GUIDED METTA MEDITATION

GUIDED METTA MEDITATION

This retreat focuses on metta, or loving friendliness. Ayya Sobhana's distinctive approach to teaching metta leads students in a method of metta Meditation that is grounded in mindful awareness of feelings in the body. Students also learn to recognize and overcome the hindrances to metta. For beginners, this metta Meditation practice helps to harmonize and guide thoughts and emotions in a positive direction. For more experienced meditators, the practice leads to deeper levels of concentration.

This retreat is experiential. The focus on feelings in the body enables students to see and work honestly with whatever blocks their metta practice. Noble Silence will be maintained outside the meditation hall.

Ayya Sobhana is the founding Prioress of Aranya Bodhi, a new community for monastic women located on the Sonoma Coast of California. Together with Ayya Tathaaloka Theri, Ayya Sobhana has been deeply involved in the recent restoration of Bhikkhuni full ordination in the Theravada tradition. She has meditated and trained with Bhante Henepola Gunaratana since 1989 and stayed at the Bhavana Society in West Virginia from 2003 to 2010. She ordained in 2003 and obtained full Bhikkhuni ordination in 2006. Her primary practice is the Eightfold Noble Path, that is, integration of meditation with ethical living and compassionate relationships for the sake of liberation.