Many people are familiar with meditation from experiences in yoga or mindfulness classes, from reading about it in books or seeing it in movies, or maybe even from discussion with friends who have tried it. Others might simply be curious about what meditation is and how to do it. You may have heard that even a little meditation every day can have a beneficial effect on your health and even help you manage stress or develop greater mental focus. Many have found this to be accurate (though mileage may vary) and there are a bevy of apps available that offer a wide variety of guided mediation experiences.
As it has traditionally been practiced for centuries, classical meditation primarily strives to quiet the mind. If the constant whirling of thoughts can be slowed down, the theory goes, a welcome sense of relaxation and peace arises. The instruction in classical meditation offered here will provide you with techniques that, if practiced regularly, will help to settle the mind, allowing for ever deeper and lengthier meditative experiences. While many people use meditation as part of their spiritual or religious practice, the techniques of classical meditation are not necessarily spiritual or religious and there will be no emphasis on those aspects in these sessions. The objective is to get each meditator to the quietest possible state of mind: what you do with that mental stillness is up to you.
If you have begun a practice of meditation and are interested in further developing your meditation skills, and even if you are simply curious about meditation and maybe are looking for a way to get started, please attend an introductory session. No fee, no pressure, and no strings attached.
All University of Rochester affiliated students, staff, and faculty welcome.
Please share this information with anyone you think might be interested.
“Yoga is the cessation of the turnings of thought”
Patanjali, The Yoga Sutras (trans. B. Stoller-Miller)
Your Instructor, John Covach, is Arthur Satz Professor of the Humanities and Director of the Institute for Popular Music on the River Campus, as well as Professor of Theory at the Eastman School of Music. His scholarly work has focused on both popular and classical music in the twentieth century, often exploring the relationship between music and spirituality. Professor Covach has trained in various forms of meditation instruction, including mindfulness (Koru), mantra meditation (Deepak Chopra), and kriya yoga. He has been initiated into several lineages of kriya yoga in North America and India (including those of Paramahansa Yogananda, Swami Hariharananda, and the Lahiri Mahasaya dynastic lineage). Professor Covach is an authorized yogacharya in the Panchanon Bhattacharya kriya lineage.
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