Tag: meditation

New opportunities: Online and In-Person

by kathyyep

It was nourishing to practice together this morning with Debbie, Simone, Bonnie, and Karin.

Welcome Karin! Glad you joined for the first time!

From this morning, I heard reflections like “it was comforting, soothing, grounding” and connecting to moves in a way that felt “joyful and playful” even as people faced uncertainty.

My journey of healing from the mild traumatic brain injury continues. My brain still gets tired after an hour of reading, writing, and speaking with complex ideas.

Qìgōng continues to be a big part of my rehab and essential as I enter this new mode of healing and working. I am grateful to my teachers the late Dr. Hu and to Paul Li, as well as my practice coach my dad and mom and the wild goose / dayan teaching community. Mindful movement has been good for getting the neural circuits connected and to get the parasympathetic system to be in charge.

I continue with qì gōng and walking mindfulness because it is healing to mindfully move together while in community and drawing from this tradition that is 1000s years old.

We are closing a chaotic March and are starting a new month this week.

Join us!

SOME NEW IN-PERSON OPPORTUNITIES TO PRACTICE!

APRIL 1 and 15: May 6: Pitzer College

PEACE IS EVERY STEP: Mindful Walking in the Thích Nhất Hạnh Tradition

WHAT: A gentle, walking meditation inspired by the teachings of Thích Nhất Hạnh.
Slow down, breathe, and walk together in awareness as a community.

WHERE: Pitzer College, Claremont, CA 91711
McConnell Apron then walking loop around the mounds (as weather allows), Building 9 on the map

WHEN: 12:15 – 12:45 PM

Wednesdays
April 1
April 15
May 6

Come as you are. Come late. Leave early.

WHO: Open to everyone. No experience necessary.

BRING: Comfortable shoes, sunblock, sunhat, water, compassion, and cultural humility.

COST: Free

FACILITATED BY
Dr. Kathy Yep
Full Professor, Asian American Studies, Pitzer College
Faculty for ASAM 88: The Social Theory of Thích Nhất Hạnh

BACKGROUND

“Peace work is not a means. Each step we make should be peace.
Each step we make should be joy. Each step we make should be happiness.
We don’t need the future. Everything we want is right here in the present moment.”
— Thích Nhất Hạnh, Creating True Peace

Zen master Thích Nhất Hạnh co-founded Tiep Hien (the Order of Interbeing) during the American War in Vietnam in the 1960s. The Order of Interbeing organized community-led mutual aid amid militarism, forced displacement, human-made starvation, gender-based violence, environmental destruction, and collective grief.  Tending to the liminal space between heartbreak and hope, Tiep Hien (the Order of Interbeing) rooted their peace-making in the concepts of mindfulness and interconnectedness.

Thích Nhất Hạnh’s root temple is in Huế, Vietnam —the same city where Pitzer hosts one of our summer programs.

OPTIONAL RESOURCES

How to Walk — Thích Nhất Hạnh (4:29)

Basic Instructions for Walking Meditation — Sister Dang Nghiem (2:40)

Zen in Practice: Walking Meditation — Sister Sinh Nghiem (4:08)

Introduction to Walking Meditation – Sister Tu Ngheim (Eleni) (21m44s)

Interbeing: Precepts and Practices of an Applied Ecology – Joan Halifax and Marty Peale

APRIL 8: HUNTINGTON LIBRARY

EXPERIENCE THE ART OF QÌGŌNG WITH KATHY YEP 

 Join Kathy Yep, professor of Asian American Studies at Pitzer College, as she guides visitors through a drop-in Qìgōng session in the garden.

 Wednesdays April 8, May 13, and June 10, 2026 | 11:00–11:45 a.m.

Free with general admission to the Huntington Library
Meet at the Chinese Medicinal Garden 

APRIL 22, 29: Hermon Park

WHERE: 5566 Via Marisol, Los Angeles, CA 90042

near or in historic Lawn Bowling Club House depending on weather

WHEN: Wednesdays, April 22, 29

11 A.M. – 11:30 A.M PT (movement practice)

11:30 – 11:45 PT (reflection) optional

Come as you are. Come late. Leave early. All ages. Dogs and cats are welcome.

LIVE ONLINE DROP IN QÌ GŌNG: SPRING SEMESTER SCHEDULE

by kathyyep

WHEN: TUESDAYS, THURSDAYS, SUNDAYS

8 A.M. – 8:30 A.M PT (movement practice)

8:30 – 8:45 PT (reflection) optional

WHERE: For the live online sessions, click here or go to https://pitzer.zoom.us/j/513664738

I was fortunate to start learning dayan/wild goose over 30 years ago.. Lately, I have been teaching small pieces of dayan/wild goose. Join us! This is a demo video of set 1.

The journey of healing from the mild traumatic brain injury continues. It has been 13 months since the car accident and about 9 months since I fell and hit my head after the accident. I am still doing rehab daily and hoping to get back to teaching, research, and life more fully. I still experience pain when I read, write, and think at the work level of a professor after an hour. Qì gōng and mindful walking have been grounding, healing, and connective.

I continue with qì gōng because it is nourishing. I find joy in moving mindfully with community and carrying forward this tradition of 1000+years in the the Yang Mei Jun lineage via the late Dr. Hu and Paul Li. My dad practices every day and he loves hearing about our practice on zoom.

Join us in practice! All abilities and bodies are welcome. No experience necessary. Offered in the spirit of generosity.

Donations accepted for community partner, Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity. No amount is too small or too big. All are welcome regardless of funds donated.  (Make offerings to where and how you wish for or food, water, medicine, medical care, shelter, clothes.)

Suggested donations: sliding scale $5- $20 per session. No one turned away for lack of funds.  

At the end of month donate directly to the organizations or send check or offerings to: K. Yep, P.O. Box 1313, Monterey Park, CA 91754 for the number of sessions you attended. People have sent poems, seeds, cards, quotes, art and offerings.

All levels are welcome. Bring open heart, cultural humility, and water. Come early or late. Leave early if needed.  As Liz says: “Come as you are.”

We are learning and practicing with a form that is over a 1000 years old. We are meeting the movements and the form rooted in a tradition with who we are and who we are becoming from our specific social locations. It is an invitation of continuity and accompanying our selves, each other, and all beings with relaxed awareness.

As Debbie says: “Connect to playfulness”. As Simone says “Receive it as care and release the struggle.” As Penny says: “Try different ways of moving — inside to out, outside to in, from the bones, from the muscle, from the air)

WHERE: For the live online sessions, click here or go to https://pitzer.zoom.us/j/513664738

JOIN THE EMAIL LIST : To receive updates and more information about qì gōng

follow kathyyep.com or click bottom right & hit subscribe

May we be well. May we be truly happy. May we be relieved of suffering.

From 7/19 on:practice sessions 6 a.m. HT/ 9 a.m. PT/ noon ET

by kathyyep

Hello, community of practitioners…. Our practice group will continue to meet on zoom at the new time 6 a.m. HT/ 9 a.m. PT/ noon ET for 30 minutes of practice and then some folks stay and talk and share experiences with practice.

Today insights from Kuwa Jasiri, Debbie, Bonnie, Liz, Simone, Pati we’re shared and they orbited in different ways about returning home whether a physical place, to the body as it needs to move or unable to move, to the present moment at this age with a sense of temporality.

With our collective reflections on home today, coming home to my body and brain is not just when it feels good. The cycle of head pain and then ease has returned. New insights and remembering about listening to the present moment —- the different birds at sunrise and the coqui frogs at sunset, my head when it starts to feel pain and cognitive fatigue sets in after a short time, my mind and its critique of cognitive fatigue, and when needing to rest the brain.

I am reminded that one can not run away or numb out. That qì gōng or contemplative practice is an invitation to be with the present moment. It is a practice of being present with and being awake to what this is in the present moment and what is here. — even with all the contradictions and the cycles.

So this is brain relaxing and feeling joyous after a swim in the ocean AND the pulsating pain of cognitive fatigue after talking with someone on the phone for 40 minutes and after 8 months of rehab after a car ran a red light and hit my car. This is the present moment of tourists streaming off of a cruise ship to drink Kona coffee AND ICE coming to a rural, small town and abducting several people who were fleeing violence and having been kidnapped in their home country who pick the coffee as workers. This is awakening to the possibility that my brain may not heal in time to return to teaching full time in a month for the academic year AND being hopeful for continued healing.

As I finish writing this, a rainbow on the horizon has appeared amid the different bird sounds of the morning. And, my head is beginning to throb from cognitive fatigue of writing for 20 minutes. I am learning to hold both with tenderness. Breathing in, I feel the physical pain. Breathing out, I smile at the rainbow and the physical pain.

Be well, Kathy

Drop-in qì gōng: 4 days a week

by kathyyep

You are invited: drop-in practice, 8 – 8:30 a.m. PT.   
Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, Sundays, 30 minutes.
Open and suitable to all. No reservation necessary. Drop in. Online.

TO GO TO THE CLASS: Class: zoom link.

Bring open heart, cultural humility, and water. Come early or late. Leave early if needed.

****. Join qì gōng email list. **** 

Still in your pajamas? Have sleep hair? Come as you are.  
Practicing in a chair or lying down? All forms of practice are welcome. 
We have had some furry family practice too.  All are welcome. 

Offered in spirit of generosity. 
All donations go to folks on the ground in Maui (Mauna Medic Healers Hui) or Gaza (Middle Eastern Children Alliance) for food, water, medicine, medical care, shelter, clothes.
Recommended: Sliding scale. $1 – $10 per session, At end of month donate directly to MECA or send check to K. Yep, P.O. Box 1313 Monterey Park CA 91754. 

Poems, cards, quotes, and art also welcome.  No one turned away for lack of funds.  


WHAT IS QÌ GŌNG?

Qì gōng (Chee gong) is connecting to, working with, and cultivating qì (flow, energy or life force). We do this by stretching and moving the body to open the energy pathways known as meridians or channels.  Qì gōng can foster calm awareness and the relaxation response.  Beyond the physical level, Qì gōng can be empowering because qì is in everything and everyone, including the earth and the sky.  In this way,  qì gōng can remind us that we are all interconnected even in the face of being torn apart, confronting a large and cruel system, or experiencing loneliness. Qì can nourish the sense and feeling that we are not alone. Practicing qì gōng has the potential to center interconnectivity — in contrast to dehumanizing, appropriating, tossing away, violating, extracting, or marginalizing. 

WHO IS THIS FOR?

Whether its your first time or your 26th, all levels are welcome. I encourage you to practice the movements and breathing in a way that makes sense for you — whether sitting in a chair, standing, or lying down. If you come late or have to leave early, you are invited to participate.  Feel free to share this with people.   Bring cultural humility, an open heart, and water.  

DA YAN/ WILD GOOSE QÌ GŌNG CONTEXT

I started to learn wild goose qì gōng because I was recovering from cancer and it was rough. I am cancer-free and have practiced this form close to 30 years. This knowledge system dates back over 1000 years, and is also known as dayan qì gōng. It is a comprehensive system of medical qigong that includes over fifty forms.  Some are movement-based and others are sitting meditation practices.

The current understanding and practice of this qì gōng system is credited to Grandmaster Yang Meijun (27th lineage holder).  Living past 100, Yang Meijun shifted the discourse and practice by becoming the first woman lineage holder and by teaching it to the public starting in the 1970s. 

May our qi gong practice for the benefit of all  so all beings do no harm and be free from harm.