Tag archives: meditate

Soup is Soaring, with Workshops, Too
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 23, 2020

Yoga Soup, the studio located down by the Santa Barbara train station that often serves as a bookstore, gift shop, and gathering place during our “old normal” times, has managed to schedule upwards of 70 classes available via the Zoom service each week. A few weeks into the transition, Yoga Soup has also started to […]

McLean Meditation
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 23, 2020

When the coronavirus crisis first arrived in America, Sarah McLean figured she’d hunker down with her husband in the couple’s recently-purchased Santa Barbara home to wait out the shelter-in-place situation. The quarter-century veteran contemporary meditation and mindfulness teacher who co-founded the Montecito Meditation Center last year considers herself something of an introvert, and laying low […]

Multiple Meditations
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 16, 2020

Sarah McLean, the co-founder and lead meditation teacher at Montecito Meditation, which opened its doors just last summer, is embodying her McLean Meditation Institute’s motto of “sowing the seeds of peace” by offering free meditation over Zoom four times a day. “(It’s important to) take care of your nervous system and find more calmness during […]

Virtual Meditating with Mahakankala
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 9, 2020

The downtown Santa Barbara center has finally also migrated over to online offerings, with resident teacher Kadam Keli Vaughan teaching and guiding meditations via Zoom several times each week. Featured are “Search for the Self: Buddhist Meditations on Emptiness” from 6-7 pm on Wednesdays, “Learning to Love” from 6:30-7:30 on Thursdays, and “Meditation for World […]

More Streaming Buddhism: BodhiPath Beckons
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 9, 2020

Resident teacher Dawa Tarchin Phillips launches a new three-week course over Zoom on Thursday evenings, offering “What the Buddha Taught” as a way to explore your own life’s journey in light of the Buddha’s wisdom from the perspectives of personal maturation, liberation, awakening and service. The 7-9 pm sessions April 9-23, accessed via Zoom at […]

Thai Meditation for Trying Times
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 9, 2020

As recently as early March, Courtney Purcell’s Santa Barbara Buddhist Meditation Meetup had a full slate of events on its calendar, with gatherings all over town, from the American Buddhist Meditation Temple on Orchid Drive near More Mesa to the foothills and beaches of Montecito, a leap year forest retreat in the expanse at La […]

Buddhism Online Breakdown
By Tim Buckley   |   March 26, 2020

All of Santa Barbara Buddhist Meditation’s in-person gatherings are on hiatus during the crisis with COVID-19, but at least the Tuesday Night Mindfulness Group has moved online. The evenings, that usually took place at Purnamaya Ayurveda & Sound Healing Center in Ventura and included a Dharma talk, sitting meditation and the opportunity to practice other […]

More Meetups in Motion
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 26, 2020

Santa Barbara Spiritual Growth Meetup Group founder Kelsey Cordle doesn’t want to let the novel coronavirus curtail connection any more than necessary. So, she writes, “In light of what’s going on in the world, I’d love for us all to still ‘get together’ virtually.” Among the possibilities on the menu for the gathering over Zoom […]

Weininger Winds Her Way to the Web
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 19, 2020

Radhule Weininger is cancelling in-person meetings to help stop the spread of the virus, but instead of scaling back, the veteran meditation teacher is upping the ante and actually adding meetings to its slate of online offerings. So the Zoom schedule now includes Mondays at 7 pm with Weininger, Tuesdays at 7 pm with Stacy […]

Accessing an Alternative to Anxiety
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 19, 2020

“Sheng Zhen means unconditional love in Chinese, and its purpose is to produce that within ourselves,” said Bryce Lupoli. “What that means practically is that Sheng Zhen helps us live with a quiet mind, a relaxed and healthy body, and an open heart.” Lupoli is one of only a few local teachers of the practice […]

Back on the Path
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 12, 2020

Santa Barbara Bodhi Path Center resident teacher Dawa Tarchin Phillips will be leading a two-part class over successive Thursdays this month, as “Awakening Bodhicitta – How to Open Your Heart and Develop Love and Compassion” takes place 7-9 pm on March 12 and 19. The course addresses how we may be familiar with the benefits […]

We are Sorry
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 5, 2020

The Montecito Vedanta Temple was not asked or notified about a planned event scheduled for last weekend by the Santa Barbara-Buddhist-Meditation Meetup, which was canceled before taking place. We were asked to run a clarifying statement about the temple’s policies to avoid any future issues. The Vedanta Temple welcomes people from all religions and denominations […]

Studio Special Events
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 5, 2020

Amardeep Kaur leads a Kundalini Yoga & Gong Experience – featuring sound healing, mantra chanting, and movement to assist in centering, grounding, and “awakening to the indescribable ecstasy of life” – from 7-8:30 pm on Friday, March 6, at the Santa Barbara Yoga Center ($20)… Also this week at SBYC: Sequences for Well-Being in a […]

Free Yoga… from the Ground Up
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 5, 2020

Sierra Nolan‘s free Yoga 101 Workshop: Foundations of Yoga is designed for first-timers, beginners or those who want to dig deeper into the yoga tradition and fine-tune their primary yoga asanas (poses). The two-hour session, slated for 1-3 pm on Saturday, March 7, at Divinitree Santa Barbara downtown, provides a non-intimidating environment to ask any […]

Radhule’s Refuge in the Storm: Connecting in a Time of Conflict and Coronavirus
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 5, 2020

Santa Barbara meditation leader Radhule Weininger sent out a missive to her mailing list over last weekend, and also asked if I could find some space in my column for her thoughts on anxiety over the growing cases of the Coronavirus as well as the coming election. Here’s an edited version: “I am listening to […]

More Montecito Meetups
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 27, 2020

Santa Barbara Buddhist Meditation, which holds regular meditation and other gatherings at the American Buddhist Temple in Goleta as well as various Montecito locations and elsewhere, has a special offering for this Saturday night. Its Once-in-a-Leap-Year Forest Retreat is a three-hour excursion at La Cumbre Peak designed to briefly isolate participants from the “busyness,” noise […]

More MAPS
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 27, 2020

Sherman, who has facilitated twenty-three yoga-meditation retreats in Montecito before La Casa de Maria fell victim to the 2018 mudslide, will also lead a “MAPs I for Daily Living,” her first offering of the introductory course from acclaimed, scientifically-based UCLA program here in town since last summer. The MAPs I course provides insight into the […]

Mindfulness for the Yoga Practitioner
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 27, 2020

Barbara Rose Sherman is a Yoga Alliance Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher 500 who is also a Trained Mindfulness Facilitator through the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and a UCLA Mindful Awareness Practices Affiliated Teacher. Now she’s bringing her experience in drawing from the two spiritual practices to a teacher training weekend available […]

Soup’s on
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 20, 2020

Yoga Soup’s weekend workshops begin with Relational Attunement, the theme for the next installment of the bi-monthly Authentic Relating Games. Leader Damian Gallagher will offer a series of “games” that offer experiences in “How Me transitions into We,” diving into the differences when we are attuned to each of us in the space as a […]

Alexander’s Arts Fund Benefit
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 20, 2020

The Arts Fund is partnering with Beth Alexander and AM|Fitness for a meditation fundraiser comprised of three weekly brief meditation classes on Tuesdays that benefit the Funk Zone arts organization. Alexander, a fitness trainer and a nationally recognized health expert who has been featured by The Today Show, Shape, and PopSugar Fitness, is the creator […]