Cultivating the Fruits of our Contemplative Practice

In this retreat, we will explore how the essential qualities that we develop through meditation – equanimity, discernment and other-centeredness – can help us transform our everyday lives: from managing stress and enriching our relationships, to finding deeper meaning and purpose. We will also explore how a daily practice of journal writing can supplement our meditation, providing an opportunity for us to gain a greater understanding of our “inner room”. Sean will also share how his contemplative practice enhanced his personal growth and helped him experience his own work as an expression of service.

“The central theme of the retreat is distilled by the elegantly concise metaphor of the eighth century Buddhist monk Shantideva. 

Imagine you look out your window one morning and you find that the earth is covered with thorns, but you need to go outside. So what do you do? You can try to cover the earth with leather, but that is not feasible. Alternatively, as Shantideva suggests, you can simply wear a pair of sandals. No matter how much energy we devote to managing our external lives, bad things happen. We simply don’t have enough leather to protect us from every thorn. As Shantideva suggests, perhaps we should spend more time cultivating our internal life.”

Retreat Highlights

Journaling as a Spiritual Tool: Moving emotions from the head to the paper to dilute their power.

Cultivating an internal life: Using the wisdom of 8th-century monk Shantideva, the retreat explores how we cannot “cover the earth in leather” to avoid life’s thorns, but we can “wear sandals” by cultivating an internal life that protects us from being overwhelmed

Experiential over Intellectual: Meditation is presented as an experiential process of stillness where we realize “we are not our thoughts or our emotions,” but something bigger and better

The Power of Equanimity: Learning the art of “observing without engaging” to take the power away from negative emotions and reactive states.

More information here.