Contemplative Movement Practice

Contemplative Movement Practice is a three part session divided between meditation held in a circle, personal attunement (warmup), and collective or external attunement/improvised movement (open space). Participants are welcome to stay in meditation for the whole practice if they feel called to. They can engage in meditation in whatever static posture is of most ease for them. During the external attunement section participants are welcome to move alone, in relation to other participants, or in response to their environment. The whole practice happens in silence with a chime rung every 20 minutes to divide the sections. The practice is bookended by shared breathing and verbal check-ins. Contemplative Movement Practice is inspired by Contemplative Dance Practice. We choose to use the word movement with the understanding that dance is just one of the many types of intentional movement. CDP was developed at Naropa University by Barbara Dilley, a dance artist and teacher who has been practicing and studying meditation in the Shambhala tradition of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche for more than 30 years. Described by Dilley as “a meditator’s dance hall or a dancers’ meditation hall,” this practice provides opportunities to sensitize our awareness of ourselves as a system, and to observe how that system interacts with, affects, and is affected by the systems we move through.