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 Syllabus
Introduction to Mindfulness. 
By Andrey Krikunov

Course description and goal
This Course invites you to dive beneath habitual logical explanations and discover your own path to inner resources, resilience and clarity.

Why Mindfulness and Awareness are important?

In order to manage yourself, you need to be aware of everything that is going on inside yourself.  Yet, inner energies have different levels of accessibility (from body sensations to emotions, thoughts, and more subtle energies, like intuition).  Most people don’t know to navigate them, nor what to do with them. Usually, people are trying to avoid fears or unpleasant signals from within in order to “stay positive”, not knowing other ways to deal with them. 

“Mindfulness Revolution” – a growing interest towards Mindfulness around the World (including in high-tech companies) has been fueled by research on how “Managing your Focus” can be the most valuable life skill that affects your effectiveness and happiness.   During this Course we will invite you to open up your mind and your heart in order to experience deeper benefits of Meditation. 

This course will provide you with:
•	Framework of understanding Mindfulness techniques and their benefits.
•	Overview of different approaches to Meditation
•	Core Skills in order to practice Mindfulness  
•	Homework (Guided Meditations and Readings)

By the end of the course, students will:
•	Understand value and benefits of Mindfulness practices 
•	Experience several different styles of Meditation
•	Learn to manage their inner states better by:
•	becoming aware of what has been unconscious 
•	letting overthinking and over-control go away
•	noticing subtle feelings that have been “eating” your energy 
•	better understanding their stress-reactions and emotions
•	learning self-relaxation techniques

Course outline

Lecture	Content

1.	Mindfulness basics
2.	Core Skills of Mindfulness	•	Mindfulness = Awareness and Focus
•	Benefits of Mindfulness Practice

Core Skills:
•	Be aware.
•	Inner Observer Attention and Meta-Attention
•	Detachment from thoughts
•	Focusing on Sensations / Raw experience.
•	Un-Focusing / De-concentration
•	Letting go control
•	Different types of sensations. Tense – Subtle sensations. Multi-Dimentional sensations.
•	Returning to Here and Now

3-4. Working with Emotions in Meditation
	
•	Self-reflection skill: reading emotions as information
•	Basic emotions.  
•	Learning to distinguish Energy impulse of every emotion.
•	How Emotions differ from Stress.
•	Learning to detach from emotions.
•	Working with painful feelings
•	Expanding positive feelings.

5.	Additional questions
	•	Quantum effects in Meditation.  
•	Cosmic Energy.  Earth Energy.
•	Intuition vs. Overthinking.
•	Students share their self-reflection and experience
•	Q&A session

4. Course homework assignments

Date & Content
Module 1-2
•	Additional video and reading
•	Self-practice
•	10 areas of awareness
Module 3-4
•	Self-reflection
•	Analyses of stress situations
Module 5
•	Guided Meditations
•	Final essay on personal Meditating experience.

5. Course reading material
•	Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. Buddha, Brain and Neurophysiology of Happiness. How to change lives for the better. Practical Guide.
•	Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. Turning Confusion into Clarity.
•	Mark Palchik. Is Reality Real?
•	Jeffrey Allen. Energy Work.
•	Anodea Judith. The Charka System.  
•	John Kabat-Zinn.  Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction.
•	Vygotskiy. Mind and Speech.
•	Norman Doidge. Neuroplasticity.