Practice Field Portal

SITTING POSTURE

1. READ: Support for Meditation Postures (11-min)
2. READ: Everything You Need to Know about Meditation Posture. (11-min)
3. READ: The Seven-Point Meditation Posture (5-min)

SELECT CUSHIONS

1. READ: Zafu Meditation Cushion to SIT ON
2. READ: Zabuton (mat) to support your cushion
3. READ: List of TERMS for practice

MINDFULNESS PRACTICE

1. READ: How to practice shamatha Meditation
2. VIDEO: Can Meditation Be Dangerous? by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche (6-min)
3. VIDEO: Several Breathing Videos/Audios to guide your meditation
4. READ: Now Is a Great Time to Start Practicing Mindfulness.
5. READ: Mindfulness Hurts. That’s Why It Works
6. SELECT AN APP: To Support Your Mindfulness Practice with recommended apps to support your contemplative practices.
7. REVIEW this resource on the art of practice: Discover Self Through Practice.

Our services support individuals, emerging, advancing, and organizational leaders in navigating complexity and change.

We work with individuals and groups who are willing to examine their assumptions, expand awareness, and engage development as an ongoing practice — not a quick fix.

Bhavana Learning Group’s colleagues view themselves as your “Partners.” They use a blended approach, integrating several modes of partnering depending on context and need

Partnering with you includes:

• Coaching — Deep listening to enhance clarity, communication, and performance.
• Teaching — Introducing concepts, distinctions, and research to expand thinking.
• Training — Building practices and habits that support embodied change.
• Strategic Advising — Clarifying direction and aligning action with declared commitments
• Guiding — Expanding perspective to unlearn outdated assumptions and deepen purpose.

Our work is tailored to the situation while remaining grounded in a coherent developmental framework.

Each service category emphasizes a different dimension of growth:

• Personal Mastery to become grounded. Focuses on self-awareness and intentional action in daily life.
• Leadership Mastery to become creative. Focuses on relational impact, trust, communication, and the ability to generate and align change and new futures
• Spiritual Awareness to become whole. Focuses on contemplative practice and deepening intuitive wisdom.

In practice, development in one area often strengthens the others.

Bhavana Learning Group integrates elements of all three but does not fit neatly into any one category.
Our work is developmental in nature. We combine ontological inquiry, philosophical insight, and contemplative practice to support vertical growth and ethical maturity that expands being.

We do not emphasize performance alone or abstract spirituality, but rather integrated human development through a body of knowledge, distinctions, and sustainable practices.

Bhavana Learning Group draws from three interrelated models:

• Ontological Distinctions (Western philosophy) — Clarifying our “experience of being” to support generative communication and deep listening to release perceptual and functional constraints
• Developmental Psychology — Examining stages of ego development, motivation, shadow, and worldview to cultivate vertical growth.
• Buddhist Psychology — Engaging contemplative practices to increase awareness that softens ego-identification to support unlearning.

Traditional development often emphasizes skills, metrics, or performance outcomes.

Bhavana Learning Group focuses on underlying structures of awareness — how identity, belief, perception, and attachment shape behavior. We work at the level of being, not only doing.

As awareness deepens, communication shifts, relationships strengthen, and leadership becomes more intentional and coherent.

MEMBERSHIP.
As a Member, we invite you to remember:

• I joined this space to learn and unlearn as a member of a learning community.
• I participate in this community to share and receive ideas and experiences and create connections.
• I practice with this community to surface my assumptions to increase my awareness.

GUIDELINES.
1) Follow the thread. We use Slack to generate conversations; following the threads is important for the coherence of each conversation. See article to support threading.

2) Message content. Work to stay aligned with the subject heading. Please start a new thread if content strays from the original topic.

3) Change is normal. We’ve enabled all of Slack’s functions if you wish to edit or revise posts. Feel free to share articles, ask questions and offer insights.

4) We’re an inclusive community. This learning community is an expression of our commitment to dignity. We welcome your whole self to this inclusive learning community.

5) Avoid derisive or divisive remarks. Someone’s tone can be hard to decipher online; make liberal use of emoji, GIFs, and memes to aid communication. If it gets tense or confusing, pause and DM a member of Bhavana Learning Group, either Brendalyn King or Neil Ruiz.

6) Solicitation & Commerce. From time to time, Bhavana Learning Group will share offers (free or fee-based) that can support the community.

• We ask members to refrain from marketing or promotions in this space. This is not a business ”networking” site; it is a community of learning and practice.
• We invite offers that can serve that commitment. If you are unsure about any offer, reach out to @Brendalyn or @Tony via direct message (DM) before sharing with an individual, private channel, or public community.
• You may provide your commercial contact information in your signature line.

7) Privacy. Refrain from sharing someone else’s private email message or contact details without permission.

➤ A Note on External AI Note-Takers or Recording Devices: To maintain trust, safety, and openness in our practice spaces — including the Practice Field, Small Sangha Sessions, and Weekday Sit — we ask that no outside AI note-takers or recording devices (such as Otter.ai, Fireflies, or Read.ai) be used. These tools can join meetings automatically if connected to your calendar — even without your active participation — and may compromise the privacy of those present.

What’s not okay:

AI note-taking services or bots that join meetings
Any unauthorized audio or video recording
Our intention is to create a safe, private space where everyone can share freely. If you use a calendar-connected AI note-taking service, please turn it off for our sessions.

8) Be complete. Contact a member of Bhavana Learning Group should you notice something or wish to make a request.

9) Parts/Wholes. Remember that we are part of a whole, and our impact can elude us. Be encouraging, learning occurs in the gap, and wisdom can arise from discomfort. Find your edge and support the whole community as your space for practice and exploration.

1. ARRIVE GENTLY, BE WITH EACH OTHER

• We invite you to arrive early to the Practice (virtual) Field and settle yourself. As others join the space, we wish to welcome all participants.
• We invite everyone to remain open and generous in the way we all participate, even if it’s your first session.

2. TRY IT ON

• Be willing to “try on” new ideas, or ways of doing meditations.
• Be with inquiries that might not be what you prefer or are familiar with.

3. HONOR INTIMACY, PRIVACY, CONFIDENTIALITY

• We gather strength from being willing to talk about our confusion and ignorance in relationships with others in our community.
• We agree to take responsibility for our intentions and actions.
• We agree not to share what arises in the space of the Field outside of our time together.
• We honor intimacy and intentional participation by only using the chat on Zoom for the intention of learning, idle chat is a distraction.

4. ASSUME NOTHING, BE ONE

• We do this with the intention to learn from our false perceptions or projections.
• We practice compassion and understanding for ourselves, and for those who walk with us upon this path — we are in this together.

5. BRING MINDFUL LISTENING

• Try to avoid planning what you’ll say as you listen to others.
• Be willing to be surprised, to learn something new.
• Listen with your whole self. Silence can be useful.

6. PRACTICE INTENTION

• Bhavana Learning Group will offer a view and posture for our practice. Please be intentional in your practice, effort, and speech.
• We hold our minds with gentleness and precision. We allow what arises within the space of the Field to be the teachings.