These longer retreats offer complete immersion in a deeply restorative atmosphere. With your mind calm, you’ll draw the greatest benefit from the week and take your practice deeper.
Though weeklong retreats are our most intensive programs, their schedule allows plenty of time each day for reflection, alone or in the company of like-minded people, and for trying out the changes you’d like to make.
“The weeklong retreats help me make breakthroughs in my practice – to identify a blind spot, tackle a long-standing habit, establish what I need to work on next. The company of other dedicated meditators refreshes my heart and soul, and reminds me of the deep joy and security that comes with a practice that is sustained, systematic, and sincere.”
Weeklong Retreat Theme:
“Finding Equanimity: Entering into Joy”
What do the great mystics mean by equanimity? How would that look and feel for us today? How can we deepen our passage meditation practice to develop the even-mindedness that leads – eventually – to lasting joy?
This retreat explores the three levels of equanimity described in Easwaran’s book Love Never Faileth, in his commentary on St. Augustine’s passage “Entering into Joy”:
Outer equanimity: Finding calmness in the midst of the physical “tumult of the body”: the chatter of the media, responsibilities to family and work, concerns about financial security, etc.
Inner equanimity: Using our passage meditation program to establish a calm center within ourselves and quell all the “busy thoughts about earth, sea and air:” the troubling memories, irritations, resentments, anxieties, petty desires, and cravings.
Becoming peace itself: Exploring what Augustine could mean when he says that “the mind ceases thinking about itself, and becomes quite still”. Towards the end of the retreat we will look at Easwaran’s ideal of “becoming peace itself,” which we can keep before us as we work to stay calm in the midst of life’s outer and inner turbulence.
“All of us can be much healthier than we are, much more secure. Most of us can live much longer than we expect to, and work more actively right into the evening of our life. Even in our nineties we can be productive, creative, cherished, and respected, because our life has become a shining gift. The time to cultivate the habits of living that make all this possible is now.” – Eknath Easwaran
Hear Eknath Easwaran reading Augustine’s passage “Entering into Joy”
Order a copy of Easwaran’s Love Never Faileth at a special price available from April 1, 2009.
Read an extract from the chapter we will be studying
See a video clip of the talk by Easwaran that we will be watching at this retreat
