Dear Friends,
This partially silent, Meditation-based Retreat will include all our usual practices: Meditation, Movement, Listening/Speaking (Focusing) and Conversation, with extra emphasis on meditation.
We see this as an opportunity to deepen your meditation practice (if you have one) or to develop a practice, (if this is your intention). Also, we will support those wanting to offer “Embodied Meditation” to their community, with more detail on what makes this approach unique along with helpful hints/steps. This understanding is helpful for all of us.
We will learn through potent poems, fascinating Zen stories (koans) and two days of silence, except during practices. Time for enjoyable and meaningful social interaction, plus our usual celebration at the end, will also be part of our time together!
The retreat begins Friday evening, Feb 27 with four full- days Saturday – Tuesday, and ends at lunch on Wednesday, March 4.
How will this be different from usual Grad Retreats?
– Partial Silence: From Friday evening – Saturday evening normal social interaction (talking freely, except Sat. morning) will be encouraged. We recognize the importance and value of connecting with each other through conversation.
Sunday and Monday will be silent except during practices. All meals and the rest time will be silent. As we always say, this does not mean to be serious, just not to speak! Smiles, nods, etc. are welcome.
Tuesday and Wednesday you can choose to speak or remain in silence.
Our intention is to combine the great benefits of silence with the gift of community interaction.
– Increased meditation: We normally sit four times each day, two before breakfast and two after dinner, with two walking periods. For this retreat, we will add two sittings and two walking practices (one in the morning and one in the afternoon), Our long sittings will remain 25 minutes, the shorter ones will still be 15 – 20 minutes. These are optional, if you feel it is too much for you.
– Heart Opening Meditation: We will go further with our “secondary practices” focused on developing unconditional loving-kindness.
– Listening-Speaking: Rather than working with issues from daily life (unless these are very strong and demand your attention), we will use the poems/stories to deepen our practice AND focus on growing unconditional warm-heartedness toward self and others.
Toward a blossoming Life!
Russell and Linda