The Florida Community of Mindfulness welcomes Ben Connelly, the author of "Mindfulness and Intimacy" and "Inside the Grass Hut." Ben will be giving the Dharma Talk on how to utilize our practice of mindfulness to connect us deeply to life and those in our lives.

Mindfulness is an ancient and powerful practice of awareness and nonjudgmental discernment that can help us ground ourselves in the present moment, with the world and our lives just as they are. But there’s a risk: by focusing our attention on something (or someone), we might always see it as something other, as separate from ourselves. To close this distance, mindfulness has traditionally been paired with a focus on intimacy, community, and interdependence. In this book, Ben Connelly shows us how to bring these two practices together—bringing warm hearts to our clear seeing.  

Ben began Zen practice at Minnesota Zen Meditation Center (MZMC) in 2001, was ordained in 2009, and received dharma transmission in 2015. He teaches regularly at MZMC and at Zen centers across the US. He also teaches secular mindfulness in a variety of contexts such as police training, addiction recovery groups, and wellness groups. Ben is also a musician by profession: a singer and songwriter, guitar teacher, film composer and multi-instrumentalist. His first book, Inside the Grass Hut, Living Shitou's Classic Zen Poem (Wisdom Publications) was published in 2014, and his second Inside Vasubandhu's Yogacara: A Practitioner's Guide, was published by Wisdom in 2016. His most recent book is Mindfulness and Intimacy, which he will discuss at our weekly Sunday meditation.

Weekly mindfulness meditation and teachings. Please visit Tampa Sangha for more information.