Boston Meditation Center

Date: Thursday, Jan 9
Time: 7:15-8:45pm
1120 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA

Weekly drop-in class: no registration required. 

This event is offered in the tradition of dana (Pali for giving or generosity): while there is no set cost of attending, we invite you to consider making a donation to support the teacher and The Boston Meditation Center.

Calm, Still, Quiet: Winter  Retreat
w/ Chris Crotty

Saturday, January 18

Retreat location: Insight Meditation Center Newburyport
Registration: Boston Meditation Center (BMC)

In winter, the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look of a more exalted simplicity.  – John Burroughs

Winter is a natural time for turning inward, while retreat provides an opportunity to focus attention on your meditation practice and contemplate the Buddha’s teachings. In this Retreat with Chris, the outer stillness of the natural world supports us in quieting our mind, and directly experiencing the calm and stillness of concentration. With a mind free from distraction, we use mindfulness (insight meditation) to investigate the path to peace taught by the Buddha and perfected during retreat practice for over 2500 years. Combining periods of sitting and walking meditation, with Dharma teachings, the Winter Retreat is held in noble silence.

This retreat is suitable for beginners and ongoing practitioners who wish to further their practice–meditation instruction and dharma teachings will accommodate all experience levels.   

Boston Meditation Center

Date: Thursday, Jan 23
Time: 7:15-8:45pm
1120 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA

Weekly drop-in class: no registration required. 

This event is offered in the tradition of dana (Pali for giving or generosity): while there is no set cost of attending, we invite you to consider making a donation to support the teacher and The Boston Meditation Center.

Chris will be on personal retreat in Myanmar from Feb 3-26. During this time he will not have any access to email or phone.

Being Still: Cultivating Insight for Wise Action

March 14, 2019
1:00-4:30pm
Registration: Boston Meditation Center
Event location: The Arlington Center (369 Mass Ave, Arlington, MA 02474)

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
Stillness does not mean inaction. Rather the stability of mind cultivated through meditation is a foundation for discernment. In this half-day retreat we will practice insight meditation through periods of sitting and walking meditation, first to reduce reactivity, then to investigate our own mind. With a clear mind we can see our own habits, patterns, and tendencies, and this allows insight to mature naturally. As our capacity to “see clearly” develops, wisdom grows and is evidenced in our wise response to all of life.

Beginners and ongoing students welcome and encouraged to attend.

Cultivating a Heart of Love: Ethics on the Buddhist Path
A residential practice and study retreat

April 2-5, 2020

Registration: Barre Center for Buddhist Studies

Course Description
The Buddha taught a path consisting of wisdom, ethics, and meditation. Though this three-fold sasana is a mutually supportive system, the tendency for ethics to be both pejorative and prescriptive is an issue for many practitioners today; the threat of being confined or something being taken away from us can conflict with our ideas of freedom. Instead, what if ethics was invitatory and developed to fortify our discernment? What if our approach to ethics supported us in using our whole life as a mirror to reinforce our capacity for reflection and establish a greater sense of agency? Building on the premise that the intention of ethics is to cultivate a heart of love and alleviate suffering, this course takes up both the problem and promise of ethics by refuting dogma and notions of restriction, while giving ethical practices a central role in our own self- awareness and liberation. In this way ethics encourages the development of insight, our own greatest potential, and the Buddhist ideal of freedom for all beings.

Learning Intentions
To integrate a study of ethics grounded in the suttas of the Pali cannon with silent meditation, reflection, and discussion; to replace a moralistic rendering of ethics with a personally meaningful ethical inquiry that supports the development of meditation and wisdom; to support students in applying ethical teachings and practices to the world we live in and the particulars of their own lives; to understand the individual and social dimension of ethics.

Loving-kindness Retreat 2020
with The Venerable Sayadaw U Indaka, Chris Crotty, May Myint Oo

Dates: June 7-12 (5 nights)

Location: Won Dharma Center, Claverack NY 

Registration: Boston Meditation Center

Program:
The practice of loving-kindness (mettā-bhāvana) includes sitting and walking meditation to cultivate a loving, friendly, and benevolent attitude towards all living beings. For over 2600 years, loving-kindness meditation has been practiced to ensure that good-will surpasses all forms of enmity and ill-will. The well-being of mettā is a natural support for the development of insight and wisdom.

In this unique retreat, participants will have the opportunity to be guided by

Burmese meditation master, The Venerable Sayadaw U Indaka, who is renowned in Burma as both a mettā and vipassanā teacher. He will be joined by Western teacher Chris Crotty and Burmese translator May Myint Oo.

This fifth annual retreat will take place at the beautiful and spacious Won Dharma Center in Claverack, NY, where nature will play an important and supportive role in our meditation practice. Beginners and experienced students welcomed and encouraged.

North Shore Center for Mindfulness & Insight Meditation

Date: Wednesday, TBD
Time: 7:00-8:15pm
72 Grapevine Rd, Wenham, MA 01984

Drop-in class: no registration required  

This event is offered in the tradition of dana (Pali for giving or generosity): while there is no set cost of attending, we invite you to consider making a donation to support the teacher and The Center for Mindfulness and Insight Meditation.