What is Mindfulness Practice? Mindfulness is the practice of opening to and accepting life just as it is - a constantly changing, conditioned process. To begin, we must make the necessary effort to calm the mind and body. Without this first step our intention to be present is often overwhelmed by our habits of reactivity and struggle - trying to fix or control the conditions of the moment. To calm the mind and body we practice connecting and sustaining our attention to ordinary experience in each moment; for example, the sensations of the breath coming and going or the sensations of lifting and placing each foot as we walk. This simple and clear patient knowing is at the heart of mindfulness practice. Tranquility arises by training the attention to return to the present moment experience over and over again. This training is directed by an understanding heart that appreciates that no matter how difficult it appears to be, our practice is to recognize what is happening and to gently return the attention to the conditions as they are in the moment. It is our persistent effort that calms the mind, energizes our practice and leads to insight. We can use ordinary experience, such as the breath, as a refuge - a place to keep coming back to. Over time, this capacity to be present becomes a great friend and allows us to relate to all experience with greater clarity, trust and acceptance. The ability to abide with the flow of experience creates the context for insight to arise. Wisdom, compassion and peace of equanimity are the fruit of these deepening insights.

Beginning Mindfulness Instructions

Cultivating self compassion and mindfulness. Bringing mind and heart together

Mindfulness is the data collection system for intuitive awareness and letting go of thinking

An exploration of how mindfulness supports creative expression and how art-making can be a mindfulness practice.

These regularly scheduled evenings will begin with a guided meditation and then open up to our practice questions allowing us time to deepen in Sangha through mindful community discussion.

We possess enough wisdom to review kamma and work through it. The process begins with noticing the effects on citta – that which makes up my subjective world – and meeting resulting feelings. Feelings that are felt, mindfully held, can be surmounted through wisdom and released.

In this retreat, you will immerse yourself in the beautiful qualities of mindfulness, investigation and insight.

Mindfulness of pain, experience and body

Understanding just what mindfulness is and how it works, as well as the attitudes that support its cultivation by learning to open to experience.

Meditation Instructions to develop the Retreat

Mindfulness and compassion meet the hindrances - recognizing, allowing, investigating with intimate attention and nourishing with compassion.

After twenty-four hours on a silent residential retreat we can already see the patterns of daily life being exposed. Too often we are lost and dominated by thought. Mindfulness practice allows us to see thought as transient experiences.

Cultivating path activity. Samadhi, inner refuge. First Foundation of Mindfulness. Putting down the burden.