The Elemental Nature of all Things, a Mindfulness Meditation Retreat on the 4 Primary Elements - Bob Stahl and Jan Landry

Mana Retreat Centre, Coromandel

 Bob is an Emeritus Guiding Teacher and Jan a Community Dharma Leader at Insight Santa Cruz, USA. They are also MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) Teachers, and big fans of Aotearoa! They are much loved Teachers and we are very fortunate to have this opportunity to sit with them.

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Requisites for the Journey: The Seven Factors of Awakening

Insight meditation harnesses the power of mindfulness to develop understanding in all aspects of our lives, which leads to greater ease, happiness, and freedom. In this nine-day residential retreat we will explore the Seven Factors of Awakening, those seven highly skilful qualities of mind that when fully balanced, support the development of transformative insight.

The Seven Factors are: Mindfulness, Investigation, Energy, Joy, Tranquility, Absorption and Equanimity. These seven are sometimes referred to as our friends on the path, because they help us to overcome the hindrances, harmful states of mind that keep us stuck in delusion.

Mindfulness is the starting point. With mindfulness firmly established, we learn how to balance the agitated, anxious mind through developing Tranquility, Absorption and Equanimity, and the flat, dull mind through developing Investigation, Energy and Joy.
As all Seven Factors come into balance, we experience the release of all afflictive states and the heart and mind naturally settle into a state of profound peace.
Each day will include a mix of guided and silent sitting meditation, walking meditation, optional mindful movement, occasional small group discussion and individual meetings with the teachers.

Prerequisites

This retreat is best suited to people who have done at least two silent retreats of seven days or longer. Please contact Jill if you have any questions about this.

Teachers: 

Jill Shepherd is the guiding teacher for Auckland Insight and is a graduate of the IMS / Spirit Rock teacher training program in the US, under the guidance of Joseph Goldstein and Gil Fronsdal. She lives in Aotearoa / New Zealand and teaches internationally, offering insight / vipassanā and brahmavihāra retreats as well as ongoing study and practice groups focused on bringing the dharma into daily life. She also leads courses and non-residential workshops exploring the relational practice of Insight Dialogue, as developed by Gregory Kramer and colleagues.

Di Robertson has 30 years’ experience in insight meditation. She has taught courses since 2000, and retreats since 2015. She lives in Ōtautahi / Christchurch and is a co-founder and trustee of Southern Insight Meditation. Di also works as an ecologist and counsellor and is a stepparent and grandparent.

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Cultivating Balance, Finding Freedom

This seven-day retreat focuses on developing the protective qualities of equanimity and non-reactive awareness in our hearts and minds. By resting the mind so that it doesn’t fall into extremes, we experience the strength of inner balance and clarity. This supports us to maintain continuity of awareness through all activities, calming and steadying the heart-mind, thereby gaining compassion and insight into how we can live our lives with more ease, peace, and freedom.

Senior insight meditation teacher Kamala Masters will be joining us online from Maui, supported by local teacher Jill Shepherd onsite at Te Moata.

Over the course of the retreat, we will explore a variety of meditation practices, including the Four Establishments of Mindfulness that orient us to deep freedom, and the four Brahmavihāra practices of kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity that open the heart and mind.

Each day will include a mix of guided and silent sitting meditation, walking meditation, optional mindful movement, individual meetings with the teachers and occasional small group discussion.

Experience level: This retreat is best suited to people who have done at least one previous residential insight meditation retreat of two days or longer. Please contact the organisers if you have any questions about this.

Teachers: Kamala Masters (online) and Jill Shepherd (onsite)

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The Heart’s Release: Cultivating the Spiritual Faculties
In Buddhist practice, confidence, energy, mindfulness, collectedness and insight are cultivated together as the five spiritual faculties (Indriya). These qualities exist naturally in the mind and have both a linear and dynamic interplay. By developing them in meditation practice, we more clearly understand what needs balancing in both our meditation and overall spiritual cultivation.

When all five faculties are brought to fulfilment they overflow in the heart’s release. A heart released from suffering and its causes has an embodied realisation of Nibbāna: freedom from the stress inherent in misunderstanding the world.

In this retreat, we will encourage you to develop an attuned approach to your meditation and to on-going experience – just as it is. This generates a safe holding for practice in an ethically sensitive environment. Noble silence will be a support to quieten the mind and deepen the enquiry.

Reflections on the Buddha’s teachings, Q&A sessions, individual practice meetings with the teachers and optional mindful movement will be offered each day.

The schedule will include structured periods of sitting and walking meditation, as well as the opportunity for less structured practice for more experienced practitioners.

There will also be some opportunities for relational practice in pairs or small groups, to support our sangha / community connections.

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Moving from Anxiety towards Equanimity … and from Fear towards Fearlessness

The Four Noble Truths that form the heart of the Buddha’s teaching invite us to examine our relationship to dukkha: stress, distress, unsatisfactoriness, suffering. Most of us though, have an instinctive resistance to suffering, so we need to practice working skilfully with the different levels of anxiety and fear that often show up in our lives and along the path to freedom. As we learn how to release ourselves from the confines of these afflictive states, we’re able to live with greater ease, happiness, and peace, and to connect with the wisdom and compassion that are our true nature.

Course Structure

Each two-hour class will include a short dharma talk, some silent meditation practice, dyad (pairs) practice, and small group discussion.

During the six weeks of the course, you’re invited to maintain a regular sitting practice and keep a practice journal. There will also be some written contemplations to engage with at home each week, to be posted on an online discussion board in support of our group learning.

Time Commitment

Approximately three hours per week: the two-hour class plus an hour for written reflections.

Topics Covered may Include…

• An overview of the Four Noble Truths and the context of anxiety and fear in the Buddha’s teachings

• The Four Heavenly Messengers of ageing, illness, death, and the contemplative

• Social anxiety, comparing mind, and the tyranny of the inner critic

• Anxiety and fear in relation to progress along the path to freedom

• The four brahmavihāra practices of kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity as antidotes to all afflictive states

• Insight into the three universal characteristics of unsatisfactoriness, impermanence and not-self as supports for releasing anxiety and fear

Pre-requisites

This course is best suited to people who have an established meditation practice, have sat at least one seven-day silent insight/vipassanā retreat, and have some familiarity with core Buddhist teachings such as the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, and the Four Establishments of Mindfulness. Feel free to contact Jill if you have any questions about this.

Teacher

Jill Shepherd is the guiding teacher of Auckland Insight and trained to become an insight meditation teacher under the guidance of Joseph Goldstein and Gil Fronsdal in the US.

Time and dates - Auckland
Six consecutive Saturday mornings 10:00 am - 12:00 noon, Saturday 2 November - Saturday 7 December 2024

Location: Directions Healing Centre, rear studio at 12 Horopito St, Mount Eden Auckland 1024

NOTE: for those outside Auckland, there is also an online version of this course that will be run simultaneously. You can register for that here

Cost:

Cost for all six sessions: $120 or $80 for people experiencing financial stress, plus dāna / donation* 

*The cost of the course covers only the venue hire and a contribution towards administration expenses.
In keeping with Buddhist tradition, the teachings are offered on a donation basis which means the teachers are not paid to offer these classes. Instead, they rely on the generosity of the participants to help them continue to share their teachings with others, and there will be an opportunity at the end of each class to offer donations to support their ongoing teaching.

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Discover the transformative power of insight meditation in this comprehensive six-week course, led by two highly-experienced meditation teachers, Jill Shepherd and Sue Dykes.

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Insight meditation uses mindfulness to develop more steadiness and calm, so that we can clearly see some of the common thought-patterns that create stress and distress, and learn how to help those patterns release. As a result of that deeper self-understanding, we're able to live with more ease, happiness and peace.

Over six consecutive Wednesday evening meetings, we will explore some of the key techniques of insight meditation.
Topics covered will include:

• Mindfulness of the body, including sitting postures and walking meditation

• Mindfulness of thoughts and emotions, including methods to reduce afflictive thought patterns and strengthen beneficial ones

• Mindfulness in daily life, including mindful speaking and listening

• Practices for cultivating kindness, compassion and self-compassion

Each evening will include a guided meditation, a short talk and time for group discussion. 

The course is suitable for complete beginners, as well as those with some previous meditation experience.

Please wear loose, comfortable clothing and bring thick socks and a shawl or blanket.
Chairs will be provided but if you prefer to sit on the floor, please bring a yoga mat or an old blanket and some cushions to sit on.

Although insight meditation comes from the Buddhist tradition, these practices are suitable for people of all backgrounds and this course is a secular offering with no religious aspects.

NOTE: Because this is a group learning process, participants are asked to make a commitment to attend all six sessions of the course, and to allow at least one hour a week for personal meditation practice.
Feel free to contact Jill if you have any questions.

Teachers: 

Jill Shepherd Jill is the guiding teacher of Auckland Insight and trained to become an insight meditation teacher under the guidance of Joseph Goldstein and Gil Fronsdal
Sue Dykes is a Clinical Psychologist and the former Director of Mindfulness Auckland, where she taught MBSR and MBCT courses, retreat days and drop-in practice groups. She practices in the Insight Meditation tradition, regularly attending silent retreats as well as local practice sessions.

Cost: 

Cost for all six sessions: $60 plus donation* or for people experiencing financial stress, $30 plus donation* 

Times and dates: 

Wednesday evenings 7:00-8:30 pm 24 July - 28 August 2024

click here for booking and further information

*The cost of the course covers only the venue hire and administration expenses
In keeping with Buddhist tradition, the teachings are offered on a donation basis which means the teachers are not paid to offer these classes. Instead, they rely on the generosity of the participants to help them continue to share their teachings with others, and there will be an opportunity at the end of each class to offer donations to support their ongoing teaching.

A nine-day retreat weaving together silent and relational insight meditation with some Zen practices

Click here to watch a short video of Nic talking to Jill about this upcoming retreat

This retreat offers a rare opportunity to explore a range of different approaches to finding freedom, taken from both the insight and Zen traditions offered by Auckland Insight guiding teacher Jill Shepherd and visiting US Insight Dialogue teacher Nicola Redfern.

We will use a variety of practice modes to explore one of the key obstacles to finding freedom: clinging to views. These different approaches can help to illuminate how views form and inform every aspect of our lives, including our understanding of ourselves and the world. We will look at some of the different views of views within Buddhism, including Right View as the foundation of the Noble Eightfold Path; the “fetter” of sakkāya-diṭṭhi or self-view; and Nibbāna as the transcending of all views.

The retreat will include daily instruction in insight meditation each morning. Each afternoon, there will be a two-hour session of relational practice. This involves meditating together in pairs or small groups practising mindful speaking and listening, using the six guidelines of Insight Dialogue to support deep inquiry into the dharma, the Buddha's teachings.

For more information about the practice of Insight Dialogue, please see

https://insightdialogue.org/relational-practices/insight-dialogue/

Experience level: This retreat is best suited to people who have done at least one previous residential insight meditation retreat of two days or longer, but prior Insight Dialogue experience is not required.

Teachers: Nicola Redfern and Jill Shepherd 

If you're interested in joining us, please register soon because previous retreats have filled quickly.
More information and to register: here

-Jill Shepherd, Willa Reid and Elizabeth Day

After a break in 2023, we're happy to announce that we'll be offering another five-day study and practice retreat in Auckland in February 2024.

Cause and Effect: Exploring self-constructing as process 
Rather than being understood as a fixed identity (self view) our experience can be properly seen as a process. We draw on the Buddha’s teachings to investigate how grasping at self view leads to suffering (dukkha) and how letting go leads to freedom (vimutti).

If you're interested in joining us, please register soon because previous retreats have filled quickly.
More information and to register: here

An Insight Meditation Retreat with Jeremy Logan and Roger Wilde

12 - 17 September at Wangapeka Retreat Centre

In these unprecedented times of radical change and uncertainty, a new world is being born.  Courage and compassionate presence strengthens us to face into the chaos and not turn away.  With wisdom and determination, we can move forward together to create a world based on justice, kindness, and shared resources, rather than on greed, hatred and delusion.

Further information and registration here

UPDATE 11 JULY - due to a cancellation we now have 2 spaces available - be in quick
RETREAT IS FULLY BOOKED - please apply to be on the waiting list
Location: Te Moata, Tairua, Coromandel
Teachers: Jill Shepherd, Willa Thaniya Reid and Elizabeth Day (part)
Join waiting list details: here

-with Jill Shepherd, Willa Reid and Elizabeth Day

Part 3 Understanding the Citta (Heart/Mind) is scheduled for Saturday 12 August
Registration for part 3 is now open here

Part 4 is scheduled for Sunday 17 December- save the date!

This online retreat offers an opportunity to strengthen our natural resilience and capacity to meet life's challenges with more steadiness, ease, and even appreciation. We will meet together throughout the weekend to explore the four brahmavihāra practices of kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity, to directly experience the possibility of a balanced heart - no matter what our current life circumstances might be. Each day, there will be teaching sessions that everyone is asked to attend. Outside those required sessions, you are encouraged to follow the retreat schedule of formal meditation practice to whatever extent you’re able, within your current life context.

Jill will be teaching an online retreat for IMS in the US on the weekend of 30 June to July 2. Although the time zone difference makes it hard to attend the sessions live, the recordings will be uploaded shortly after each session so you can follow along at your own convenience.

The IMS manager for that retreat has offered to reduce the registration fees for anyone in the Auckland Insight community who's interested in attending. There is a scholarship rate of US150, or you can request a "no-fee waiver", no questions asked, by emailing imsonline@dharma.org 
Here is a two minute intro talk to the brahmavihara theme of that retreat.
We hope you can join us!

Date: 30 June to 2 July
To register: Click here

An invitation from Wellington Insight Meditation sangha

Many Buddhist practitioners will regularly ask themselves how to respond to the deepening climate emergency. As illustrated by Cyclone Gabrielle in New Zealand and massive fires, storms and floodings around the world, nowadays anyone can be directly affected. How not to lose oneself in deep grief? How to balance concern and distress with a sense of personal wellbeing? What does Right Action look like in this context?

Date: 29 April, 27 May and 24 June
For more info and to register: Click here

Online course with guiding teacher Jill Shepherd

This four-week online course will explore what the Buddha was pointing to when he stated that experience is impermanent (aniccā), unsatisfactory (dukkha), and not-self (anattā). Focusing mostly on anattā, we will approach this key teaching in a variety of ways, to help understand how it leads to greater ease, happiness, and freedom in our lives.

Dates: Saturdays or Sundays, February 25 - March 19
More info and to register: here

Healing the Heart, Refining the Mind, Finding Freedom

In the Buddha’s teaching, going on retreat can be understood as a powerful form of “taking refuge,” by temporarily withdrawing from our external responsibilities to tend to our inner life.

The peaceful natural environment of Te Moata supports deep rest and renewal, which in turn, supports the strengthening of our inner resources, our connection with sangha/community and our capacity to live with more ease and freedom in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in.

Over the course of nine days, we will explore a variety of foundational Buddhist practices, including the Four Establishments of Mindfulness that orient us to deep freedom, the four Brahmavihāra practices of kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity that open the heart and mind, and some relational practice meditating together in pairs or small groups, to strengthen our sense of sangha/community.

Each day will include a mix of guided and silent sitting meditation, walking meditation, optional mindful movement, small group discussion and individual meetings with the teachers.

Teachers: Jill Shepherd and Diana Robertson

click here for further details and registration