Join Rebecca Eldridge on this 9-session, 20.25-hour program, which is open to MBSR teachers of all experience levels: whether you’ve taught 1 or 100 MBSR courses, you are invited to apply for a seat in this program. No matter when you initially trained to teach MBSR, or through which organization you trained (or maybe you’re still in the process of training), hopefully you never want to stop learning—about teaching MBSR and about yourself as an MBSR teacher. Mentorship, and being in collegial relationship with other MBSR teachers, is a crucial part of that ongoing learning.

During our 9 sessions, we will explore assumptions about what MBSR is and what it is not; about what “good teaching” of MBSR is and isn’t; about what it means to practice mindfulness and MBSR; about your personal and professional experience of teaching MBSR; about your personal meditation practice, and more. You will be invited to occasionally practice-teach parts of the MBSR curriculum, and to receive feedback from your teaching colleagues and Rebecca. We will also hold space for exploring what is alive for you around teaching MBSR.

Rebecca Eldridge studies, practices meditation, and teaches under the guidance, deep caring, and encouragement of her teacher, Pema Chödrön. She completed her MBSR teacher training through the Center for Mindfulness (CFM) at UMass Medical School, where she also served as an MBSR teacher and teacher trainer, designing and teaching the CFM’s first online Fundamentals training for MBSR teachers-in-training. She served as a one-to-one mentor for MBSR teacher trainees at the CFM and performed certification reviews at the conclusion of an MBSR teacher’s formal training. Rebecca is one of a limited number of MBSR teacher trainers certified as a calibrated rater for assessing MBSR teaching, and is a member of the International Mindfulness Integrity Network, a worldwide group of teacher trainers exploring ethics and standards of mindfulness training programs.

We are here to be responsible and to serve. Here to give our all, leave the Earth a little kindlier, a little more beautiful, then depart.

This ethos runs counter to the dominant credo we are awash in and suffering from grievously. While there is much good in the world, no amount of politics or policy by itself will alter our current ills. We need an additive—the elixir called spiritual practice. Consciousness and conscience entwined, awareness and virtuous action interwoven, is the spiritual practice of our time.

Join Saki Santorelli on Sunday, January 21, 2024, and be part of creating a circle of mutual support and companionship, gathering for a day of practice as a means of awakening the heart and discovering the imperishable beauty of the treasure we carry within. Then we’ll explore turning this treasure into a commitment to serve and be of real use in the world each in our own way.

Saki F. Santorelli, EdD, MA is an educator, meditation guide, writer, gardener, and pioneer in integrating meditation and mindfulness into medicine, health care, and the broader society. In 2017, he retired as professor of medicine, executive director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society and director of the internationally acclaimed Stress Reduction Clinic – the clinic of origin of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) - at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Photo credit: © Saki Santorelli

To be awake in life means engaging with intention in order to develop attention and attitude. To put this into practice calls for us to slow down, open, and observe ourselves and life happening. Sitting meditation is a time-honored means of practice. In sitting regularly, we can learn to relax, give space to and receive experience. With growing courage, we can learn to be vulnerable, which helps us to recognize what is true. If we can open to modes of dissonance, destabilizing, and dismantling, we can encourage “the deep to come to the surface.” Over and over we can be re-configured and re-born into the moments of this life, as we sit. We can learn to move with the knowing, intelligence and wisdom available as life itself unfolds and unfolds.

Join Margaret Fletcher in this workshop in which we will focus on the practice, challenges and benefits of sitting meditation, all in service to waking up. Each week will include guided sitting practice, discussion and dialogue around intentions and experiences in a life of wakefulness. Between classes, assignments for formal sitting practice and inquiry in daily life will provide inspiration for our collective learning.

Margaret Fletcher trained and is certified to teach MBSR through the Center for Mindfulness at UMass Medical School, where she also served as an MBSR Teacher and MBSR Teacher Trainer. She brings over two decades of experience in teaching meditation and mindfulness in corporate, small business, non-profit, church and community settings. Her personal practice began with her teacher, Norman Scrimshaw, with whom she co-founded and led a New Hampshire non-dual meditation community, White Mountain Sangha. Margaret’s elevator speech as a mindfulness teacher: I love to help people come alive.

Photo credit: © William Fletcher

Join Francisco Martinez for a 2-hour workshop on Mindful Movement Expression—a way to help us deepen our conversation with ourselves through breath and movement. Mindful Movement Expression is a practice of tuning in to the body to create an awareness of the body, tuning in to the breath to create an awareness of the breath, and allowing the inner intelligence of your being to manifest by moving and expressing itself freely. You will be guided throughout, as you’re invited to move.

This workshop is appropriate for all levels of ability. It will focus on improvisational-based movement using the breath as a guide and allowing the body to move freely, finding its own rhythm and finding a path of calmness, concentration, meditation, and healing.

There will also be time for us to share about our experience of movement expression, and to listen deeply to one another.

Francisco Martinez was a dancer with Compania Nacional de Danza (Spain) and Ballet Royal de Wallonie (Belgium). He obtained his Degree in Dance Pedagogy and Choreography from the Royal Conservatory of Dance in Madrid (Spain). He graduated from the Dance Education Laboratory at the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center in New York City and graduated Summa Cum Laude at Empire State College earning a BA in Arts. He is a certified Hatha Yoga teacher in Classic Ashtanga Vinyasa and has also completed a teacher training in Anusara Yoga style. He has been training in that style since 2000 as well as in the Iyengar method of Yoga.

Francisco Martinez is currently a full-time dance faculty member at The Juilliard School in New York City where he teaches Ballet technique, Hatha yoga and Mindfulness. He also has taught Hatha Yoga in ashrams and meditation centers as well as in many spiritual retreats in the USA and Europe.

He is completing MBSR teacher certification through East Coast Mindfulness, teaching in both Spanish and English.

Classically speaking, there are four formal meditation postures: sitting, standing, walking, and lying down. Yet is seems that sitting gets by far the most attention, even though all four postures can be thought of as a first approximation as different doors into the very same room.

In this workshop, we will focus on the unique virtues of lying down meditations and how such practices can be seamlessly integrated into our daily lives.

Join Jon Kabat-Zinn and Rebecca Eldridge as they discuss the virtues, challenges, and opportunities of lying down meditation. Jon will also guide a brief period of lying down practice, and engage in dialogue with the participants about their experiences. This is an excellent opportunity to explore inwardly and outwardly what lying down meditation practices might hold for you.

Missed the live sessions? The recordings are now available on Jon Kabat-Zinn's website!

Photo credit: © Joshua Simpson