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Weekend Retreat with Nick Scott, Brian Hickey, and Bridie Hogan [Online Event]
February 5 @ 7:45 pm - February 7 @ 3:30 pm
On-Line Manager: Siddhi
The retreat is available on line via Zoom, with an on-line manager to look after everyone and with the teachers available for on-line interviews. We are using Zoom conferencing software which is free to you. You can take part using a computer (with a camera), laptop or smart phone over the internet. The links are given below.
The retreat is suitable both for people new to meditation and those with experience.
Retreat Description:
This is an opportunity for serious practice in these unusual and challenging times. We will use meditation and yoga and breath movement exercises to relax into the present and accept how things are so that we can go on to use this opportunity to understand how these enforced changes have affected us and insights they can reveal.
Vipassana is the quality of inquiry, or insight. Along with mindfulness, Sati, it is the basis of Buddhist meditation practice. Neither are techniques, rather they are attitudes we can develop through meditation which will steadily free us of any burdens we carry and our personal reactivity, so that we are able to develop wisdom and serenity. This retreat is an opportunity to apply this approach to the present situation, and in our own personal space. Vipassana does not require the perfect environment, so the extra difficulty of being surrounded at home by so much that is ‘me and mine’ and with the disturbances we encounter every day, will help us to extend our capacity to be at ease. We will use mindfulness, both with sitting and movement exercises, and loving kindness, Metta, to establish a degree of calm centredness, Samadhi, so that we can start to explore those of the Buddha’s Vipassana teachings particularly relevant to what we are now facing.
The retreat will be run under the Buddhist Eight Precepts and Noble Silence. See: https://www.amaravati.org/retreat-centre/coming-on-retreat/
As part of this, we will ask you to not use your mobile phone, lap top, or computer for anything other than the retreat and you should keep noble silence at home. You will have to refrain from an evening meal on the Saturday (unless you have a medical condition which prevents this).
Start: 7.45pm Friday. End: 5.00pm Sunday.
For those residential, check in will be from 6pm with soup available.
To attend you simply need to log in using the link below on the Friday evening, at that meeting you will be given the password for the Saturday and Sunday. Please also fill out our REGISTRATION FORM
Retreat Schedule
Friday
7.30 pm welcome and introduction to the internet aspects. (Join earlier if you need help making Zoom work for you – link live from 7.00pm).
7.45 – 9.30 pm Retreat introduction, opportunity to meet fellow retreat-ants, discussion on how to use the retreat format. Then the retreat starts with taking the refuges and precepts and committing to noble silence. We end with a short guidedmeditation sitting.
Saturday
6.45 – 7.30 am Puja and Meditation sitting.
7.30 – 8.00 am Breath and movement work
Breakfast break
9.30 – 12.30 am Meditation with instruction and discussion.
Lunch Break
2.30 – 5.30 pm Meditation with instruction and discussion.
Tea then
6.10 – 7.20 pm Yoga. (optional)
7.30 – 9.00 pm Puja, meditation, short Dhamma talk
Sunday
6.45 – 7.45 am Puja and Meditation sitting.
7.30 – 8.00 am Yoga or Breath and movement
Breakfast break
9.30 – 12.30 am Meditation with instruction and discussion.
Lunch Break
2.00 – 3.30pm Break out groups to discuss the retreat, closing ceremony
For the Friday evening. The Zoom meeting ID is 661 267 172 and the password 307020
This is the full one click link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/661267172?pwd=SE5TY2pvOHM2UHkyWVdjZFR5VGJ3Zz09
For the Saturday and Sunday; The Zoom meeting ID is 637 900 350 and password will be given out on the Friday evening meeting
Please read and follow our Best Practice for Online Retreats.
Nick Scott has been teaching short and long retreats for 25 years with the endorsement of senior monks in the Thai Forest tradition. His teaching is wise and humorous, and illustrated with personal stories and insights from 45 years of meditation, including long solitary retreats and residing for 10 years at Chithurst Buddhist Monastery, in England. He is the author of several Buddhist travel books recounting adventures with Buddhist monks. These can be downloaded for free at: www.nickscottbooks.com
Nick lives with his partner, Micheline Sheehy Skeffington, near Clarinbridge, Co Galway
Brian Hickey is a physical therapist and Foundation Training instructor who has a love of the human body. He has been practicing meditation for over 15 years, attended numerous retreats and stayed in Chithurst Buddhist Monastery for the three month winter retreat. He will combine teaching meditation with the use of breath work and foundation training to improve posture.
Bridie Hogan has been teaching Satyananda yoga for over 20 years, both as regular classes and as a support to cancer patients at Cancer Care West. She is also a Black Belt, second Dan, in Karate, and has been attending Buddhist meditation retreats since the early 1990’s.