“Whenever you get some doubt, utilize your human brain maximum way and combine smart brain with warm-heartedness. With these two wings together, you can fly. …
So now, let us this 21st century be happy, peaceful, and climatically suitable.That’s in our own hands.”
– His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, from the documentary The Wisdom of Happiness
“Sittin’ on the porch” … A phrase that points to a way of being-together without a particular agenda or thing-to-do. “Sittin’ on the porch”: relaxing, sharing, listening, deepening, opening. It happens without any efforting – sometimes on a porch or a stoop, other times at a table … around a campfire … beside water … in a living room … under a night sky … anywhere that there’s space for stillness and conversation. A rocking chair or swing may be engaged.
You are invited to be part of our first MBMS community’s Sittin’ on the Porch gathering. As we are all experiencing what-it-is to live in the swirling, decomposition, and transformation of the planet and each/all of our worlds, we are coming together in community to support each other in finding our way through.
On Sunday, we are likely to share some conversation about the recently released documentary Wisdom of Happiness*, featuring His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. It is remarkable how much of what he talks about is in direct alignment with what has-been and will-be MBMS offerings – practices for cultivating clarity, compassion, connection, curiosity, and consciousness.
As the MBMS Co-catalysts are right-now beginning to set-up the 2026 calendar, we want to hear, directly from you:
What do you need? … How can our community support you?
What are you curious about?
What might you imagine?
If you knew you could not fail, what would you want to be part of?
We are looking forward to connecting with you … on the Porch.
With warmth and a smile,
Marianne, Cliff, and Rebecca
*Wisdom of Happiness” is currently available in some theaters throughout the US and Canada. Soon it will be streaming on AppleTV, Netflix, and AmazonPrime. You can request to be updated about screenings and streamings HERE.
HOSTS: Marianne rowe & Cliff Berrien
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2025
1:00 - 2:00 PM Pacific
FREE
To receive the Zoom link, please email Marianne Rowe at info@montereybaymeditation.com.
As a humane being, co-founding teacher of Monterey Bay Meditation Studio, and licensed marriage and family therapist, Marianne is dedicated to cultivating eco-systemic consciousness and living in-cahoots with Earth, Cosmos, and Life in all forms.
Much of her energy and inspiration is sourced in Deeptime perspective, community-building, and relationships of reverence and reciprocity with all living beings. She embodies multi-faceted bewonderment, spirited dedication, and a playful, sometimes peculiar, way-of-being in the world. For grounding and spaciousness, she is eternally grateful for daily meditation practice that she began in the last century. Read more.
Cliff Berrien is a drummer-percussionist, dj, and music educator with over 45 years of experience focused on the rhythms and music of the African Diaspora, as well as many other global and folk music traditions. He has used his degree in psychology and a substantial interest in healing, liberation and community to concentrate on cultural expressions of collective joy as transformative ways to develop creativity, cultural dexterity and contemplative-somatic awareness.
Cliff had the honor to work with his mentor Dr. Barbara A. Holmes, author of Crisis Contemplation (2021) and Race and The Cosmos, while working as educational program developer caucus at the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, NM. Over the past decade, Cliff has worked with Resmaa Menakem, Bayo Akomolafe and Vanessa Andreotti, learning to "stay with the trouble" and "make good trouble" through the uses of: music, movement, art, creative and self-reflexive practices, along with deeptime, African, and global cosmologies developed to nourish curiosity, and deepen emotional and relational resilience. He also facilitates events within the ROOTED Global Village.
This event meets online via Zoom.
Having a space that is quiet and where you are not likely to be interrupted will contribute to a more beneficial experience for yourself and all participants. Co-creating a container of respect and presence for this conversation will enhance the benefits of this experience for each and all of us.
For this offering:
We recommend that, if possible, you view this event on a PC or laptop so that you have access to Gallery view and can see all the participants.
We also encourage you to keep your video on so that a sense of community and engagement is cultivated.
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