Half-Day Retreats: Insight Meditation Center

New Years’ Day Half-Day Retreat: Meditation and Yoga with Terry Lesser

Saturday, May 1, 2010, 9am to 12:30pm

In this mini-retreat, we will awaken our bodies, minds and hearts to the present moment. We will integrate yoga, breathwork, meditation, metta (loving kindness), and relaxation and let these practices inform and deepen one another. The morning is appropriate for beginners and those with more experience. Our aim is not perfect poses or perfect meditation, but to connect deeply with ourselves and allow the emergence of our innate wisdom, capabilities, joy, tranquility and compassion.

Terry has been teaching yoga at the Insight Meditation Center (IMC) for over ten years. She trained in Iyengar style yoga and is a graduate of the Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader Program. She also teaches yoga and meditation at the California Yoga Center in Palo Alto. Her teaching is gentle, supportive, and sensitive to individual students’ abilities.

Please bring a large towel and yoga sticky mat and sitting cushion if you have them. If you don’t, mats and cushions will be available for you to use.

Awakening to Joy: Workshop and Book Reading with James Baraz

Saturday, January 9, 2010, 9:30am to 12:30pm

In Buddhism, Joy is both a Factor of Enlightenment and one of the four Divine Abodes. Today, as we are bombarded with messages that heighten our fear and sadness about the world, more than ever it is vital to understand the importance of joy as a central aspect of spiritual practice. True happiness is not about acquiring anything but rather opening to the natural joy and aliveness right inside you. This workshop is based on the popular 10-month Awakening Joy course that thousands have taken since 2003 to develop our natural capacity for well-being and happiness. We will learn basic principles and experiential exercises for developing and increasing wholesome states (two of the four Wise Efforts) drawn from Buddhist philosophy and presented in a user-friendly way.

James Baraz is a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center where he started the Family Program, Community Dharma Leader Program and Kalyana Mitta Network. He leads retreats, workshops and classes in the U.S. and abroad and has been teaching the Awakening Joy course (www.awakeningjoy.info) since 2003. James is co-author with Shoshana Alexander of Awakening Joy due in 2010 (Bantam) which is based on the course. In addition, he is on the International Advisory Board of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.