2016 IMCW New Year Retreat: Awakening the Heart of Compassion
The New Year is a wonderful time to touch sacred presence and deepen our roots in spiritual life. In this silent retreat we will open our hearts and minds through practices of Vipassana (mindfulness meditation–both sitting and walking sessions), traditional heart meditations (metta), yoga (mindful movement) and evening chanting.
2016-12-27 (6 days)
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
To live our lives fully, we need to embrace the natural unfolding of birthing and dying. Yet we are deeply conditioned to resist loss, to pull away from fear and grief. Through a powerful Inuit story shared by Clarissa Estes, this talk explores how our practices of presence can open us to what we avoid, and free us to love without holding back.
Compassion has been called ‘the quivering of the heart in response to suffering.' Cultivating a compassionate heart helps us to hold kindly our own painful feelings and emotions, and engage with the suffering of others, near and far.
This meditation establishes fertile grounds for presence by gladdening the mind, a mindful body scan, collecting the attention and including all that arises in a kind, clear presence.
