The mindfulness initiative
In coordination with American University’s Department of Literature and The College of Arts and Sciences, The Mindfulness Initiative at AU (MIAU) encourages interdisciplinary dialogue on the science, philosophy, and practice of Mindfulness.
David’s Friday live Guided meditations
fall 2024: THE WEEKLY Poetry SIT: 9-9:30 AM EST, EVERY FRIDAY
free event
9-9:10 : 10 minutes silent meditation/anchoring/guided instruction
9:10-9:20 : 10 minute introduction of a “notion” grounded in the work of a contemporary poet
9:20 - 9:30 : 10 minutes guided instruction with a question arising from the poem
Zoom Meeting
**Contact David for address**
With common purpose, for a half an hour every Friday, come to sit in guided meditation together, each of us holding an aspiration of repair and renewal within our bodies, neighborhoods, cities, lands, and our precious, shared environment.
If you are interested in attending these meetings, you need not register or feel obligated to return. You may visit just once, or you may come back often. We only ask that you leave your mics muted to preserve the silence throughout the sit. (Cameras are optional. I will sit with my camera on; others may choose otherwise.)
The sessions will begin Fridays at 9 am with the sound of the bell and end promptly at 9:30 with the same, and we will all leave the room with a gesture of thanks in silence.
Here’s a selection FROM MIAU’S archive of OVER 60 recordings ON YOUTUBE
More videos from past sessions:
Jane Kenyon’s “The Pond at Dusk”
Rilke’s “Archaic Torso of Apollo”
The First Canto of The Inferno
My poem, “A Hollyhock that Belonged to Stanley Kunitz”
Stevie Smith’s “Not Waving but Drowning”
Judith Bowles’ “Married for Life”
Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “God’s Grandeur”
Ross Gay’s “Sorrow is Not my Name”
Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
Emily Dickinson’s “There’s a certain Slant of light”
Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays”
Jane Kenyon’s “Let Evening Come”
John Milton’s “When I Consider How my Light is Spent”
Theodore Roethke’s “A Light Breather”
PAST EVENTS AT MIAU
Poetry and Meditation
David Keplinger
Sunday, Jun 25, 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM EST on Zoom
What is the "certain slant of light" and how to attend to it? Emily Dickinson is known today as one of the greatest poets of American Literature, but in her lifetime she published as few as ten among her nearly two thousand poems. In Amherst, she lived in a kind of legendary obscurity (a fitting contradiction for her whose work hinged on opposites) and as she grew older her solitary lifestyle and isolation grew. Nevertheless she was energetic, curious, wrote long letters, expressed a passion and wildness in her work and among her circle; gardened; baked; and enjoyed the company of a large dog. In other words, she was just like each of us, except for her peculiarly brilliant ability to home in on the thin places in this world, where death and life meet unbearably and beautifully side by side. In this session we will study her special key to mindfulness, reading two poems, sitting in two guided meditations around a notion drawn from the works.
Using Embodied Practices and Mindfulness to Settle into Finals
A Talk with Jonathan Foust
12 noon EST, Monday, April 24, in the MIAU Room on Zoom
free event
The end of the semester brings with it the acknowledgment that mounting exhaustion and obligation are, unfortunately, part of the pattern of academic life. Whether you are a member of the faculty or a first year student, you have experienced the waves of overwhelm that rise and fall in the course of the academic year. Jonathan Foust, one of the country’s premier teachers of Mindfulness and Embodied Practices in America, will be running an hour-long discussion on Zoom, April 24 at 12 noon.
With humor and inimitable grace Jonathan will lead us with conversation and some helpful exercise to reset and release stress in the body, along with instructing us on ways to prevent the holding of worry, anxiety, and tension that lead to mounting feelings of stress.
All members of the AU (and DC) community are welcome!
Jonathan Foust, MA, CSA, is a guiding teacher with the Insight Meditation Community of Washington and a founder of the Meditation Teacher Training Institute in Washington. A senior teacher and former president of Kripalu Center, he leads retreats, trainings and classes in the Washington DC area and around the country and works individually with those interested in healing and spiritual awakening.
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RAIN and the Sati of Remembering
Talk with the faculty of World Languages and Cultures at American University:
February 1, 2023, 10-11 am (by invitation only for members of WLC)
free event
Gathering of the WLC Departmental meeting in which RAIN practice will be used as a way to mediate stress for profs and staff, to make space for the often unsettled, and unsettling work of academic life, and as an introduction to breathing practices that help to shift, in Tara Brach’s language, our reactions to stimuli from “fight or flight” to “tend and befriend.”
Instructor: David Keplinger, Department of Literature, American University
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MINDFUL INCLUSION: PRACTICING SELF-CARE WITH COMPASSIONATE ACTION
Thursday, Nov 10 1-2 pm
MGC 315 Weschler Theater
free event
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Pilgrimage as Daily Practice: Leaving the Old Maps of Love
August 18, 2022 9 am - 4 pm Day Long Retreat
Online only / Free event
Instructor: David Keplinger
How do we deepen our trust in love, and even expand the love we offer to ourselves and the world?
In this day-long meditation retreat, participants will come together to discuss the Brahmaviharas, called the Divine Abodes of Buddhist practice. From 9 am to 12 pm we'll look at passages from texts by Tich Nhat Hanh (True Love), Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness) and others, journaling and sitting in silence and guided meditation together. From 1 pm to 4 we will discuss what came up in the morning writing, finding the points of tension in each of the areas of (in Pali) metta, karuna, mudita, and upekkha. These have been translated as 1) lovingkindness, 2) compassion, 3) sympathetic joy, and 4) equanimity/letting go of attachments to outcomes. The day will also include close readings of poems by Mary Oliver, Robert Frost, and Emily Dickinson, a discussion of the role of bewilderment in the awakening heart, the role of "micro-pilgrimage" and "micro-retreat," as well as walking meditation. This event is free.
Retreat is a kind of act of "upekkha" itself -- it is a widening of inner space in us, allowing for possibility and awareness to enter -- an act of self-removal and letting go. Rilke referred to this as an attitude of repose. He wrote, "All of this hurrying will soon come to an end. They only touch the holy who tarry." In retreat we make space for possibility, literally to treat ourselves again to the womb-like environment of silence and openness and non-judgment. There is no preparation or even written participation required, but to come with an open mind and heart.
Instructor David Keplinger is a Professor of Literature at American University and a poet/translator. His nine poetry books include Ice (Milkweed Editions, 2023), The World to Come (Conduit Books and Ephemera, 2021), and Another City (Milkweed Editions, 2018). He has been awarded the 2020 Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America, the 2019 UNT Rilke Prize, two artist fellowships from the NEA (poetry and literary translation), The 2006 Colorado Book Award, and Mary Oliver selected his first book, The Rose Inside, for the 1999 T.S. Eliot Award. In 2022 he was named American University's Teacher/Scholar of the Year.
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What is Mindfulness?
Thursday, April 14, 11:00 am EST
Hall of Science, Main Room
Feeling stressed out? Could you use some perspective? Join Prof. David Keplinger today at the Hall of Science to learn how to use RAIN (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture) techniques. Session includes a guided meditation. Free, open to all AU.
