Can I Get A Witness? An introductory series to the Satipaṭṭhāna's

Can I Get a Witness?

An Introduction to The Four Foundations of Mindfulness

Offered by Rosie Holmes & Daniel Sutton-Johanson

8hrs of teaching and practice time.

4 x Tuesdays | 7pm - 9pm

Sept 30th | Oct 28th | Nov 25th | Dec 16th

Sliding scale tickets available

Your ticket registers you for all 4 sessions. You do not need to commit to all 4 sessions to register.

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Sati is about disrupting my deepest conditioning. Learning how to look at why I do the things I do, and how these things can promote love and reduce harm for myself and others - Lama Rod

Do you know how to be a loving witness to yourself and your lived experience in an intentional & embodied way?

So many of us continue to live in a disembodied relationship with ourselves and with those around us, including the ecology we are part of; the natural living world.

What does it mean for us to interupt this and witness our bodily life in a loving and attentive way?

The Satipaṭṭhāna's or more commonly known as The Four Foundations of Mindfulness are one of the most classic teachings from the Therevadan tradition of Buddhism. They offer us a wholehearted invitation to interupt this type of disconnected, day to day programming.

The teachings can be understood as a kind of contemplative map for

- how to understand

- how to contemplate

and

- how to become more familiar with our direct lived experience.(Sati meaning mindfulness or 'remembering', and Paṭṭhāna meaning 'starting point' or 'origin')

In this introductory series Rosie and Daniel guide us through these four starting points or foundations, of our exeprience:

1.Kaya-nupassana - our bodily experience

2.Vedanan-upassana - changing texture of our experience

3.Cittan-upassana - the mental and emotional states of our experience

4.Dhamman-upassana - the very nature of our experience

What do these words mean?

Many have come to understand Vi-passana to mean insight, or 'to see into'.

In this way, Nu-passana can also be understood to mean 'to see along with'.

Kaya means body, so the first foundation 'Kāyanu-passana' can mean 'seeing along with the body', or more simply put, the practice of tracking. Tracking our moment to moment bodyful life with a loving awareness, is a crucial practice of extended seeing.

With all four foundations The Satipaṭṭhāna's invites us into this extended seeing, to become an acknowledged witness of our own lives.

To ask Can I get a witness? in the context of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness is to ask for recognition, for presence, for a shared acknowledgment of what is true, a refrain which becomes an invitation to witness ourselves.By tracking body, feeling, mind, and the nature of experience with care, we learn to be the loving witness of our own lives.

This kind of witness is far from the distant observer of mainstream mindfulness and the industrialised well being complex. Instead the aim is to become an embodied witness who remembers our wholeness beyond the identities and systems that fragment us, despite what trauma and systems tell us.

To witness in this way is to choose freedom, to come home to love and honest reflection, again and again and again.

Come Join us!

The Important Information

When is it?

Day: Tuesday Evenings

Dates: Sept 30th, Oct 28th, Nov 25th, Dec 16th

Times: 7pm - 9pm

Each session is 2hrs long, totalling 8hrs of teaching and practice time between Sept - Dec.

Your registration, registers you for all 4 sessions.

However, you can attend whatever sessions you’re able to, you do not need to commit to all 4 to register.

Supporting practice materials will be shared to all participants inbetween the next in-person session.

What will we be doing?

Each session will involve teachings, group refletions and guided practice.These will include

- Breathwork

- Gentle Movement

and

- Guided Meditation.

All are invitational and you can opt out or in as you please.

Where is it?

The Coastguard Studio: Regretably the venue does not have access toilets. There is a small step into the venue. We have a wheelchair suitable ramp available for those with mobility needs getting into the venue.Chairs without arms are provided.

The venue does not provide a hearing loop or ampplified sound.

Southsea Sangha is committed to creating spaces for us to practice loving ourselves and loving our communities.

The heating is on, the doors are open.

We hope you will practice with us!

Refunds

Refunds for non attendance due to covid reasons will be issued. We ask that if you are feeling unwell, you do a covid test before coming and please refrain coming if in doubt.

Full Refunds can be offered up to 2 weeks before the beginning of the series.

Refund requests after this 2 week window will be offered at 50% to help cover costs.

Refund requests unfortunately made within a week of the series beginning can not be issued

Your Guides

Rosie Holmes (she/her)

Rosie is on the Community Dharma Leader (CDL) training offered by Gaia House, and will join Daniel as a CDL for Southsea Sangha later this year.She is a contemplative educator who offers workshops, courses and 1:1 coaching in a variety of mindfulness-related practices. She has taught mindfulness to staff and students at several universities, as well as teaching at businesses and charities and first learned to meditate in 1996. Rosie has a love for exploring contemplative practices and the ways they support joy and open-heartedness in daily life.Rosie is based in Hampshire and also works part-time at the University of Chichester as a Specialist Mentor where she often shares contemplative practices with her students to support their learning journeys.

Daniel Sutton-Johanson (he/they)

Daniel is the founder and Community Dharma Leader of Southsea Sangha, a dharma community rooted in social justice and removing barriers to the dharma and meditation on on the island city of Portsmouth, where he lives with his son Oshan.

Daniel began dharma practice in 2004, encountering Vipassana at a time of addiction and depression and now practises as a Psychotherapist with 1-1 and partnered clients, trained through the Metanoia Institute masters program and CICS (Contemporary Institute of Clinical Sexology). Daniel is a member of the Radical Therapist Network and member of the GSRD (Gender, Sexuality & Relationship Diversity) Special Interest Group for The Person Centred Association.

He is trained by L.A based Mindful Schools as a mindfulness educator with young people, and has worked as a mentor for young people with iBme UK. Daniel teaches retreats alongside his colleagues Dr Sanah Ashan, Lama Rod Owens and sister sadada. Daniel also guides queer retreats and faciliates workshops around gender liberation and undoing patriarchy work with masculine and male identified folks, engaging in restorative work through meditation, dialogue, personal storytelling, and ritual work.

Daniel is currently completing a 2yr decolonial breathwork facilitator training under the tutalge of Hannah Kandaru from Inspire Breathwork School acredited by GPBA and UKBA.