation, relational mindfulness, and acrobalance. “T” graduated from UC Berkeley in 2004, completed the yearlong Commit2Dharma program at EBMC in 2011, and is a graduate of the Heart Mind Curriculum mindfulness teacher training program.
Sarwang Parikh is a Marriage and Family Therapist Intern who has worked with young people for over a decade. He has meditated and practiced yoga for the past 10 years. He is currently a part of Spirit Rock’s Dedicated Practitioner Program and EBMC’s Men of Color Deep Refuge group. Sarwang has worked therapeutically with young people across cultures and around the world in a variety of therapeutic, school-based and community settings. He currently provides holistic counseling, leads mindfulness groups, and facilitates trainings on mindfulness in education with Seeds-of-Awareness.org. Sarwang is passionately committed to integrating social change and personal healing through practicing mindfulness and developing relationships.
Adrienne Price is an educator, cultural producer, and social justice organizer living in Oakland, CA. Since she discovered Dharma practice in 2008, she has worked to deepen her learning. She looks forward to co-leading her first Teen Sangha through EBMC this summer. She has worked as a high school teacher and currently coordinates an education non-profit. She also organizes with SURJ (Standing Up for Racial Justice) and the Bay Area Childcare Collective. She hosts a weekly radio show on Radio Valencia entitled Pure Pop for Queer Lovers (Sundays 10am-12:00pm, www.radiovalencia.fm).
Syra Smith is an engaged artist, activist, community organizer, sharing cultivator and mindfulness educator interested in deep ecology and manifesting a culture where we can turn toward fearless abundance and generosity. Syra has been educating and working with young people for over 15 years. A lifetime meditator, she completed EBMC’s Commit to Dharma program in 2011 and is participating in a two year non-monastic ordination and lineage teaching program under the guidance of Venerable Pannavati Bhikkuni. In addition to co-leading EBMC’s Teen Sangha, she has joined the team at the Mind Body Awareness Project, providing transformational tools to at-risk and incarcerated youth.
Phoenix Soleil is an artist and trainer committed to creating more fun, authenticity and compassion in our society. She is a teacher and practitioner of the Vipassanna meditation tradition. She is also a teacher and practitioner of Nonviolent Communication (NVC), a form of compassionate communication that supports us to attune to our feelings and values. Whenever possible she invokes her background in conscious dance, Laughter Yoga, acting, and the expressive arts to build healthy, authentic, joyful, and engaged communities of all ages.

Curriculum: Path of the Bodhisattva (3/3)
2017-12-03 10:00 - 16:30
Path of the Bodhisattva & Bodhisattva Precepts Ceremony

Buddhist curriculum, Fall 2017
with Mushim Ikeda, EBMC core teacher
This new Buddhist curriculum at EBMC has three components:

A four-class series: Path of the Bodhisattva 1
Wednesdays, Oct 4, 11, 18, 25: 7 – 9pm

Registration now open

A three-class series: Path of the Bodhisattva 2
Wednesdays, Nov 1, 8, 17: 7 – 9pm

Registration now open

Daylong: Receiving or Witnessing the Bodhisattva Precepts & Vows
December 3: 10am – 4:30pm

Registration now open
I, myself, took the Bodhisattva Vows and made the vow, “Life after life, after life, after life, I will continue my practice and continue my work.” – Bhante Suhita Dharma, Buddhist monk and social worker, 1941-2013
In Mahayana Buddhism, the Bodhisattva is an archetypal great being who tirelessly and joyfully works to liberate all beings from suffering. For the first time, EBMC will offer two class series exploring what it means to creatively embody the Bodhisattva teachings. Those who complete both class series may participate in the final daylong and either witness or take Bodhisattva precepts and vows in order to strengthen their commitment to collective liberation. These are the same vows taken by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Also, those who do not wish to take the Bodhisattva vows may take either of the two class series. The final daylong is open to everyone who wishes to witness the joyful ceremony (you do not need to have taken any of the previous classes, though it is recommended that you do so) and those who have completed the previous classes and have received permission from the teacher may receive the Bodhisattva Precepts, take the Bodhisattva Vows, and at that time they will receive a Buddhist name from the teacher. Meditation (instruction provided for beginners), Dharma talks, and interactive exercises. Questions: email admin@eastbaymeditation.org
Mushim (Patricia) Ikeda received Bodhisattva precepts and vows in Toronto, Canada in 1983. She is an EBMC core teacher, a widely-published writer, and a social justice activist. Mushim has practiced as both a monastic and a lay householder. For events, writing, video teachings, go to www.mushimikeda.com
Cost: There is no registration fee for attending this event, nor most EBMC events. However, EBMC is not independently funded. The Center and the teachers will be sustained only by your voluntary donations (the practice of generous giving, or “dana”). Please donate generously, in proportion to your ability:
* Either online (you will be offered an opportunity during the online registration process to donate to EBMC; the teachers will NOT receive any part of this online donation)
* Or at the event, in the two baskets at EBMC, one for the Center, the second for the Teacher
Thank you for your generosity. EBMC will be only be sustained through our collective generosity.
Fragrance-free: In order to protect the health of community members with environmental illness, please do not wear fragranced products (including “natural” fragrances) or clothes laundered in fragranced products to EBMC.
EBMC is wheelchair accessible.

ONLINE: Trans/Gender-Expansive Deep Refuge Group
2017-11-27 18:30 - 20:00
Trans/Gender-Expansive Deep Refuge Group
Fourth Mondays (online over zoom)
6:30-8pm PM PST
This deep refuge group is by and for trans/gender-expansive people. Our goal is to provide a welcoming community space for trans/gender-expansive folks who are interested in exploring meditation and other aspects of Buddhist practice. Both beginners and experienced practitioners welcome!
To be added to the email list, please email tgedeeprefuge@eastbaymeditation.org with a quick note about your interest in the group. We look forward to practicing with you!
