THE BENEFITS OF RETREAT
By Lama Liza
As the academic year comes to a close, many of us are beginning to turn our minds to our plans for the summer. I am grateful to have the opportunity to spend a few weeks at the first three-year retreat center built in North America on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, Canada. While three-year retreats are no longer occurring here, it is a very special place with many retreat cabins and practitioners coming from around the region for individual and group retreats. I will be there to help as I can and also to have retreat time myself.
In the busyness of our daily lives, we have many opportunities to practice meditation in action. However it’s also important to take time to set aside our many responsibilities and turn our minds fully towards our meditation practice. Not only is this nourishing for our nervous system and overall well-being, it allows time and space for the activity of our mind to settle. As our mind settles, we are able to become more familiar with awareness, notice more clearly our habituated patterns, and discover the subtle ways we can let go of our stories and thought patterns and rest within our inherent well-being that is actually here all the time.
I wish you all a wonderful summer, and I hope you will also give yourself a few days of retreat this summer. You can plan a day with three or four sessions, each one to two hours in length. Begin with refuge and bodhicitta, and conclude with dedication prayers. It can be nice to read a page or two from an inspiring teacher, but also take time to set down all materials and just be there with your practice. Make friends with your mind and experience.
May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May we be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May we never be apart from the supreme happiness that is free of suffering.
May we come to rest in equanimity, free from attachment, aversion, and prejudice.
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This summer, Lama Liza will lead a 6-week drop-in by-donation series on Embracing Challenge as the Path of Awakening on Tuesday evenings from August 9 to September 13.
She also will be co-leading a Tonglen Retreat August 12-13 at KCC’s urban center in Portland, Oregon with her longtime friend Tim Campbell. KCC is the center that facilitated Lama Liza’s three-year retreat, and she is very glad to practice tonglen together with them. Also available via Zoom. Stay tuned for more information.