Awaken the ‘Funny’ & Your Sacred Mischief
Why? (Why Not?)
For a bit of levity!
To awaken joy & release stress around daily life!
To enjoy a moment of not-knowing,
And create new navigational skills for life.
Perhaps you have the wish to take a breather from the hectic everyday, a wish to invite in the joyous side of life, to take yourself a bit less seriously, to release stress. Have a bit of fun awakening, exploring your funny. Giving your sense of humor the right of way for a while and give your thinking mind a break. inject your funny into various aspects of daily life and embody a feeling of lightness.
Awakening the Funny/Lightfulness was born because a Zen Master’s disciples took themselves too seriously, so he went looking for a clown teacher. “I want to learn tools of tricksterdom” Bernie (Glassman) said to me. 25 years later, the pedagogy keeps evolving. At the intersection of clown and zen, with sprinklings of other traditions blended in, the pathways to embodying one’s lighter side in life has taken deeper roots. How does one embody one’s sense of humor? How does one take verbal language out of your expression?? “Only the nose knows!” Truly, the path of discovery involves engaging, doing simple tasks in a way you find funny and often offer quite a bit of delight. With a little time, you will develop tools to invite your sense of funny and lightness into your everyday world.
So what does a Training look like?
“Taking humor seriously enables people to not take themselves too seriously”
Trainings will include many of the following:
Mindful movement practices: chi gong, feldenkreis, tenshingoso.
Practices inviting lightness and humor into nonverbal expression
Stress release and resiliency practices
External & interactive mindfulness practices
Levity Awareness
Enjoyment and Mudita practices
Lightful walking meditation
Personal lightfulness practices and rituals
Training Themes
For Current Offerings, look at the CALENDAR
Sacred Mischief Training
Levity Strategies for Daily Life & Turbulent Times
“Humor is that thing that ushers a person’s mind from a place of constricted consciousness to a place of expanded consciousness.”
~Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov (1698-1760)
A weekend workshop to learn tools of tricksterdom, humor and lightness to use in the every-day, and to experience a taste of Zen practice in quiet surroundings.
If the world is feeling a bit Topsy-turvy these days (or not) and you are wishing for:
-some trickster tools to pull out of your pocket,
-to invoke your sense of humor to manage what the world is throwing at you
-to conjure up a taste of lightness amidst heavy loads and loud voices
-to enjoy exploring the land of sacred mischief
-to connect/reconnect
Sacred Mischief Training facilitates:
Connecting with Not knowing, Ridiculousness and Absurdity.
Transforming one’s own subjective sense of humor into meaningless and meaningful expression.
Connecting with the deepest sense of self and selflessness & with your senses.
Training in Sacred Mischief can Awaken, Enliven, and Levitate Daily Life. The sacred aspect of mischief is where the mischief uplifts! Be it yourself, those around you, even those not around you, For the mischief to be sacred, every one is laughing with.
How do you do this? It starts with ‘how do you do things in a way you find funny’. It develops into how do you invite humor into deeper aspects of being to develop tools of sacred mischief.
Through physical theater practices, clown improvisations, develop your unique expressive funny-perhaps it’s just for yourself, to have the resilience to poke humor in challenging places, or it may be to share with others-perhaps just a wink or a nod, and perhaps a bit more. Either way it’s the path of sacred mischief. Deepen the experience, and your awareness, by slowing it down to Butoh (dance) time. Invite the possibilities of mischief into the twinkle of your eye.
Since 2001, Moshe has taught in Zen Centers and Spiritual retreat situations. He has taught with Roshi Bernie Glassman, Roshi Michel Engu Dobbs, Roshi Wendy Egyoku Nakao, Roshi Heinz-Jürgen Metzger, Ashi Zachary Smith, Roshi Cornelius Von Collande. Workshops have taken place at Omega Institute, Los Angeles Zen Center, San Francisco Zen Center, Village Zendo, Dana Sangha, St. Virgil, and many more…
Levity & Lightfulness Pause
Designed for conferences and events where there is a need to give thinking mind a break. by engaging body and voice and embodying humor and lightness, a Levity Pause invites in the fun with a mindful approach, without any rah-rah cheer-leading. These are designed as short on stage interruptions to larger events, or as stand-alone trainings. They can also be offered online, or in person.
Sessions can include:
Centering, gentle physical and vocal warm-up based in mindful movement.
Lightness and levity play inviting fun and humor-full expression into simple practices and situations.
Walking meditation (butoh hoko/kinhin), then inviting in lightness to the walk.
Curious to read about a reporter’s first hand experience taking a workshop? here’s a descriptive Article by a San Francisco Chronicle reporter after a 1 day workshop in 2016.
Some of the Places Moshe has taught:
Spiritual/Zen Centers
Zen Center Los Angeles, San Francisco Zen Center, St Virgil, Omega Institute, Le Forum (Paris FR), Tassajara, Village Zendo, ZLMC, Buddhistisches Zentrum Hamburg, Sivananda Yoga Retreat Bahamas…
Institutions:
Carleton College, World Philanthropy Forum, Alte Poste Kulturforum, Warsaw Academy of Drama, Cal Institute for the Arts, Walschule Flensburg, Children’s Day School SF, Nell-Breuning-Haus…
HealthCare Clown Groups:
CliniClowns Austria, Röten Nasen Deutschland, KlinikClowns München, ClownVisite EV, HaHaHa Akademie, Dream Doctors Conference, Emergency Smile, HCIM2018, KlinikClowns Nürnberg…
Clown/Circus Schools:
TUT schule, Ateneu No Barris, Ravensburg Clown Sommerakademie, SF Clown Conservatory, Wise Fool NM, Clown Encuentro.
Organizations:
Paypal, Dolby, Google Arts, Center for Council, Medecins du Monde, Procurador de los Derechos Humanos…
Moshe’s Teachers
40 years of performing
Clown : Richard Pochinko and Ctibor Turba
Movement Theater: Sigfrido Aguilar, Antwerpen Mime School, Daniel Stein Mime School
Physical Theater: Phillipe Gaulier, Monica Pagneux
Voice: Roy Hart Theater (Rossignol, Ahkmatova, Saul, Vincente)
Kyogen: Kaoru Matsumoto, Juro Zenchku
Butoh Dance: Kazuo Ohno, Hiroko Tamano, Yoshito Ohno
Zen: Roshi Bernie Glassman, Roshi Wendy Egyoku Nakao, Roshi Michel Engu Dobbs.
Calendar
Upcoming training and workshops
Sacred Mischief Training
All day Sacred Mischief Training at the Zen Center of Los Angeles…
Clown + Zen Online @ St. Virgil , mit Zen Sensei Undine Nami Bißmeier
In einer Reihe von Übungen und Meditationen verbinden wir die Perspektiven des Zen und des Clowns/der Clownin. In diesen kurzen und dunklen Wintertagen, laden wir Leichtigkeit und Humor ein. Wir nutzen die Gelegenheit, uns über unsere bekannte Welt hinauszuwagen, uns selbst herauszufordern und uns selbst zu überraschen, indem wir das “Nicht-Wissen” erkunden….
Heiliger Unfug. One Day Training
Erweitern Sie Ihre Fähigkeit, sich selbst nicht zu ernst zu nehmen!
Und wie?
Durch eine Reise in das Land des Komischen – deines Komischen -, durch die Erforschung deiner Fähigkeiten, Humor und Leichtigkeit auszudrücken und zu teilen, und durch die Kultivierung deiner Fähigkeit, dies zu verkörpern…
Heilig Unfug Training
Erweitern Sie Ihre Fähigkeit, sich selbst nicht zu ernst zu nehmen!
Und wie?
Durch eine Reise in das Land des Komischen – deines Komischen -, durch die Erforschung deiner Fähigkeiten, Humor und Leichtigkeit auszudrücken und zu teilen, und durch die Kultivierung deiner Fähigkeit, dies zu verkörpern….