Insight and Awakening Retreat
Dates: Sunday, May 26, 3:00pm – Sunday, June 2, 11:30am; 7 nights
Location: Spirit Rock Meditation Center
Tuition: Sliding Scale: $1800 – 800, PLUS a donation to the teacher(s) and retreat staff.

Description: The ancient invitation of the Buddha was to “come and see” for yourself the truth of the way things are. In this retreat, we will weave together traditional approaches to Samatha-Vipassana (calming and insight) practice as well as body-based energy and awareness practices. This combination will support us in cultivating tranquility of mind, balance of body, and the capacity to see deeply into the nature of our own experience with wisdom and love. The aim of this practice is liberation, the freedom to be joyfully compassionate here and now for the care and benefit of all beings.
This retreat is open to both beginning and experienced practitioners.

This retreat is full, but you can join the waitlist here.

The Way of Awareness Retreat
Dates: May 5-May10, 2019
Location: Omega, Rhinebeck, NY
Tuition: $500/member, $555/non-member. Accommodation priced separately

Description: Mindfulness is often spoken of as “the heart of Buddhist meditation.” However, its essence is universal. As the Theravadan monk and Buddhist scholar, Nyanaponika Thera, put it in his classic work, The Heart of Buddhist Meditation, mindfulness is the unfailing master key for knowing the mind, and is thus the starting point; the perfect tool for shaping [our relationship to] the mind, and is thus the focal point; [and] the lofty manifestation of the achieved freedom of the mind, and is thus the culminating point.

Mindfulness has everything to do with open-hearted attention to the unfolding of experience as it is. In most Asian languages, the word for “mind” and the word for “heart” are the same word. Therefore, we can understand mindfulness better if we simultaneously hear it as heartfulness and cultivate it in that way. During this retreat, we will be cultivating intimacy with our own experience as the days unfold, letting life itself become the curriculum.

We will be engaging in a range of formal and informal meditation practices, including the body scan, various forms of guided movement, sitting meditation, and walking meditation. There will be an emphasis on the cultivation of mindfulness in all daily activities to foster a seamless continuity of life and practice. The applications of mindfulness in the face of the full catastrophe of the human condition, including stress, pain, illness, our own tacit assumptions, implicit biases, and the challenges of social inequity will be emergent themes.

You can find more information and register for this retreat here.