Yoga Body, Buddha Mind: OM Yoga and Meditation with Cyndi Lee and David Nichtern

Discover how the mutual support of yoga and Buddhist meditation can help bring body and mind into balance.

Join Cyndi Lee, founder of OM yoga, and senior Shambhala Buddhist teacher David Nichtern, as you embark on a journey to invite your body and mind back into balance. With humor, depth, and authenticity, these gifted teachers will guide you in combining physical yoga and Buddhist mindfulness, bringing ancient wisdom alive and making it relevant to the realities of contemporary life.

Through yoga practice, you will explore how alignment, breathing, balancing, stretching, and strengthening provide the ideal opportunity to apply the Buddhist meditation techniques of watching your mind, recognizing your habits, and opening your heart. Daily dharma talks and sitting and walking meditations will help cultivate awareness and compassion—aspects of practice that help our minds become unbiased, wakeful, and connected.

This powerful union of yoga and Buddhism offers a recipe for awakening, enlivening, and transforming the energy of our bodies and minds in a way that carries into our lives off the yoga mat and meditation cushion. It becomes a way of living that infuses the daily adventures, encounters, and relationships of our lives with the energy of practice. This weekend workshop will include four sessions. The first half of each session will offer a dharma talk and meditation practice with David and the second half will be an asana practice led by Cyndi.

This program is open to new and experienced practitioners.

Recommended Reading, Listening and Viewing: Yoga Body Buddha Mind by Cyndi Lee and OM Yoga and Meditation DVD/CD by Cyndi Lee and David Nichtern

Extend your stay by attending both this program and OM Yoga: Revealing the Secrets of Vinyasa with Cyndi Lee May 28 to 31. Discounts are offered if you attend both retreats.

Cyndi Lee is the founder of OM yoga. A practitioner of both yoga and Tibetan Buddhism, Cyndi regularly writes for Yoga Journal and Shambhala Sun and is the author of Yoga Body, Buddha Mind; OM yoga A Guide to Daily Practice; OM yoga in a box, and OM yoga and meditation DVD/CD. Cyndi is a student of Gelek Rinpoche. Her dynamic and contemplative classes, workshops and trainings offer a non-competitive, no-baloney method for learning and practicing yoga and meditation.

David Nichtern is a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage founded by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and continued by his son, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. David is Director of Buddhist Studies and Practice at OM yoga Center and leads joint yoga/meditation retreats with Cyndi Lee around the world. They are co-creators of the OM Yoga & Meditation DVD/CD. David is also a 2-time Grammy nominee and 4-time Emmy award winning composer/guitarist/producer, and creator of the hit song "Midnight at the Oasis". He has produced several records for Krishna Das and is the founder of Dharma Moon and 5 Points Records.

Program Schedule

Monday night: Making Friends with Yourself
Introducing mindfulness meditation, and exploring how it can be incorporated into flowing asana sequences as a method for developing strength, stability and clarity of mind and body.

Tuesday morning: Dynamic Equilibrium
Finding balance in how we work with our own mind and body as a basis for being "not too tight, not too loose" within our changing lives.

Tuesday afternoon: Obstacles as Path
Enriching our practice by learning that the difficulties we discover are really the juice for going deeper!

Wednesday morning: Opening Your Heart
A guided meditation and heart opening yoga class to help us develop loving kindness and compassion for ourselves and others.

Extend Your Stay. We are offering a 25% housing discount for additional nights. Come early and relax before your program starts or stay an extra day or more after this program to savor your retreat experience.

Please arrive between 2 and 5pm on Monday, May 31. Program ends with lunch at 12:30pm on Wednesday, June 2. View Detailed Program Information.