Click here to see our other courses!
Richard Miller
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
Discover a more powerful, nourishing and transformative meditation practice by combining the best of ancient wisdom and modern science to access the joy and wellbeing that is your birthright.
Science has unequivocally confirmed it: a consistent daily meditation practice is one of the most generous gifts you can give your body, mind and soul.
Meditation can lower your stress, enhance your energy, improve your sleep, make you mentally sharper, ease negative emotions and enhance positive ones... it can even optimize your work performance!
And on the spiritual level, as you take your meditation practice deeper, you improve your ability to access higher states of consciousness and directly realize, integrate and embody the underlying reality of your essential nature so that you experience radiant health and wholeness.
Through meditation, you can awaken to great love, kindness and compassion. More than that, you can awaken to unity consciousness and realize that there’s something within you that has never been hurt, never been broken, never been harmed, and has always been whole and healthy.
By definition, this all-embracing sense of oneness makes you feel more intimately connected to yourself, to others and to the world around you.
Indeed, the potential impact of meditation on your life is enormous...
So the question isn’t IF you should meditate, but rather HOW.
The Overwhelming Options for Meditating
The challenge is that there are just so many options for you to choose from, it can be hard to know where to begin.
Are all meditation practices equal?
How do yogic meditation traditions differ from Buddhist traditions?
What works best and when?
How do I tailor my practice to my busy life?
These and many other questions may be going through your mind when you contemplate starting or deepening your practice. And it would take a lifetime to study and master all the intricacies of the countless practices and traditions that extend back for millennia so you can know which is best for you.
Luckily, neuroscience is now providing some clues, as cutting-edge research is revealing exactly what’s taking place in our bodies and mind as we engage in various meditation practices.
With that information, the most effective, powerful practices can now be distilled and shared.
The Value of a Master Guide
Rather than sifting through and distilling this vast array of information (from neuroscience and from the various traditions) on your own, what if you could take a 7-week virtual journey with a master guide who’s been at the forefront of meditation research for 45 years?
Such a guide can navigate you through the inscrutable mysteries of ancient traditions and modern science — and help you harvest the best from advanced meditation practices from Mahayana, Dzogchen and Zen without having to devote years to learning highly complex protocols.
Spiritual teacher Richard Miller, the founding president and CEO of the Integrative Restoration Institute (IRI), was named by Yoga Journal as one of the top 25 teachers of Yoga and Meditation in the West.
Richard has devoted his career to integrating the nondual wisdom teachings of Yoga, Tantra, Advaita, Taoism and Buddhism with Western psychology, and applying those insights to the practice of meditation.
He has consulted on over 25 research studies on the efficacy of the iRest Meditation program developed by IRI — a research-based transformative practice of deep relaxation and meditative inquiry that effectively reduces PTSD, depression, anxiety, insomnia, chronic pain and chemical dependency while increasing health, resiliency and wellbeing.
This lifetime of hard-earned wisdom and knowledge is now available to you in a powerful LIVE virtual format. Over the course of 7 weeks, Richard will share with you the insights and practices that can take you beyond effort and striving, into the ease of transforming your meditation from a hard-fought practice to an easeful way of life.
Whether this is your first experience with meditation or you’re a seasoned practitioner, this course offers you support in understanding:
- The underlying structure of meditation
- The neuroscience of meditation
- The transformative power of meditation
- How to break free of compulsive thinking, emotional reactivity and negative beliefs
- The stages, phases, levels and practices of meditation so you can continue to progress into deeper realizations and great benefits
- Right relationship to, and functioning of the body, mind, senses and ego
- What lies beyond your sense of being a separate self — and how to experience it more and more
Through taking your practice to the next level, you will come to no longer view parts of yourself as broken and in need of fixing; rather, you can welcome them into your wholeness. And in that welcoming, spontaneous healing arises.
Meditation enables you to discover the peace that passeth all understanding, the peace that cannot be broken no matter what external circumstances you’re facing. You can confidently and courageously, as Indian yogi Paramahansa Yogananda wrote, “stand unshaken amidst the crash of breaking worlds.”
Your meditation then moves beyond a sitting practice into something incorporated throughout every minute of your day, creating and sustaining an underlying sense of peace and joy.
Before you can experience the bliss of a meditation practice that fits you as naturally as a child’s hand fits into its mother’s, it’s essential to understand both the art and the science of meditation so you can build your practice on a solid foundation and be completely comfortable with the principles and tools that will help you advance and deepen your practice.
What You’ll Discover in These 7 Weeks
Course sessions are on Tuesdays at 5:00pm Pacific.
In this 7-week transformational intensive, Richard will guide you through the fundamental spiritual skills and competencies you’ll need to successfully integrate direct practices into your daily life to experience your innate, unchanging wellbeing and wholeness no matter the circumstances.
Each weekly, LIVE contemplation and training session will build harmoniously upon the next so that you’ll develop a complete holistic understanding of the practices, tools and principles you’ll need to sustain your newly developed practice.
Session 1: Waking In – Foundations of Meditation, Part 1
Setting the Stage for Meditation (August 9)
Meditation is not just something you do. It is the way you live your life. It is a call to action from the underlying force that has given birth to every atom in your body, as well as the entire cosmos. Meditation invites you to turn into yourself and be a totally alive, spontaneous and authentic human being across all levels of your humanness: body, mind, spirit, heart, emotions, thoughts, speech and actions.
The foundational practices of yoga meditation teach you how to welcome and proactively respond to each and every circumstance of your life so that your actions are in harmony, not just with yourself but with life itself. These foundational practices are designed to advance your understanding of meditation by supporting you to actualize forthright intentions within yourself and carry them with you in each moment of your daily life.
In this module, you’ll be introduced to:
- The map of yoga meditation
- Three levels and two paths of mindfulness
- Four phases of awakening
- How intentions nourish meditation
- Inquiries to discover your unchanging inner resource of wellbeing
- The function of the five senses, mind and ego
- The role of the 7th sense of non-separation
- Your innate unchanging ground of wholeness
Session 2: Waking In – Foundations of Meditation, Part 2
Core Principles & the Neuroscience of Meditation (August 16)
Certain core principles enable you to build a strong foundation for your practice of meditation. These principles help you learn meditation as both a daily practice and as a way of being and living in the world, enhancing your relationship with yourself and others at home, at work and at play.
Understanding what modern-day neuroscience reveals can also help you engage and follow through with your meditation practice by showing you what’s taking place in your body and mind as you engage the various practices of meditation.
In this module, you’ll discover:
- Core principles of yoga meditation
- Four neural networks involved with meditation
- Two styles of focused attention that deepen concentration
- How to step out of compulsive thinking and emotional reactivity
- How to open to insight and infinite possibility
- Simple practices that nourish heart-centered presence of being in the world
Session 3: Waking In – Foundations of Meditation, Part 3
Welcoming Opposites of Emotion & Cognition: Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Emotions & Thoughts
(August 23)
Your sensations, feelings, emotions and cognitions are ever-changing. Yoga meditation helps you recognize these movements as messengers, designed to help you respond, rather than react, so that in each moment you feel deeply connected to yourself and in harmony with the world around you.
Meditation teaches you how to notice, welcome and proactively respond to these messengers of sensation, emotion and cognition. Your ability to engage them responsively, with right action, enables you to fully embody, actualize and individuate yourself as a unique human being so that you’re fully capable of navigating the ins and outs of your life and interactions. Your ability to respond appropriately grounds you and prepares you to navigate the realizations that are to come as you deepen your meditation practice.
In this module, you’ll discover:
- How to work with emerging psychic material on and off your meditation cushion
- Four internal needs that help you meet each moment responsively
- Six ways to proactively respond to sensations, emotions and cognitions as messengers
- How welcoming and engaging opposites leads to insight
- The neuroscience of emotions
Session 4: Waking In – Foundations of Meditation, Part 4
Experiencing Joy & Wellbeing (August 30)
Joy, wellbeing, love, peace, compassion and loving-kindness are qualities that naturally arise through meditation. Through meditation you can realize these as unchanging qualities that can exist alongside of, and independent of any achievement or changing state of your body or mind. The practice of yogic meditation doesn’t create these qualities. Rather, it helps unearth them so that you can recognize them as always present.
Like your ability to learn a language, joy, wellbeing, love, peace, compassion and loving-kindness are yours from birth. This explains why, even in the midst of pain and suffering, loss and grief, or sadness and depression, you can still feel them. They are always present, no matter what else is. Meditation supports you in experiencing them alongside every changing positive or negative state you may experience.
In this module, you’ll discover:
- The six innate and essential qualities that naturally arise through meditation: joy, wellbeing, love, peace, compassion and loving-kindness
- How to nourish these six essential qualities throughout meditation and your daily life
- How these six essential qualities are good medicines
- The yoga of sleep that nourishes these six essential qualities
- The neuroscience of joy and wellbeing
Session 5: Waking Up – Advanced Stages of Meditation
Separation & Ego-identity Fall Away (September 6)
There arrives a moment in yoga meditation when awareness makes a 180-degree turn upon itself, away from the objects arising in awareness, and inquires as to its source. Here, you wake up from the dream of being a separate self, and ego-identification and separation fall away. As you move beyond ego-identity and separation, your essential nature reveals itself as indescribable yet undeniably recognizable, as forever unchanging yet always fresh and brand new.
In waking up, shame, blame, guilt, self-judgment and other negative emotions fall away. You realize your true essence as beyond time, space and boundary. This is your unchanging wholeness, which is always present, loving, compassionate and welcoming. Here, all searching falls away and you awaken into the underlying Mystery that has given birth to you and the entire cosmos.
In this module, you’ll explore:
- The distinction between self and non-self
- How the triune brain creates separation and ego-identity
- Subtle barriers that obstruct awakening
- The natural process of release from ego-identity
- Awakening to what lies beyond separation
- Embracing your impersonalness amidst personal relationships
Session 6: Waking Down – Integration of Awakening, Part 1
Being Fully Human (September 13)
Waking up entails going beyond personal ego-based identity, where you realize your essential nature that lies beyond all conditioned beliefs of being a separate self. In waking up, you realize and celebrate your non-separate and impersonal interconnectedness with everyone and everything around you.
The next phase of awakening, “Waking Down,” involves enlightenment of your whole body, where you learn to integrate your awakened disposition of non-separation into the world of daily life, which is steeped in separation. Here, you re-engage your body, mind, emotions and cognitions as messengers that help you survive and thrive in the world. But you do this now with your 7th sense fully awake, which knows no separation even as your mind and five senses perceive separation.
Waking down entails stabilizing your ability to experience yourself as a unique personal-impersonal, non-separate expression of life, even as you go about relating and operating in a world that’s based on the myth of separation.
In this module, you’ll explore:
- Paradoxes and myths of enlightenment
- Who and what is in control of your life
- Differences between detachment, dissociation, disidentification and non-attachment
- Embodying the personal and separation amidst the impersonal and non-separation
- Doing, thinking and living from non-separate being
Session 7: Waking Out – Integration of Awakening, Part 2
Meditation as a Way of Living Life (September 20)
In “waking out,” you integrate your awakened disposition of non-separation into all of your relationships. Here, you deeply relax into unshakable faith and trust that you always know how to respond to every circumstance that life brings to your door.
Waking out entails living as the embodied, non-separate presence that you truly are, feeling interconnected with everything and everyone around you. Wellbeing, compassion and loving-kindness permeate your body, mind, speech and actions as effortless expressions of your essential nature.
You live the heartfelt recognition of everyone and everything around you as unique expressions of the underlying Mystery that has given birth to yourself, to them and to the entire cosmos. Here, you live free from ego-identification, and wisdom and love blossom as you embody the heartfelt realization that everything is indeed your self.
In this module, you’ll explore:
- Relaxing into effortless meditation
- Doing from being
- Being love incarnate: experiencing everything as yourself and yourself as everything
- Living from heart-centered presence in all of your relationships
- The integration of meditation into every aspect of life
- Connecting with your community of like-minded practitioners
- Next steps
The Art & Science of Yogic Meditation
Bonus Collection
In addition to Richard’s transformative 7-week virtual course, you’ll receive these powerful training sessions and bonus materials. These bonuses complement the course — and take your transformation and practice to an even deeper level.
Awakening to Your True Nature
2-part Audio Presentation from Richard Miller
This 2-part audio presentation is essential listening for anyone engaged with nondual wisdom and the teachings of the Integrative Restoration Institute, particularly iRest Meditation, a research-based transformative practice of deep relaxation and meditative inquiry that’s one of its principal programs. You are invited to welcome into your life the nondual path of meditation, which has been developed over centuries and which underlies Richard Miller’s meditative teachings.
This audio package includes:
- Part 1: Your Path, Buddha’s Path, which reveals the signposts that guide the listener along the pathless path to Awakening.
- Part 2: Awakening to Your True Nature: The Final Teachings, a beautiful and classic presentation that is a wonderful aid in the journey of meditation.
The Ease of Being: Just Say Yes
Audio Recording of 3-day Retreat with Richard Miller
Intimacy, truth, authenticity, love, right action and freedom are always knocking from the inside, longing for expression. These are natural expressions of our true nature and blossom when we realize and embody our native ground of Being. This is a rare opportunity to join Richard Miller for a personal retreat in your own living room, take a break from your daily routines and rest in your inherent sense of wholeness and interconnectedness with all of life. This retreat offers you an invitation to let go of all self-improvement projects and allow yourself to be drawn into your true self. Richard shares the paradox of nondual instruction through practices of Body Sensing, Meditative Self-inquiry, iRest Yoga Nidra, Spirited Dialogue and the Presence of Being.
What People Are Saying About Richard Miller...
Being with Richard melted away fear and opened me to an inner experience of profound trust. I am experiencing an endless stream of joy in simply being alive and conscious.
— Marjorie S.
Dr. Miller’s meditations have PROFOUNDLY changed my life. He has given me a peace I have never, in my entire stress-ridden life, experienced. Please convey to him this gratitude, and that one day I hope to offer it in person!
— Deb E.
Richard gracefully embodies the nondual teachings and is able to share them in a way that is clear and joyful. Richard has devised the perfect technology for teaching meditation.
— Kathy K.
Richard’s presence and knowledge provided an experience that changed my life. It’s as if my upside-down world turned right-side up. I now know my previously limited self as simply a unique aspect of an infinite field of consciousness.
— Mark A.
Richard is stillness, peace and openness. He provides an open field to step into that profoundly shifts your awareness of being alive and conscious.
— Debbie A.
Richard knows how to foster an experience where you actually know yourself as an undivided yet unique part of the infinite field of awareness which we all are.
— Anne F.
Richard is a master, in ordinary clothes.
— Anne Douglas
Join the Global Community
The Art & Science of Yogic Meditation not only offers some of the most advanced online yogic teachings currently available, it also offers a thriving global community of support.
Join your fellow students and practitioners from across the world in the live interactive conference calls or in our online community to support and learn from each other while you learn to open your mind and expand your paradigm of reality.
This international community is also at the leading edge of a global movement of people who are committed to manifesting a better world for all beings. This emerging planetary movement is rooted in an open heart and stands for the principles of mutual support, cooperation, harmony and reverence for all of life.
Here’s What You’ll Receive
Seven 90-Minute Class Sessions with Richard Miller
Experience a rare opportunity to be mentored and learn with pioneering spiritual teacher Richard Miller — from the comfort of your own home. Each class session guides you to learn the specific skills and abilities to awaken your spiritual potential. Course sessions are on Tuesdays at 5:00pm Pacific.
Seven Audio Recordings of
Class Sessions
After each class, the audio will be available for you to download in high-quality MP3 format. You’ll never have to worry about missing a session, and you can listen anytime and anywhere — on any connected device and at your convenience
Seven PDF Transcripts of
Class Sessions
In addition to the high-quality MP3 audios, you’ll also receive the entire class transcription in PDF format after each session is completed. You can then review, print and highlight the most important insights and practices you were given.
Seven 30-Minute Interactive Group Practice Sessions
With live class attendance, there will be a 30-minute optional interactive practice session directly following each class. You’ll be placed in an intimate group with several other participants on the conference call to interact, share and do additional practices to help further integrate the weekly lessons. If you’re unable to attend the calls live, the Online Community group allows you to connect with each other to find alternative times to interact.
Interactive Exercises and Questions for Each Lesson
After each lesson, you’ll have the option to do related exercises, practice new tools and answer questions in order to accelerate your learning and integrate each week’s lesson.
Online Community
Our exclusive Facebook online community is the perfect place to continue your discovery process after each class. Here, you can ask additional questions, interact with your fellow students and get access to additional resources to take your exploration to an even deeper level.
The Art & Science of Yogic Meditation
Bonus Collection
- Awakening to Your True Nature
2-part Audio Presentation from Richard Miller- Part 1: Your Path, Buddha’s Path
- Part 2: Awakening to Your True Nature: The Final Teachings
- The Ease of Being: Just Say Yes
Audio Recording of 3-day Retreat with Richard Miller
An Unprecedented Opportunity to Join The Art & Science of Yogic Meditation Virtual Training
We feel honored that Richard Miller has chosen to partner with The Shift Network to offer this exclusive, LIVE online training. This is a rare opportunity to interact directly with a contemporary spiritual teacher and yogic scholar whose powerful work is helping us heal and awaken ourselves and our world.
Through this powerful online format, you’ll not only save time and money on workshop costs (plus travel, accommodations and meals — which would cost thousands of dollars), you’ll be able to benefit from Richard’s incredible teachings and exercises from the comfort of your home — at your own pace!
If you’re serious about transforming your practice into an immediate experience that awakens your deep, inner resources of wellbeing, then you owe it to yourself, your loved ones and our world to take this one-of-a-kind training.
If you’re ready to take the next step in evolving yourself, click the register button below to reserve your space now.
More Praise for Richard Miller...
Whether you’re looking for deep relaxation, or spiritual transformation, you’re in good hands with yoga master Richard Miller, whose warm-hearted, accessible instruction in the time-honored practice of meditation has the power to guide you all the way home!
— Stephan Bodian, Former Editor-in-Chief of Yoga Journal
Richard Miller has made an enormous contribution to our understanding of the ancient practice of meditation. Richard’s warmth and radiant presence, so familiar to his students and colleagues, rings true in everything he does.
— Donna Farhi, Author of Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit and Bringing Yoga to Life
Richard brings us the practice of meditation with a sophistication and power that it has not previously known in the West. His nondual teachings and practices are absolutely delicious — simple, deep and transformative.
— Stephen Cope, Senior Scholar in Residence, Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health
Richard Miller eloquently invites everyone, from all pathways and spiritual traditions, to join him in this most powerful practice of meditation. His teachings are a must for everyone who hears the call and feels the inner longing for enlightenment.
— Lilias Folan, Author of Lilias! Yoga Gets Better with Age
Gratitude fills my heart for the deep teachings Richard offers. But gratitude also for the clear and gentle way he guides us on a most personal journey — the journey home to ourselves. His teachings are to be ingested slowly on the deepest levels.
— Judith Hanson Lasater, PhD, Author of 30 Essential Yoga Poses
Dr. Richard Miller is the ultimate teacher of teachers. His shares his teachings from his personal experience with clarity and precision, offering us the concise path to our true nature.
— Larry Payne, PhD, Founder of Samata Yoga and Yoga Rx Therapy
About Richard Miller
Richard Miller, PhD is a clinical psychologist, author, researcher, yogic scholar and spiritual teacher. For 45 years, he’s devoted his life and work to integrating the nondual wisdom teachings of Yoga, Tantra, Advaita, Taoism and Buddhism with Western psychology. Among his mentors were Jean Klein, T.K.V. Desikachar and Stephen Chang.
Richard, the author of Yoga Nidra: The Meditative Heart of Yoga, was named by Yoga Journal as one of the top 25 teachers of Yoga and Meditation in the West.
Richard is the cofounder of The International Association of Yoga Therapy and founding editor of the professional Journal of IAYT. He’s also a founding member and past president of the Institute for Spirituality and Psychology, and a senior advisor for the Baumann Foundation for the study of awareness and its impact on wellbeing.
Richard is the founder, executive director and president of the Board of Directors of the Integrative Restoration Institute (IRI). He has consulted on over 25 research studies on the efficacy of the iRest Meditation program developed by IRI — a research-based transformative practice of deep relaxation and meditative inquiry, and a modern adaptation of the ancient nondual meditation practice of Yoga Nidra — on health, healing and wellbeing with diverse populations including active-duty soldiers, veterans, college students, children, seniors, the homeless, the incarcerated and people experiencing issues such as sleep disorders, PTSD, chemical dependency, chronic pain and related disorders.
In addition to his research and writing projects, Richard lectures and leads trainings and retreats internationally.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is a virtual course?
A: It’s a great way to engage live teachings and each other from the comfort of your home! All you need is a phone line (or an equivalent voice service). If there is more than one person in your household taking the course, you will each need your own line. We use MaestroConference to make it just like an in-person event, where you can ask questions, participate in groups, and deepen your exploration of the course themes.
Please note that dialing MaestroConference from your phone is a regular toll call to California; your telephone service provider will charge you according to your existing long-distance calling plan. Other options include calling cards and discount long-distance carriers. You can also use Skype to connect to MaestroConference at no charge, and we offer a webcast which is free to use from anywhere in the world.
I have never participated before in an online course. The packaging, presentation, inclusion and Facebook postings created a wonderful, safe cocoon to participate. I haven’t seen a course so well put together ever — not in all the years of taking college classes — and I had my doubts about doing an online course. The wealth of organization and ease of learning materials and support made this fun as well.
– Claudia F., Medford, MA
Q: Can I get benefit from the course if I miss the live classes?
A: Absolutely! You can download the recordings and transcripts of all course sessions from our online media archive, so you never need to worry about missing live calls. You can also engage the full community and leaders on our private community website.
Q: Can you tell me about the Private Course Group?
A: We will have a private community group for all course participants on Facebook that will support you in making connections with others, sharing insights, engaging in discussions, completing homework assignments and exchanging information about events and other activities that can supplement your transformational journey. You’ll have the ability to share your experiences, projects and growth throughout the Course.
Q: Are there scholarships available for this Training?
A: Yes, we always make a certain percentage of spaces available for partial scholarships, giving preference to those in developing countries or doing important but underpaid work to which they can apply the training material immediately. If you would like to apply for a scholarship, please review our guidelines, which include a link to our online application form.
Q: What is your refund policy?
A: Your satisfaction with The Shift Network and this course is our highest priority! We offer a satisfaction guarantee so that you can sample the course risk-free. The deadline to receive a full refund is August 30, 2016. To request a refund, please click on this refund request form and submit your request. Your refund will be processed within five business days and we'll send you an email confirming your refund. However, we'd love to have a chance to address and resolve your concerns first. If there is something we can assist you with, please email us at support@theshiftnetwork.com and we'll be happy to help! (No refund requests accepted after the above date or with scholarship awards.)
Q: How can I reach Customer Support?
A: Please visit our Customer Support Center, where you should be able to find the answer to your question or the solution to a problem. And if you can’t, you can submit an online request form and we’ll get right back to you.
