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The Four Great Endeavors: Online Householder Retreat

Online Program
Dates: Jun 09, 2024 - Jun 15, 2024

Instructor(s): Susan Morgan and Bill Morgan

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Program Description:
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For many of us, bringing mindfulness into our daily lives is a significant challenge. Even when we get a taste of clarity while on retreat, our insight and resolve tend to weaken in the busyness of our multi-tasking lives.

This freely offered, pay what you can “bookend” retreat is specifically designed to address this disheartening practice dilemma. It is an ideal context in which to integrate a meaningful meditation practice into the flow of our everyday lives. 

Alone together in our own and shared worlds we will learn how to frame the day and intersperse moments of mindfulness practice throughout, in real time and in good company with others. 

The Buddha offered a range of meditation approaches to deal with ever-changing conditions and unpredictable worldly winds. How can meditation practice be of support during this precarious time, with fear and anxiety and uncertainty running high?

Together, we will explore compassion practices and the four endeavors or exertions, which emphasize cultivating wholesome states and letting go of unwholesome states of mind. It may be of benefit to move these practices to center stage at this challenging time!

Over one full week, two practice periods bookend each day, in the morning and in the evening, with a block of practice on each weekend day. This leaves the weekday afternoons as a time to attend to the activities and commitments of a normal week.

Participants are encouraged to attend as many sessions as possible. This strengthens the continuity of your own practice and the sense of togetherness as a community.

Please join us for this unique offering!


Online Schedule:
This program is hosted on Zoom and closed captions are available. You can check the time of the group sessions in your timezone here: https://www.worldtimebuddy.com. The schedule of Zoom meetings for this program (shown in US Eastern Time) is as follows:

Sunday, June 9

7:00 - 9:00 pm Opening Talk and Meditation; Sitting, Standing, Walking

Monday, June 10 - Friday, June 14

10:30 - 11:15 am Guided Meditation (the online BCBS Daily Sit)

11:15 - 11:45 am Group Discussion & Instruction

7:00 - 8:30 pm Meditation and Daily Wrap-Up

Saturday, June 15

10:30 - 1:00 pm Meditation, Closing Discussion 


Please note that sessions will not be recorded.

Cancellation Policy:
There are no cancellation fees for donation-based programs.

DEI:
As we work to become a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive community, we invite feedback/suggestions you may have regarding ways that we can make participation in the program more accessible and welcoming. Please email us at contact@buddhistinquiry.org.
    About the Instructor(s):
  • Susan Morgan, CNS, is a psychotherapist in Cambridge, MA. She is a board and faculty member of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy and contributing author to Mindfulness and Psychotherapy. Susan has a longstanding meditation practice and recently completed a four-year meditation retreat at the Forest Refuge. She has been leading retreats, primarily for caregivers, for the last 15 years. Lovingkindness and mindfulness of the body are integral to her teaching.

  • Bill Morgan, Psy.D., is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Cambridge, MA. He has participated in many intensive retreats in meditation practice over the past 40 years and recently completed a four-year meditation retreat at the Forest Refuge in Barre, MA. Together with Susan Morgan, he has been leading mindfulness retreats for 15 years.