Alex Haley is the Director of Mindfulness Programs at the University of Minnesota's Center for Spirituality & Healing where he teaches, assists with research and sets the strategy for the mindfulness program area. He has been trained by the Center for Mindfulness, the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, the Insight Meditation Society and the Coaches Training Institute. He has practiced meditation for over 15 years, including many months of intensive retreat practice, and worked for start-ups, mid-sized companies and large multinationals both domestically and internationally in legal and business roles. Alex is a founding member of the Mindfulness for Students network and leads residential retreats around the country. For more info visit www.alexanderhaley.org.
This talk explores the Naturally Arising Practice Method (see dharmaground.org/teachings), which emphasizes softening into direct experience rather than forcing the mind. By establishing supportive conditions and maintaining curiosity, participants can learn to ground themselves in their own capacity for knowing, allowing insight and clarity to unfold more effortlessly.
This talk investigates curiosity as an aspect of one common definition of mindfulness. Being curious can help us incline more towards receiving felt-sense experience and avoid getting caught in judgment.
This talk details the importance of embodied awareness, especially as known through felt-sense experience, and how this awareness can be temporarily obscured. Investigative awareness is discussed as a practice method for working with these temporary hindrances and how the sense of fluidity that we cultivate through investigative awareness supports a deeper knowing of natural awareness.
