Keri Pederson and Temira Lital will lead a meditation and give a talk on the evening of Friday, September 11, 2026, from 7:00 pm till 8:30 pm. The Friday evening event will be held at Shalom UCC, 505 McMurray Street, Richland, and will be held in the Fellowship Hall.
Please note that this is a change of location from our usual meeting place! There is no fee for the Friday evening event and no registration or RSVP is required.
The title of the Friday evenings talk & Saturday’s retreat is “Dropping the Burden, Stopping the Fight”.
In Friday evening’s talk and Saturday’s daylong retreat we will gather in community (sangha) to explore perspectives and experiential teachings from the early Buddhist tradition that speak to some of these questions. We’ll take a look at the ‘mind at normalcy’ (Upasika Kee), awareness becoming natural (Sayadaw U Tejaniya), and dwelling in non-contention with experience (Ajahn Amaro), and see what we find for ourselves.
In meditation practice and in life, we are often aware of how an attitude of striving and overdoing is not helpful, and yet it can be difficult to release. Steeped in a culture that values productivity and the optimizing of everything, we find here that our own efforts thwart us. Where is the ease, relaxation, and peace that we read so much about? We can hear ourselves arguing with the moment, with our own minds, with experience itself. Might there be a way, as the teachings point out — to make steady effort without perpetuating stress, to be dedicated to something without ongoing strain, and to engage in the world without it being a fight?