Weekend Retreat, via Zoom

Community Weekend Retreat: Taking Refuge in the Heart

Rebecca Bradshaw and Jean Esther with trellis stepter

Friday, January 28-Sunday, January 30
Friday:  7pm-8:45pm ET

Saturday:  9am-12:30pm; 2:30pm-6pm; 7:30pm-8pm ET
Sunday:  9am-1pm ET

The detailed retreat schedule is included on the registration page.

This retreat will take place via Zoom.

PLEASE join us in this quiet time of winter to make space for what lives in our hearts, and whatever sorrows and joys they may hold. Given our human condition and life circumstances we can often find ourselves ricocheting from agitated reactivity to overwhelm, numbness and despair in our emotional life.

Through the support of Sangha, sitting together in meditation, and drawing on teachings from the Buddha, we can begin to open to the vast space that lives between those polarities of reactivity and numbness. We can touch into a wise and tender compassionate aliveness that is our birthright and true home.

We look forward to spending this sacred time with you in community.

If you would like additional support in this retreat, we encourage you to buddy up with a sangha member or two, and following Covid precautions that feel appropriate, do the retreat together at one of your homes.

Dana distribution decided by teachers.

Suggested donation: $60-110 registration + teacher donation (we encourage you to consider giving teacher dana equal to or greater than what you gave for registration)*

Rebecca Bradshaw is a Guiding Teacher Emeritus of Insight WM, and one of the Guiding Teachers at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA. She has been practicing Vipassana meditation since 1983 in the United States and Myanmar (Burma) and teaching since 1993. She completed her dharma teacher training at Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, where she is part of the three month retreat teacher team and leads retreats for young adults. She also teaches at other locations in the United States and abroad, including a Spanish language retreat. Rebecca has a master's degree in Counseling Psychology, is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC), and works as a psychotherapist with meditators interested in supplementing their meditation practice with psychotherapeutic work. Her teaching explores the convergence of love and wisdom. For more information about Rebecca and her teaching schedule, you can visit her website at rebeccabradshaw.org.

Jean Esther, MSW began formal meditation training in 1975. She has been training in the Theravadan Buddhist tradition since 1982 with senior Western teachers as well as Burmese and Western Monastics. Since 2008, she has undertaken extensive teacher training in both Vipassana practice and non-dual awareness. Jean's dharma teaching is informed by over 36 years of practice as a psychotherapist integrating spiritual inquiry and somatic awareness with psychological understanding. For over 20 years, she trained with renowned Jungian analyst Marion Woodman, exploring the awakening of consciousness through the body, psyche and the arts. The wellspring and root of her work are the Buddha's teachings on love and wisdom. Jean is a Guiding Teacher of True North Insight in Ontario, Canada. A senior teacher at InsightPV, she also teaches at Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA, with IBME (Inward Bound Mindfulness Education) and across the US and Canada. In addition, she has a private psychotherapy practice in Northampton, MA.

trellis stepter (President of IWM Board of Directors; Teacher-in-Training)

*In keeping with the Buddhist tradition of dana (generosity), the suggested registration amounts for our classes and retreats do not include any payment for the teachers. The teachers are paid entirely out of the students' generosity. Please consider giving a donation to the teachers  in order to support their ability to continue to share the dharma. We encourage you to consider teacher dana equal to or greater than the amount you gave for registration. You may give teacher dana at the time of registration, during the retreat, or later. Everyone is welcome to all of our offerings regardless of ability to donate.

You can give online or send checks to Insight Western Mass, 116 Pleasant Street, Suite 242, Easthampton, MA 01027.

ZOOM LINK:  https://zoom.us/j/9431561684?pwd=YVQ1N1VzNWE3dGR4RERSZ1l3Zks0Zz09  

Dial in by phone for audio only: Call (646) 558-8656. Meeting ID: 943 156 1684. Password: 242.