The Power of Community: Weekly and Monthly Meditations (Online)

Join us for the Mind Body Spirit Institute’s Power of Community meditation series, an opportunity to continue bringing mindfulness into your life, and practice with others as a support. Every week, Alejandro Chaoul and other Mind Body Spirit Faculty will lead these short meditations so we can, as a community, recenter in the midst of the day and our rapidly shifting world, and learn and develop tools for our everyday life.

All sessions are ONLINE ONLY.

January:
-17th: Ann Friedman, 1-1:15pm
-26th: Stan Merrill, 5-5:30pm
-31st: MONTHLY MEDITATION, Alejandro Chaoul, 6:15-7:15pm

February:
-2nd: Claire Villarreal, 5-5:30pm
-7th: Ginger Clarkson, 1-1:15pm
-16th: Stan Merrill, 5:00-5:30pm
-21st: Claire Villarreal, 1:00-1:15pm
-28th: MONTHLY MEDITATION, Alejandro Chaoul, 6:15-7:15pm

March:
-2nd: Claire Villarreal, 5-5:30pm
-7th: Ginger Clarkson, 1-1:15pm
-16th: Stan Merrill 5-5:30pm
-21st: Ann Friedman, 1-1:15pm
-30th: MONTHLY MEDITATION, Alejandro Chaoul, 6:15-7:15pm

April:
-4th: Ginger Clarkson, 1-1:15pm
-13th: Claire Villarreal, 5-5:30pm
-18th: MONTHLY MEDITATION, Alejandro Chaoul, 6:15-7:15pm
-27th: Stan Merrill, 5-5:30pm

May:
-2nd: Ginger Clarkson, 1-1:15pm
-11th: Claire Villarreal, 5-5:30pm

These livestreaming programs can be taken from home or anywhere with an internet connection. If you register, you will be emailed viewing instructions either the evening before or the morning of the event. Please be sure to check “spam” and “junk” folders!

All times are Central Time. Please contact onlinelearning@junghouston.org with any questions.

Alejandro Chaoul, PhD, is the founder and director of The Jung Center’s Mind Body Spirit Institute. He has been a student of Tibetan Buddhism since 1989 studying with His Holiness the Dalai Lama Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche. He is currently supporting the Integrative Medicine Program of MD Anderson Cancer Center where since 1999 he has been leading people with cancer and their family members through mind/body/spirit techniques aimed at reducing stress and facilitating healing. Alejandro who received his PhD in religious studies from Rice University was recently named a fellow of the Mind and Life Institute and is a senior teacher of The 3 Doors.

Ginger Clarkson is a Buddhist chaplain, a community dharma leader of Insight Meditation Houston, and a board-certified music therapist and a fellow of the Association for Music and Imagery. She trains psychotherapists internationally in the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music. Her publications include A Silent Cure: Transforming Pre-Verbal Trauma Through Meditation, I Dreamed I Was Normal: A Music Therapist’s Journey Through the Realms of Autism, and Spiritual Dimensions of Guided Imagery and Music.

Ann Friedman, PhD, is a Psychologist and Certified Mindfulness Facilitator from UCLA. She has also completed classes through Mindful Schools A Still Quiet Place and other programs. She is currently in the Teacher Certification program for CBCT through Emory University. In 2015 she opened Mindful Being a company which provides training in schools corporations and nonprofits. She has taught mindfulness across Southeast Texas Puerto Rico and Florida with Mental Health America and UNICEF following hurricanes.

Stanley Merrill earned a Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification through the Awareness Training Institute of the University of California at Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center in 2019. The two-year program was taught by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach through Sounds True. He attended a teacher training class “Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction” taught by Jon Kabat-Zinn through the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Stanley has taught meditation techniques at the Veterans Administration, the Houston Area Parkinson’s Society, the West University Seniors Center, Luna Recovery Center, MD Anderson in Sugarland, and Chevron. For 23 years he worked at IBM where he was a Systems Engineer Systems Engineer Manager and an Application Development Consultant. He has studied Buddhist philosophy and meditation since 1995.

Claire Villarreal received her PhD from Rice University’s Department of Religion and has taught academic courses at Rice and UH Clear Lake and led meditation sessions at Dawn Mountain the Jung Center Discovery Green and various other settings in Houston and Fort Worth. She now adapts traditional Buddhist wisdom for online and inperson spiritual instruction.