Fall 10 day retreat Menla Institute, Phoenecia NY
October 18-28, 2012
Please join Sarah and Ty Powers and Gregory Kramer for this 10 day silent yoga, meditation and insight dialogue retreat at Menla
With the exception of the dialogue work we do in Gregory Kramer's class, this retreat will be held in social silence.
Why retreat?
In removing ourselves from our familiar surroundings and busy schedules, retreats afford us the opportunity to see accumulated habits of distraction which build an internal wall between ourselves and our experience. Perpetuated by externalized consciousness, these unconscious patterns of unaware living shield us from the inherent simple joy of our true nature, our uncontrived naturalness. Sufis call this primordial aspect our Hidden Essence, Hindus say the Self or Brahman, Buddhists refer to this as our buddha nature, and others say inner spirit or God. Devoted dedication to a yogic path of awareness uncovers this inner nature, while teaching us about the suffering inherent in our perceived (not actual) disconnection from wholeness. In inner silence and stillness we may glimpse a truth larger than our self definitions allow.
Cost: double $2900 ($2650 if paid in full by June 18, 2012)
$500 deposit towards this course
Balance towards this course
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Gregory Kramer
Insight Dialogue: A direct experience of the Relational Dharma
We work and live in relationship. Our personality and our brains take form in relationship, and our stickiest problems are with other people. We long for community and intimacy just as we long for freedom from hunger and ignorance. And yet our meditation practice, that exquisite kernel of our spiritual lives, is mostly a solitary affair.
At this retreat we will meditate with each other. Not side by side and separate, but fully engaged and truly meditating. We will cultivate mindfulness, calm concentration, inquiry, energy, and other meditative qualities, interweaving Insight Dialogue, silent meditation, and lovingkindness. This is a chance to engage firsthand with the relational foundation of our humanity, where selflessness and relationship are, finally, not in conflict.
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Sarah Powers
Insight Yoga
Sarah’s classes are intended to deepen one’s understanding of the experiential, philosophical and practical application of yoga and buddhist meditation. The physical discipline of Hatha yoga centers on the harmonious embodiment of postures. How we practice these postures (our state of mind) is as important as which asana we choose and how we orchestrate them. Sarah will explore and refine your understanding of how to bring these passive and active yogic shapes alive within you. Her classes will focus on the combination of inner (breath, energy channels and mind training) and outer (cohesion within the bones and muscles) alignment, as well as the focus on bringing one’s full attention to the Hara, or earth center in the belly during postures. Her classes will combine both Yin yoga postures, practiced safely and effectively to enhance organ health, with strong yang postures. She will also include teachings on the subtle body anatomy according to Yogic and Chinese philosophy, Pranayama is the expansion of the life force through breath regulation. It is the profound practice of circulating and redistributing prana in both the physical and subtle body through various breathing and visualization. Sarah will include these methods both in the asana practice, as well as a separate sitting practice.
Sarah feels the essence of a committed yoga practice is meditative focus and awareness. Developing and sustaining a formal meditation practice can be a continual source of insight, rejuvenation and compassion. It is a practice that can reveal and disempower our destructive, fragmented aspects while potentially revealing our essential nature. Meditation can also deepen one’s awareness and acceptance of oneself and of the world, deepening one’s openness and wakefulness. Sarah will focus on Shamatha (calm abidance) and Vipassana (Insight) during her classes.
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Ty Powers
Shamatha and Vipassana
Ty Powers
Shamatha and Vipassana
Ty will be teaching shamatha and insight meditation mornings and most evenings. Shamatha, which means 'calm abiding', requires us to pay close attention to the present moment, the 'issue at hand'. This leaves us in a very open and aware state of being, which can then give rise to insights about how and why we approach our moments as we do.
Knowing what we are doing each moment allows us to respond rather than react to what arises in our experience.
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