Dates: Monday, November 26, 3:00pm – Sunday, December 2, 11:30am
Sliding Scale: $1505 – $685, PLUS a donation to the teacher(s) and retreat staff. Code 217R18.

This retreat is currently in progress.

Retreat Description:
Mindful awareness is the foundation for living with wisdom and compassion and is the seed from which springs much joy and peace. Through this retreat you will learn skillful methods to establish and refine mindful presence that develops self-awareness, clarity and insight. We will draw on the Buddha’s discourse on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness as understood in Early Buddhist Teachings.

Participants will learn to cultivate mindfulness through meditations on:
1. The body, the 4 elements, exploring impermanence.
2. Responding to the changing nature of experience.
3. Understanding reactive emotions and states of mind that cause stress.
4. Cultivating qualities that support awakening.

The retreat will be a variety of sitting and walking meditations, talks on meditation and opportunity for questions and meetings with the teacher. Much of the day will be self-led where participants create their own rhythm of practice. This retreat is ideally suited for experienced meditators who wish to deepen their understanding of mindfulness.

Teachings are appropriate for health care professionals as well as the general public. Health care professionals will be able to incorporate the tools and practices offered in this program in ways beneficial to clients or patients. Continuing Education (CE) credit available. See below for more information.

Learning Objectives for participating health care professionals-
Based on the content of this program, you will be able to:

• Define mindfulness and what practices develop mindfulness;
• List at least four benefits of the effect of mindfulness meditation on health care professionals;
• Describe the relationship between health care professionals’ mindfulness practice and improved patient care;
• Describe how practicing the Four Foundations of Mindfulness develops present awareness, and can improve patient care;
• Utilize mindful breathing techniques to develop present moment awareness when working with clients;
• Utilize mindful breathing practices to reduce stress;
• Describe how mindfulness of feelings can result in reduced emotional reactivity;
• Describe how mindfulness of feelings practices may be supportive for calming difficult mental states such as anxiety and depression;
• Utilize compassion practices to reduce emotional exhaustion and professional burn-out;
• Apply, in a clinical setting, perspectives from Buddhist teachings on happiness and causes of happiness; on suffering and the causes of suffering;
• Utilize the powerful principles of equanimity and compassion for meeting the full range of human experience with balance and openness;
• Integrate the practices of equanimity and compassion for meeting stress, pain, and burnout with kindness and wisdom.