Skip to content

Archive for

Feb 20

Kayanupassana: Contemplation of the Body with Care

img_7578

April 28 – 30, 2017

Kayanupassana: Contemplation of the Body with Care

Jesse Maceo Vega-Frey

Palolo Zen Center, Honolulu, Hawai’i

Join Jesse Maceo Vega-Frey, our resident teacher, for this silent intensive vipassana meditation retreat where we will emphasize the cultivation of insight knowledge and kindness through the manifold experiences of the body. Training will include mindfulness of breath, mindfulness of the 4 elements, touch-points, and body-based brahma vihara practices of lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. The other foundations of mindfulness: feeling tone, mind states, and other phenomena, will be introduced to support our practice as well.

Feb 20

Second Annual Rains Thai Lake Retreat

img_1008-cropped

Don’t forget to make plans to sit the Second Annual Rains Thai Lake Retreatwith Steven Smith, assisted by Jake Davis, and mindful movement with Julie Seibt June 12 – 22, 2017. Get your airline tickets and passport ready now.

June 12 – 22, 2017

Second Annual Rains Thai Lake Retreat

With Steven Smith and assisted by Jake Davis

Mindful movement with Julie Seibt

Jungle Yoga, Khao Sok National Park, Thailand

Practice in the stillness of this remote jungle lake, as dawn slowly brings on the indescribable jungle chorus of cicadas and gibbons. Learn to cultivate seamless awareness in all sense fields, nourished by dedicated cultivation of the ‘divine abidings’: unconditional friendliness, wise compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. There will be mindful movement classes twice a day and  opportunity for mindful swimming and kayaking in the afternoons.

Feb 7

Register now for retreat with Michele and Steven in Canada

We hope you will be able to join us for two springtime opportunities to sit with our guiding teachers Steven Smith and Michele McDonald at Hollyhock, Vancouver. The April 21 – 23, 2017, Metta Vipassana Meditation Retreat is nonresidential and the April 26 – May 10, 2017, Metta Vipassana: Awareness as a Path to Liberation is residential.

 

hollyhock-view-cropped

April 21 – 23, 2017

Metta Vipassana Meditation Retreat 

With Steven Smith and Michele McDonald

Sponsored by Hollyhock, Asian Centre at UBC in Vancouver, Canada

Vipassana meditation (insight or mindfulness practice) unites the stillness of concentration with the immediacy of moment to moment silent 6 sense door awareness. By calming body and mind, intuitive wise knowing arises — opening to the truth of each moment’s experience within and around us. In this way, we increase our ability to meet life’s ups and downs with graceful ease and peace.

Metta (Lovingkindness) meditation practice calls forth the beautiful spiritual emotions within our heart: lovingkindness, compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity. Mindfulness of these qualities strengthens and matures them, which leads to a constancy of thinking, acceptance and reverence for our bodies, as well as speaking and acting from the purity of these emotions.

During this silent weekend retreat, new and experienced students are encouraged to deepen their liberation practice in an atmosphere of relaxed affectionate awareness. The program provides meditation instruction, guided meditations and question and answer periods. Sitting and walking sessions are alternated. There will be Dhamma teaching talks and small group discussions with the teachers.

Register here.

hollyhock-center-cropped-high

April 26 – May 10, 2017

Metta Vipassana: Awareness As A Path to Liberation

With Steven Smith and Michele McDonald

Experience seven days practicing Metta (unconditional love and kindness) and Vipassana (insight) meditation, followed by seven days of cultivating mindfulness, on beautiful Cortes Island.

Discover the four immeasurables (unconditional love, wise compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity) through meditations that fuse these fundamental spiritual emotions with the intuitive wisdom of Vipassana. Develop compassionate awareness and a more loving heart with a unique melding of mindful movement alongside the Metta and Vipassana practices.

Participants may attend the full fourteen day practice, or come during one of the following weeks.

April 26 – May 3 – Metta Vipassana Practice
Cultivate Unconditional Love, Wise Compassion, Empathetic Joy, and Equanimity. The Immeasurables are beautiful capacities of the heart which fuse innate spiritual emotions with intuitive wisdom.

May 3 – May 10 – Mindfulness Practice
Cultivate Mindfulness with a 6 sense-door awareness practice including affectionate awareness and reverence for our bodies, liberating the heart-mind with clarity, ease and authenticity.

Hollyhock on Cortes Island, British Columbia, Canada

Register here.