MAPs II: Next Steps - Improve Your Meditation 

"For those who wish to continue and advance their practice". In this follow up class to MAPs I, we will focus on maintaining and sustaining a daily mindfulness practice, how to bring mindfulness into our daily activities, how to develop more concentration, and how more confidence and wisdom can arise in our practice.

Pre-requisite: Attendance in any introductory MAPs I series or equivalent mindfulness introductory class with permission from our instructor. If you have not taken a MAPs I class at MARC, please email via my website a brief description of your equivalent experience to before class start date.

The MAPs I course is an excellent introduction to mindfulness for beginners. MAPs I provides insight into the basics of mindfulness, how to develop a mindfulness meditation practice, and how mindfulness can be applied in daily life. It is also appropriate for experienced practitioners who wish to revitalize their practice.

MAPs classes meets weekly for two hours per week for six weeks. Students are encouraged to complete some daily meditation practice starting at five minutes a day and working up to 20 minutes daily by the end of the course. 

There is a free app "UCLA Mindful" with guided meditations.

Students will learn Mindful concepts that include:

• Overview of Mindfulness
• Mindfulness of the Body
• Obstacles to Mindfulness
• Mindfulness to help with Physical Pain 
• Working with Difficult Emotions
• Cultivating Positive Emotions 
• Working with Difficult Thoughts
• Mindful Interactions
  
  

Students will also learn a variety of mindfulness practices so that the student can discover which practice is useful to them. Practices taught include:

• Sitting meditation
• Eating meditation
• Daily life meditations 
• Relational mindfulness 
• Walking meditation
• Standing meditation
• Movement meditation
• Practices to develop positive emotions 

This course is suitable for all religions and open to anyone over the age of 16.

The Studio City Library is now offering a Free Mindful Awareness Meditation Class. It will be held, in person only at the Library. Class will be on the second Friday of every month 10am to 11am. This class is about creating and incorporating an effective Mindful Awareness practice in all aspects of your life. This class is appropriate for beginners to experienced meditators who wish to revitalize their practice.

Students will learn how to reduce reactivity and stress and gain more contentment by:

-Developing more balance with your emotions

-Building a healthier relationship with your thoughts

-Developing awareness of your body and its intelligence

-Moving from unskilled reactions to skillful responses

-Learning to meditate, using different methods, including sitting, standing, walking, listening to sound, etc.

This is a secular class and is suitable for all religions. Your instructor is Rick Sweeney. He has been practicing Mindful Awareness/Insight Meditation since 2006. He is certified to instruct by the Mindful Awareness Research Center Research center at UCLA. Rick is also a member of and certified to teach by I.M.T.A. and He is certified to teach Junior and High School kids by Mindful Schools.org.

The Library address is: 12511 Moorpark St

Studio City, Ca. 91604

This class is sponsored by the Studio City Friends of the Library.

In this follow up class to MAPs I, we will learn how to cultivate loving kindness, compassion, equanimity, joy, gratitude, and forgiveness.

We will learn new meditations to develop these qualities, tools to work with when we find them ourselves stuck and not feeling positive emotions, and practical exercises to incorporate them into our daily life. This is a helpful expansion to our basic mindfulness practice.

Pre-requisite: Attendance in any introductory MAPs I series or equivalent mindfulness introductory class with permission from our instructor. If you have not taken a MAPs I class at MARC, please email us a brief description of your equivalent experience to the instructor before class starts.

The Sherman Oaks (Ca.) Public Library is now offering a Free Mindful Awareness Meditation Class. It will be held, in person only, at the Library. Class will be on the 4th Friday of every month 10am to 11am. This class is about creating and incorporating an effective Mindful Awareness practice in all aspects of your life. This class is appropriate for beginners to experienced meditators who wish to revitalize their practice.

Students will learn how to reduce reactivity and stress and gain more contentment by:

-Developing more balance with your emotions

-Building a healthier relationship with your thoughts

-Developing awareness of your body and its intelligence

-Moving from unskilled reactions to skillful responses

-Learning to meditate, using different methods, including sitting, standing, walking, listening to sound, etc.

This is a secular class and is suitable for all religions. Your instructor is Rick Sweeney. He has been practicing Mindful Awareness/Insight Meditation since 2006. He is certified to instruct by the Mindful Awareness Research Center Research center at UCLA. Rick is also a member of and certified to teach by I.M.T.A. and He is certified to teach Junior and High School kids by Mindful Schools.org.

The address for the Library is: 14245 Moorpark St.

Sherman Oaks, Calif 91423

This class is sponsored by the Sherman Oaks Friends of the Library.

In this class we will practice mindfulness to work with difficult thoughts and emotions that prevent us from being self compassionate, and that tell us we are unworthy. We will use loving kindness and compassion practices to cultivate positive emotions toward ourselves, and we will explore how we are not alone – the truth of our shared, humanity and recognition of our inherent goodness. Self compassion is the ability to be kind to ourselves in the face of life's difficulties, and our own shortcomings. We care for ourselves even when we mess up, aren't perfect, and in spite of our feelings.