with Tara Brach, Jonathan Foust, La Sarmiento, Anam Thubten Rinpoche, and Kate Johnson
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 27-SATURDAY, JANUARY 2
This year has been tough on all of us. The pandemic has affected everything in our lives – our work, our routines, our health, and our families. Wouldn’t it be good to have a space where we can go to breathe again – to feel quiet and spacious and free? That will allow us to feel all that is in the moment – both the grief and the small joys? That is what IMCW has created for our 2020 New Year’s Retreat. The end of the year is a perfect time to reflect and to breathe and to prepare for the coming year.
Tara Brach tells us:
The purpose of a retreat is to follow a formal rhythm of practice that allows you to center yourself, tend your body, quiet your mind, see the present circumstances with clarity and freedom, and open your heart. It will take some dedication to do this, and we will show you how to set it up. By choosing to let go of the usual habits of distraction, online time, unnecessary busyness and tasks that can wait, you can make this a beneficial and healing time.
Though initially a home retreat may feel unfamiliar or hard, you will gradually find yourself settling in and feeling grateful for the rewards. Now is the perfect time to draw on the inner strength of meditation and deepen your capacity to live amidst it all with awareness and compassion. (Creating a Home Retreat: Finding Freedom Wherever You Are, March 2020)
For this year’s New Year’s Retreat, IMCW has created a new way to hold stillness and peace at home with the support of our skilled teachers, Tara Brach, Jonathan Foust, La Sarmiento, Anam Thubten Rinpoche, and Kate Johnson.
In this retreat, we will open our hearts and minds through practices of Vipassana meditation, guided heart practices, mindful movement, and dharma talks. The retreat is considered silent, but there will also be one-on-one interviews with a teacher, and three group meetings with a teacher.
We warmly invite you to join us this December as we welcome in the New Year, centering ourselves with compassion and with hope for a world where all beings can be held in the heart of lovingkindness.
