What does it mean to be present, connected and awake? How do we experience true freedom of body, heart and mind? This silent weekend retreat, open to all, is an opportunity to unplug and explore these questions through Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practices. Guidance in vipassana (insight) and metta (lovingkindness) meditation will be offered, encouraging greater awareness, calm abiding and openheartedness. We will practice mindfulness in sitting meditation, walking meditation, and even while eating. Through these ancient practices, still relevant for modern times, compassion and wisdom deepen, and our innate freedom is revealed.

Co-Teacher:

Bonnie Duran

Bonnie Duran, DrPH, began Buddhist meditation practice 35 years ago. She enjoys teaching Spirit Rock’s Dedicated Practitioners Program, short and long retreats, and holds a People of Color and Allies Sangha in Seattle, WA. She also directs the University of Washington’s Center for Indigenous Health Research.

Assisted by:

Roxanne Dault

A dedicated student and practitioner of Insight Meditation for the last 10 years, Roxanne has completed nearly 350 days of silent residential retreats in Asia and in the USA, including a 3-month retreat at the Insight Meditation Society. She recently completed a 2-year meditation teacher mentorship program with Daryl Lynn Ross and Pascal Auclair of True North Insight in Montreal. She has also completed a 2-year intensive Buddhist study and practice program with TNI, and MBSR training with Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn.

We’ll create a space of ease and support for QTBLGAI people to cultivate mindfulness, kindness and wisdom through insight meditation. Sharing silence and meditative space with community allows us to make greater peace with ourselves and our lives, one moment at a time. While listening to the teachings of wisdom and compassion and mindfully sitting, walking, eating and resting, liberating insights arise, and clarity and freedom are gained. We can learn to find an ever-deepening sense of well-being, touching joy and fostering the heart’s release. We practice in this way both for our own benefit and for the benefit of others.

This retreat is open to both experienced and beginner meditators who self-identify as queer, questioning, trans, bisexual, lesbian, gay, agender, intersex or two-spirit.

A limited number of You Choose fee spaces are available for ages 18 – 26. This means you can establish your own retreat fee, based on your financial means. A minimum of $20 per day is required (i.e. a minimum of $100 for the entire retreat).

Co-Teacher: Jean Esther

Assisting: Shelly Graf

Shelly Graf started their meditation practice in 2004 at Common Ground Meditation Center. Since 2010, they’ve taught this practice to young adults, in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction classes, and at meditation retreats. They are a participant in the 2017-2021 IMS Teacher Training Program.

This retreat will include periods of silence and discussion, in which we will explore the links and differences between the Dharma (Buddhist teachings and meditation techniques) and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT).

Co-teacher:  Patricia Rockman, MD CCFP FCFP

Patricia is a Family Physician with a focused practice in mental health. She is an associate professor at the University of Toronto, department of Family and Community Medicine, cross appointed to Psychiatry. She initiated and chaired the Ontario College of Family Physicians, Collaborative Mental Health Care Network for a decade and continues to act as a mentor to Family Physicians delivering mental health care. She has extensive experience training healthcare providers in Stress Reduction, CBT, Mindfulness-based practices and other related areas. She maintains a private clinical practice and runs Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy groups. She maintains both a personal meditation and yoga practice.

This retreat is organized by the Dutch Insight Meditation Foundation, in cooperation with Sangha Metta. The retreat will be held in Noble Silence and is suitable for beginners as well as more experienced meditators. 

We’ll create a space of ease and support for LGBTQ people to cultivate mindfulness, kindness and wisdom through insight meditation. Sharing silence and meditative space with community allows us to make greater peace with ourselves and our lives, one moment at a time. While listening to the teachings of wisdom and compassion and mindfully sitting, walking, eating and resting, liberating insights arise, and clarity and freedom is gained. We can learn to find an ever-deepening sense of well-being, touching joy and fostering the heart’s release. We practice in this way both for our own benefit and for the benefit of others. Open to beginning and experienced meditators who self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer or intersex.

For more information, please check the organizer website. Thank you!

Can the qualities of friendliness, care, courage, joy and balance create the right conditions for the deepening of wisdom? Or are they simply beautiful expressions of it? Or both? While silently sitting and walking with meditative presence, and with guidance from the teachers, we can open more fully to the life both around us and inside of us. Through the quality of this connection, we can discover for ourselves how living with a sense of fullness and engagement might be possible. This retreat is open to all.

Co-Teacher:

Bonnie Duran

Bonnie Duran, DrPH, began Buddhist meditation practice 35 years ago. She enjoys teaching Spirit Rock’s Dedicated Practitioners Program, short and long retreats, and holds a People of Color and Allies Sangha in Seattle, WA. She also directs the University of Washington’s Center for Indigenous Health Research.

Assisted by:

Roxanne Dault

A dedicated student and practitioner of Insight Meditation for the last 10 years, Roxanne has completed nearly 350 days of silent residential retreats in Asia and in the USA, including a 3-month retreat at the Insight Meditation Society. She recently completed a 2-year meditation teacher mentorship program with Daryl Lynn Ross and Pascal Auclair of True North Insight in Montreal. She has also completed a 2-year intensive Buddhist study and practice program with TNI, and MBSR training with Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn.

The practice of Metta (loving kindness) brings warmth and ease to heart, mind and body. As we cultivate the joy of friendliness we learn to transform anger, jealousy and old resentments into deep caring. We also discover that guilt and judgment can be the basis for kindness and compassion to arise. This is an invitation to a soft and radical transformation of the heart.

There will be an opportunity to ask questions and have interviews in both French and English. 

Registrations open during Fall 2019. Contact the organizer about registering.

La méditation Vipassana permet à la conscience de se fortifier pour savoir accueillir, en vérité et avec amour, les différentes expériences de la vie. Comment pouvons-nous rester présents et ouverts même lorsque nous nous sentons menaçés ou irrités ? Lorsque la Pleine Conscience nous accompagne dans nos actes quotidiens, nos habitudes réactives n’ont plus l’espace d’exprimer ce qui est non bénéfique. Le silence intérieur s’installe tout naturellement, ainsi que l’accueil généreux à l’autre et à la vie.

Pour plus d’informations, consulter le site de l’organisateur. Merci!

“Les 7 facteurs de l’éveil ou la douce puissance de la Pleine Conscience”

Au cours de cette retraite silencieuse, de cet atelier intensif de méditation, ensemble, nous verrons comment la présence attentive peut mener graduellement vers la sagesse en faisant naître, tour à tour, les qualités intérieures essentielles à une compréhension profonde de la nature humaine: l’investigation, l’énergie, la joie, la tranquillité, la concentration et l’équanimité. Nous porterons un regard calme et curieux sur notre coeur et ses contractions, sur notre esprit et sa confusion, et nous serons menés, pas à pas, vers une clarté apaisante où compassion et joie cohabiteront. En cultivant ces attitudes, une grande tendresse pour notre humanité belle et imparfaite, troublante et précieuse, apparaitra; elle sera ressentie comme libératrice. 

Chacun·e est la·le bienvenu·e dans cet espace silencieux et amical, que la pratique de la méditation nous soit familière ou non, que la solitude en communauté soit une expérience connue ou non. 

Pour plus d’informations, consulter le site de l’organisateur. Merci!

Co-Teacher: Heather Martin

Heather Martin has been meditating for 40 years, in various traditions. Theravada has been her main practice since 1981, when she trained in the style of SN Goenka, for 8 years.  She has practiced Tibetan Dzogchen with Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Vipassana with Burmese Sayadaw U Tejaniya, and more recently the early Foundations of Mindfulness with scholar-monk Bikkhu Analayo.

She has been teaching retreats in North America since 2001, in Canada and the West Coast of the United States.  She guides the Salt Spring Island Vipassana Community, where she has lived for 37 years.

She is a retired midwife and childbirth educator.

Heather emphasizes the practical application of these perennially brilliant teachings, with warm-heartedness, clarity and accessibility.

For more information, please check the organizer website. Thank you!

Co-Teacher:

Bonnie Duran

Bonnie Duran, DrPH, began Buddhist meditation practice 35 years ago. She enjoys teaching Spirit Rock’s Dedicated Practitioners Program, short and long retreats, and holds a People of Color and Allies Sangha in Seattle, WA. She also directs the University of Washington’s Center for Indigenous Health Research.

Registrations open during Fall 2019. Contact the organizer about registering.

Il est essentiel pour notre santé physique, mentale, sociale et spirituelle de prendre parfois un moment pour nous retirer et ralentir un peu. Marquer un temps d’arrêt dans notre vie peut être agréable et sert à nous revitaliser à tous les niveaux; c’est donc un cadeau que nous nous offrons, et que nous offrons aussi à ceux qui nous entourent.

Nous profiterons de cette « pause-santé » pour pacifier et unifier l’esprit afin de prendre conscience de la fugacité et de la fragilité de cette vie précieuse qui nous est donnée. Calmer le mental, ouvrir le cœur, et inviter en nous la sagesse : voilà ce qui est au menu de ce week-end de méditation silencieuse en nature!

Cette retraite est enseignée en français.

**** Cette retraite est réservée aux participants inscrits au programme ****

Nouveau programme de 2^e cycle sur la présence attentive, offert par l’UQAM et s’adressant aux professionnels de l’éducation et de la relation d’aide.

Objectifs

Dans les interventions basées sur la présence attentive, une grande importance est accordée aux pratiques méditatives. En outre, il est fortement recommandé à ceux qui offrent de telles interventions de pratiquer la méditation sur une base régulière. En ce sens, ce cours vise à permettre à l’étudiant d’amorcer ou d’approfondir sa propre pratique méditative et de se familiariser avec les principales pratiques de méditation et leurs déclinaisons (p. ex., méditation assise, en mouvement, marchée, balayage corporel) utilisées dans le cadre des interventions basées sur la présence attentive, et ce, dans un contexte séculier. À travers sa propre pratique personnelle et divers exercices, l’étudiant est également amené à développer des attitudes (p. ex., authenticité, curiosité, respect, compassion) et des compétences (p. ex. incarner la présence attentive) précises. Ce cours se termine par une retraite de méditation non résidentielle de 3 jours.

L’UQAM est la première université québécoise à offrir une formation dans le domaine de la présence attentive.