| This silent retreat will focus on cultivating the quality of lovingkindness (mettā in Pāli), infusing our hearts, minds, and bodies with a strong, caring wisdom. Awareness, as developed through mindfulness practice, leads to clarity, insight, and understanding. Lovingkindness practices open the heart, allow a kind embrace of ourselves, and connect us intimately with all of life. The fusion of these qualities helps us to respond more compassionately to the challenges that we encounter in ourselves and in the world.
Qigong is a practice of aligning breath, movement, and awareness for exercise, healing, and meditation. Qigong perfectly complements traditional sitting meditation practice and has a long and well-established connection to contemplative traditions. On this retreat, lovingkindness practices will be supported by periods of guided instruction as well as Qigong, meditation, and regular meetings with the teachers.
This retreat is silent except for teacher-led Q&A, small groups, or other practice meetings. |
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2024-12-03
Love + Compassion in the Midst of Dominance (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
57:39
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Leslie Booker
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"In this particular flavor of global divisiveness, We need options of how to hold all that feels too big for us. And with these practices of the heart, we are given the opportunity to not succumb to hatred and ill - will. And so what I know to offer in difficult times, is love, in the midst of fear, in the midst of dominance
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2024-12-05
Metta as Refuge (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
48:27
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Leslie Booker
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A response to where we are in this time in our history when everything might seem a bit topsy turvy and upside down. The political commentator Melissa Harris Perry refers to this kind of confusion as trying to stand up straight in a crooked room. Many of us have been secluding, isolating, putting up walls as armour, as protection - in order to not feel the full catastrophe. Many of us are here because we’re ready to lay that armour down, to engage with life and be alive again. And so this afternoons reflections will be on how we can rest in Metta as refuge.
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