Part of The Equanimity Network - 18 groups

Mindfulness Book Club

4.6•24 ratings

About us

## Mindfulness Book Club & Practice

## 🧠📖🌿

This group is a space to study mindfulness deeply and practice it concretely — not as an abstract philosophy, but as a set of skills that shape how we relate to thoughts, emotions, the body, and one another.

We work from a simple premise:

If the contents of your mind determine the quality of your life,
then learning how to relate to those contents matters. ✨

Rather than reading for inspiration alone, we read to practice 🧘‍♀️.

***

## 📚Core Books We Explore

### Mindfulness & Awareness Expansion

We draw primarily from the work of Mark Williams and colleagues, including:

Mindfulness
by Mark Williams & Danny Penman 📘
Deeper Mindfulness
by Mark Williams 📗

These books explore how awareness interrupts automatic mental loops and restores choice, clarity, and balance — especially in moments of stress or overthinking 🌀.

### Ethical & Relational Foundations

We also use:

The Yamas & Niyamas
by Deborah Adele 🪷

Here, ethical principles are understood not as rules, but as relational capacities — ways of being that reduce harm, increase clarity, and support steadiness in practice and daily life 🤝.

***

## 🪷The Yamas & Niyamas (Our Living Framework)

These principles are woven into every gathering — not taught abstractly, but experienced directly.

### The Yamas — how we relate outwardly

Ahimsa — non-harming 🕊️
Satya — truthfulness 🪞
Asteya — non-grasping ✋
Brahmacharya — wise use of energy 🔥
Aparigraha — non-clinging 🍃

### The Niyamas — how we relate inwardly

Saucha — clarity & simplicity ✨
Santosha — contentment 😊
Tapas — steady engagement 💪
Svadhyaya — self-study 🔍
Ishvara Pranidhana — letting go of control 🌌

***

## 🧠Key Mindfulness Capacities We Practice

Across sessions, we repeatedly return to core skills drawn from the mindfulness literature:

Feeling Tone (Vedana) — pleasant, unpleasant, neutral 🌗
Reactive Pulse — the urge to fix, avoid, or grasp ⚡
Reflective Pulse — the pause that allows choice ⏸️
Body Scans — grounding awareness in sensation 🦶
Focused Awareness — stabilizing attention 🎯
Open Awareness — allowing experience to arise and pass 🌊
Loving-Kindness (Metta) — cultivating goodwill 💗
Noticing Thought Patterns — without believing or suppressing them 👀
Responding vs. Reacting — increasing choice under pressure 🧭
Embodied Presence — keeping awareness in the body 🫶
Self-Compassion — meeting difficulty without self-attack 🤍

***

## 🧘‍♀️Creating Your Own Meditation Practice

A central aim of this group is helping you design a personal meditation practice that actually works for you.

We explore:

why different practices suit different nervous systems 🧠
how overthinking softens through awareness, not force 🌿
how ethics, attention, and embodiment reinforce one another 🔄

Rather than prescribing one method, we support you in discovering what brings steadiness, clarity, and kindness in your own life.

***

There is no pressure to speak or perform.
Listening 👂 and silence 🤍 are full participation.

🗓 Thursdays · 6:00 PM EST
📍 Online (Zoom)

Come curious 📖
Leave with practices you can actually use 🌱

Featured event

Network event

The Seekers of Authenticity Yamas and NiYamas Study Group

Thu, May 21 · 7:00 PM EDT

Online

57 attendees from 17 groups

🧡 The Yamas & Niyamas Book Club
Exploring Yoga’s Ethical Practice by Deborah Adele

Join us for a thoughtful and structured exploration of the 10 foundational ethical principles of yoga — and it’s first two limbs - the Yamas and Niyamas — not as abstract philosophy, but as living practices for modern relational life.

We will move through the book slowly and deliberately, allowing time for reflection, discussion, and maximal comprehension. This is not a race — it is a deep dive.

Throughout the series, we will explore each principle through multiple lenses:

• The Eight Limbs of Yoga — how ethical foundations support meditation and integration
• The Attributes of Companionship — what creates steadiness, warmth, and repair in relationships
• The Framework of Relational Capacities — curiosity, regulation, empathy, attunement, meta-awareness, and expansion
• Attachment Patterns — how early bonding shapes adult connection
• Childhood Development — how adaptive strategies and nervous system learning influence behavior
• Psychological Integration — movement from fragmentation toward coherence
• Contemporary Neuroscience — including the role of left-dominant Default Mode Network activity, overthinking loops, narrative selfing, and how deeper mindfulness practices soften reactivity

We will examine feeling tone, subtle reactive pulses, and stimulus-independent thought — learning to notice the micro-movements of the mind before they crystallize into behavior. This adds a modern layer of contemplative science to the ethical foundations of yoga.

Meetings will also include guest speakers from a variety of disciplines — psychology, neuroscience, contemplative practice, somatics, and relational development — offering cross-disciplinary insight and practical application.

This is not about perfection.
It is about expansion.

Expect:
📖 deep reading
🧠 psychological insight
🧘 contemplative grounding
🤝 relational skill-building
✨ reflective dialogue

If you are interested in expanding awareness, strengthening companionship, and cultivating steadier presence in your relationships, we invite you to join us.

Come curious.
Come reflective.
Come willing to grow.