Body Awareness Retreat, Spirit Rock Meditation Center

The cultivation of awareness in the body, which the Buddha taught as the first foundation of mindfulness, opens the doorway to wisdom and compassion. In this retreat, we explore the body through sitting and walking meditation and guided movement classes. We investigate how the body can be a portal to skillfully working with difficult emotions. We concentrate on developing mindfulness of the body in order to be more comfortable in and knowledgeable about our bodies. And we work with body awareness to make sitting more focused and enjoyable and as a means to strengthen insight.

Practicing mindfulness of the body allows us to become more sensitized to the subtleties of our physical sensations and we can become aware of various energetic experiences. Guidance will be offered on how to work with them. From the perspective of dharma practice, the body can be a great source of insight into how we cling and sometimes act as our own worst enemy.

Guided meditations will include instructions in body sweeping and investigation of the nature of sensations. There will be two guided movement meditation sessions each day, dharma talks and meetings with the teachers. Both new and seasoned meditators are welcome.

This retreat will be held in noble silence, with opportunities for small group interviews with the teachers, dharma talks and instructions in both Insight Meditation (Vipassana) and qigong. Two qigong sessions will be offered each day. This retreat is open to both new and experienced students.