A live eight-week online course with Lama Willa Baker following her book The Wakeful Body. This experiential learning course explores how the body is the key not only to a fruitful meditation practice, but to an easeful life. Special attention will be paid to becoming more embodied in our daily life, through practical exercises, meditation and ways of understanding.

Many of us have a complicated relationship with the body. In its vulnerability to aging and illness, we tend to think of our body in ordinary or even pejorative terms. Yet many meditation masters of the past have taught that the body is a temple, a mandala, a profound source of wisdom. How do we reconcile these two perspectives?

In this eight-week course, participants will explore the body as a domain of practice and wisdom, diving deep into the physical, energetic and cognizant dimensions of experience. Through dharma instruction, contemplative movement and study, participants will learn how to bring awakening from the realm of ideas into the truth of embodiment.

Course includes:

Weekly Teaching and Guided Meditation with Lama Willa on Wednesdays (1.5 hours, 5:00-6:30 pm ET), with occasional Q&A and meetings with peers. Teachings will explore the path of somatic mindfulness: how to develop an ongoing practice of integrating principles of wisdom and compassion into the body and nervous system.

Weekly gentle yoga practice with Lama Willa on Mondays (1 hour, 5:00-6:00 pm ET) to work on integrating the course themes into a practice of movement. Modifications (chair yoga) will also be offered during the live sessions.

Lama Willa encourages participants to commit to a daily practice (a minimum of 15 minutes per day) for the eight-week duration of this course.

Resources include:

• Course Syllabus with weekly reading assignments from The Wakeful Body: Somatic Mindfulness as a Path to Freedom (Shambhala Publications 2022) – available directly from Shambhala Publications or from other booksellers
• Bibliography for further exploration of embodied practice
• Guided Meditations (pre-recorded), available on SoundCloud
• Exclusive access to professionally mastered yoga videos featuring Vajra Vinyasa Yoga, movement practices that accompany the meditations in the The Wakeful Body. Watch and learn from Lama Willa on demand throughout the eight weeks.

Required Course Resources (for use during the course):

• The Wakeful Body: Somatic Mindfulness as a Path to Freedom by Willa Blythe Baker (Shambhala Publications 2022)
• “Embodiment,” 2022 article by Willa Blythe Baker