THE NATURE OF AWARENESS: INSIGHT MEDITATION FOR EXPERIENCED MEDITATORS

THE NATURE OF AWARENESS: INSIGHT MEDITATION FOR EXPERIENCED MEDITATORS

This retreat is only for experienced meditators who have been practicing consistently for at least three years, have attended at least three, seven-day or longer silent retreats in the Zen or Vipassana traditions, and are intent on spending most of each retreat day in sitting and walking meditation.

This intensive, silent retreat explores the nature of awareness itself. We train to collect the mind within a body-breath awareness, which then naturally opens into a panoramic awareness through which the heart softens and a depth of wisdom is revealed. This wisdom-awareness is then stabilized and integrated more and more throughout our experience of being human.

The daily schedule consists of alternating periods of sitting and walking meditation, with a short instruction period each morning and an evening dharma talk. Each student will have the opportunity for one individual interview and one small-group meeting with the teacher. Everyone is expected to arrive on time and stay until the retreat is completed.

John Travis is a senior teacher with Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California and founder of Mountain Stream Meditation Center in Nevada City, CA. He has practiced Insight Meditation for over 40 years, and completed a four year senior teacher training with Jack Kornfield, author of A Wise Heart. He lived and studied in Asia for a decade under some of the premier meditation masters of our time, including periods of monastic ordination in the Theravada and Tibetan traditions. His dynamic teaching style focuses on a non-dualistic approach emphasizing body, heartfulness, and the nature of awareness itself. In addition to his meditation training, John has taught mindfulness-based stress reduction, facilitated men's groups, and led holotrophic breath workshops. He is a father and a poet, a pastoral counselor and hypnotherapist who has completed two years training in the Hakomi method of body-centered psychotherapy.