Registration is now open for a daylong mindfulness meditation retreat on Saturday, July 8th with Keri Pederson. A graduate of the IMS/Spirit Rock Teacher Training Program, she is a meditation teacher at Seattle Insight Meditation Society. The retreat will be held from 9:00 am until 4:30 pm at All Saints Episcopal Church in Richland. The retreat will consist of a mix of seated meditation and walking meditation with instruction and a Dharma talk and will be suitable for beginners and experienced meditators. Keri will also give a talk on Friday evening, July 7th at the same location. Please visit our Events Calendar for more details on how to attend either event.
The topic for the retreat is:
Joy and Wholesome Pleasure on the Path
Joy is an essential quality on the spiritual path, and one that often gets overlooked in favor of some of its fiercer and seemingly more steady relatives. But joy is essential — it provides a necessary balance to the intensity of compassion, it is a part of what allows our minds to stabilize and steady naturally in concentration, and it is a far more skillful dwelling place for the heart than envy or greed. During the talk on Friday and our daylong on Saturday, we will explore together some of the different forms of joy that can arise in our practice, why it might serve us (and others) to recognize and reflect on it more often, and specific ways we might cultivate this quality.