This retreat explores what meditation teaches us about being human. It teaches us about resistance and overthinking, about humor and mercy, about healing stuck emotions and expanding stuck views. It teaches us how we relate to other people and to ourselves. It teaches us both majesty and humility. All this and more happens when we sit and get quiet. It also happens when we sit and don't get quiet. So all neurotic brains welcome!

The teacher is meditation itself, which has a way of organizing the nervous system all on its own. The goal is for everyone to return home with a clear understanding of why they meditate, and a clear feeling for their own strange and beautiful practice.

Who Should Attend? Appropriate for all experience levels.

Meditation isn't any one way. Every kind of experience can happen on the cushion—our own internal processes are as distinct as our fingerprints. The simple skills gathered in meditation—the concentration and the clarity, the equanimity and the care—lie at the headwaters of mental and emotional and spiritual health. Over three days, this becomes ever-more obvious. We learn as a collective.

We also learn from other people's experiences, insights, and challenges. So there is sharing and discussion, in addition to meditation and wandering through the summer foliage all awestruck and blubbering "the glory!"

"I came to see how meditation could benefit me in myriad ways beyond sleep, helping me with everything from back pain to feeling more relaxed, comfortable with myself and optimistic. Perhaps the most unexpected, pleasurable aspect has been discovering a renewed interest in the world around me—simply watching the faces of people on the streetcar … the world feels more vivid, mysterious and artful all of a sudden."
Leslie S.

Workshop begins Friday at 7:30 p.m.

Recommended Reading:

• Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics: A 10% Happier How-to Book by Dan Harris and Jeff Warren with Carlye Adler

Bring comfortable clothes with you to the course.