Visceral Enlightenment: Somatic Practice as a Dharma Path

Instructor(s): Willa Blythe Baker and Martin Aylward

Program Description:

We often think of meditation as a mental practice. But what if meditation is understood as a bodily practice? In what ways might the Buddhist path to liberation be a somatic practice of an ever-deepening attunement to the wisdom of our bodies? Join Willa Baker and Martin Aylward as together they explore the importance of the body for the practice of the dharma. Drawing on their recent books—The Wakeful Body and Awake Where You Are—Willa and Martin will engage in a dialogue on the role of the body as a guide for awakening.

We are happy to be collaborating on this program with Wonderwell Mountain Refuge and the Natural Dharma Fellowship.

About the Instructor(s):
• 

  Willa Blythe Baker

  Willa Blythe Baker, Ph.D., is the founder of Natural Dharma Fellowship and its retreat center Wonderwell Mountain Refuge in Springfield, NH. She was authorized as a lineage holder (lama) in the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism after twelve years of monastic training and two consecutive three-year retreats. Willa is the author of several books, including The Wakeful Body: Somatic Mindfulness as a Path to Freedom (Shambhala Publications, 2021) and The Arts of Contemplative Care (with Dr. Cheryl Giles, Wisdom Publications, 2012). She is currently working on a translation of a memoir by the Dzogchen master Jigme Lingpa.

• 

  Martin Aylward

  Martin Aylward began dharma practice and study at age nineteen, spending several years in Asian monasteries and with Himalayan hermits. He has been teaching worldwide since 1999. Martin co-founded Moulin de Chaves, the retreat center where he lives and teaches in SW France, the online dharma community Sangha Live, and the Mindfulness Training Institute. He is married with two adult children and his teaching focuses on the radical freeness at the heart of dharma, and its integration into daily life, with programs like Work Sex Money Dharma. His latest book is Awake Where You Are (2021).