retreats
LILA WHEELER
The Heart Of Meditation—Practice For Difficult Times
feel deeply, breathe freely
Thursday, August 20—Sunday, August 23, 2009
Margaret Austin Center · Chappell Hill, Texas
This is not an easy world to live in. The Dalai Lama advised us, “Prepare your mind for the fact that life is not easy.” Yet there is a difference between responding to the facts and being trapped in reactivity, despair, and emotional suffering. In meditation practice we can learn how to bring a peaceful heart to everything that arises, whether it is joy or sorrow, ease or difficulty, one’s own situation or another’s. We develop the skills of concentrating and clarifying our attention so that kindness and equanimity can grow stronger than patterns of fear, anger, blame and faulty thinking. Simply dwelling in awareness moment to moment, we breathe freely, neither engulfed nor disconnected.
Lila (Kate) Wheeler learned Vipassana meditation from Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein in 1977 and has been leading shorter retreats around the United States for nearly 20 years. She has practiced with Western and Asian teachers from a variety of traditions in the US, Burma, India, Thailand and Europe. She's also a writer of fiction and journalism. Her most recent publication is Nixon Under the Bodhi Tree and Other Works of Buddhist Fiction, an anthology of other writers' stories published in spring 2004 by Wisdom Publications.
The Retreat will begin with a light meal at 7 PM Thursday, August 20, followed by the formal opening at 8:15 PM. The retreat will end after lunch Sunday, August 26. All meals (vegetarian) will be provided. The cook plans the meals to accommmodate most people’s dietary needs. If you have special dietary restrictions (allergies, etc.) that fall outside the normal range, you should bring some supplements that don’t require cooking, with some space available for refrigeration. Separate bunkhouse sleeping accommodations are provided for men and women; each of the two buildings has two complete bathrooms. You may provide your own shelter if you wish. You will need to bring a sitting cushion and pad for meditation, plus sheets, blankets, pillow, towels and toiletries. It is a good idea to bring a flashlight and, if you are a light sleeper, earplugs. Since the retreat will be held in silence to facilitate the practice of looking within oneself, we ask you not to bring small children.
Cost: The $210 fee shown above covers meals and the operating costs of the retreat, not any teacher compensation. This fee has been increased in order to cover rising costs of maintaining the Margaret Austin Center. Scholarships are available. Free-will donations in support of the teacher are requested at the end of the retreat. Please fill out the registration form on the registration page and mail with your check made out to Insight Meditation Houston. Please register early. This is important for the teacher’s transportation arrangements and meal planning.
If you have any questions, you may call Marilyn Jones at 713-528-3905; or e-mail Jane Elioseff: jelioseff@comcast.net
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