Retreat program

The focus of this retreat is on compassion and kindness, offering a combination of guidance, background, instruction and practice. In her teaching, Sylvia Boorstein combines a life-long meditation experience with a wonderful sense of humor.

For whom
This retreat is open to mindfulnesstrainers, teachers, therapists, meditators, and all others who are simply interested in compassion and mindfulness. Both beginners and more experienced meditators are welcome.

Background
All of the Buddha's teachings addressed this one question, the central human question: "How can we live out lives, inevitably faced with challenges, happily, free of suffering, with passion and with joy?" His three-fold response--the practice of ethical living, the development of mental discipline and the cultivation of wisdom--are presented in summary in the Metta Sutta, the Buddha's Sermon on Universal Love. Following this teaching as our guide, we'll spend these two days as retreat practice days, in silence except for didactic instructions in concentration and mindfulness meditation, in reflections about ethics as a spiritual practice, in question and answer periods following sessions of meditation practice. We'll take our lunch in silence as well so that mindfulness of eating can be part of the practice.

Sylvia Boorstein, Ph.D
is a co-founding teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California and a Senior Teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. Since 1985, she has taught Mindfulness and Loving Kindness Meditation at the principal United States meditation centers. She has also taught in Canada, Mexico, and Israel, and in 1996, was part of delegation of Western Buddhist teachers who met with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. She has been a psychotherapist since 1967, has taught training workshops for therapists in the integration of Mindfulness and Lovingkindness practice and psychotherapy, and has participated in panels on this subject at conferences of the American Psychiatric Association. She is the author of five books that have been translated into many languages. Her most recent book, Happiness Is An Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life was published in 2007.