Guest speaker Gil Fronsdal shares his reflections on the benefit of retreat practice and the vision for his new Retreat Center in Scotts Valley: Insight Retreat Center.
When we are suffering from stress, we are paying attention to our world in a narrow and rigid way. Through meditations that cultivate a wakeful and open attention, we can dramatically transform the feelings of anxiety and aloneness that underlie all stress.
After considering how cultivating equanimity helps us to release and find balance with our conditioned patterns, we explore the powerful principle expressed by T.S. Elliot as "Ours is in the trying, the rest is not our business."
Worry attempts to protect us from every contingency. It becomes a pattern and view of life where I am the guardian and protector of my security. Worry is actually a process of self-affirmation because we keep affirming our power over what life brings forth. If I let down my guard, life would be chaotic and out of control, and therefore I need to worry to have everything turn out as I wish. Worry and planning elevates us to the status of a god while we are actually being controlled by fear.
