Weekly group meditation, based on a key mediation practice taught by Gotama Buddha in the Pali suttas. Discussion follows each sitting. Some instruction available for the beginner who is encouraged to eventually work with an established Vipassana teacher in a retreat setting. Meditation begins promptly each Thursday at 7 p.m. and ends about 8:30 p.m.

Vipassana meditation aims to help us develop true, living insight into the root nature of the self and its world. It is described as a way of "self-transformation through self-observation."

The focus is on bodily sensations and what they reveal to us about the connections between the mind and body, and especially the ways in which this interconnection conditions the life of the mind.

Another meditation practice, "loving-kindness," or metta practice, is incorporated into each sitting.

Through Vipassana practice one comes to see how we produce our own suffering and the possibility for ending that suffering through the liberation that naturally results from greater awareness.

Simple. But not always easy.

"The Buddha says that the Dhamma, the ultimate truth of things, is directly visible, timeless, calling out to be approached and seen. He says further that it is always available to us, and that the place where it is to be realized is within oneself. The ultimate truth ... is not something mysterious and remote, but the truth of our own experience. It can be reached only by understanding our experience, by penetrating it right through to its foundations."

--Bhikku Bodhi, p. 73, "The Noble Eightfold Path Way to the End of Suffering."

For more information contact John at 321-6490.