Course

In this time of global crisis, we need ways to steady our hearts, practices to strengthen our courage, compassion, tenderness and care. Join together with the hearts and spirit of people in China and the West for this special free retreat. We will share powerful practices of mindfulness and compassion, of self care and ways to foster inner and outer peace.
 

The pandemic has shown us how closely the world is connected in vulnerability and creativity in responding to this tragedy. We also need to cultivate our connection in love and wisdom for the sake of our interdependent future.

In Bringing Worlds Together, we will strengthen this connection, creating a healthy, wise and compassionate partnership in China and the West. Master teachers Jack Kornfield, Trudy Goodman and Teja Bell will offer guidance in practices of mindful loving awareness, wisdom, compassion and mindful movement, beautiful ways to bring us together and trainings to enhance our well-being. The retreat will include teachings, guided and silent meditations, mindful movement, compassion and lovingkindness, and questions and answers in dialogue with the teachers.
 

Bringing Worlds Together is offered freely, both for those who have an established meditation practice and happily welcoming those who are new to meditation as well.
 

Please join us in Bringing Worlds Together.

4:00 p.m. – Welcome and Introduction

4:15 p.m. – Overview of Mindfulness and Guided Meditation: Body, Heart and Mind

4:40 p.m. – Guiding Integrating Embodied Mindfulness

5:05 p.m. – Compassion and Befriending Oneself + Guided Meditation: Concentration Practices to Cultivate Wise Love

5:30 p.m. – Mindful Walking

5:40 p.m. – Finding the End of Suffering + Guided Meditation: Breath, Calm, Steady

6:05 p.m. – Break

6:45 p.m. – Teachers answer frequently asked questions

7:15 p.m. – Guiding Integrating Embodied Mindfulness

7:40 p.m. – Stepping Back: Life in the Unknown + Guided Meditation

8:05 p.m. – Mindful Walking

8:15 p.m. – "The Awakened Heart" + Guided Meditation

8:40 p.m. – Trusting Inner Guidance and Deepening Awareness

8:50 p.m. – Mindful Response/Intention + Vow

9:00 p.m. – Closing and Dedication of Merit and Metta Blessing

Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India and Burma. He has taught meditation internationally since 1974 and is one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. After graduating from Dartmouth College in Asian Studies in 1967 he joined the Peace Corps and worked on tropical medicine teams in the Mekong River valley. He met and studied as a monk under the Buddhist master Ven. Ajahn Chah, as well as the Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw of Burma. Returning to the United States, Jack co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, with fellow meditation teachers Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein and the Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California. Over the years, Jack has taught in centers and universities worldwide, led International Buddhist Teacher meetings, and worked with many of the great teachers of our time. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is a father, husband and activist.

His books have been translated into 20 languages and sold more than a million copies. They include, A Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology, A Path with Heart; After the Ecstasy, the Laundry; Teachings of the Buddha; Seeking the Heart of Wisdom; Living Dharma; A Still Forest Pool; Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart; Buddha’s Little Instruction Book; The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness and Peace; Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are; and his most recent book, No Time Like the Present: Finding Freedom, Love, and Joy Right Where You Are.

Trudy Goodman Kornfield, Ph.D., is a vipassana teacher in the Theravada lineage and the Founding Teacher of InsightLA, whose locations across the city are the leading centers in Los Angeles for secular mindfulness education and Buddhist meditation training. She teaches residential retreats at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, CA, Big Bear Retreat Center, and Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA, and worldwide.

Trudy has trained in two fields: meditation and psychotherapy. She had the privilege of studying developmental psychology with the world-famous Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, and Carol Gilligan. For 25 years, Trudy practiced mindfulness-based psychotherapy with children, teenagers, couples and individuals in Cambridge, MA. The fourth teacher ever of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Trudy taught with its creator, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn in the early days of the MBSR clinic at University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester. In 1995 she co-founded, and continues to serve as Guiding Teacher for the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy, the first center in the world dedicated to integrating these two disciplines.

Since 1974, Trudy devoted much of her life to practicing Buddhist meditation with some the most revered Asian and Western teachers in the Chan and Insight meditation traditions. From 1991 to 1998, Trudy was a resident lay Chan teacher at the Cambridge Buddhist Association. For the last 18 years in California, Trudy has been teaching with Jack Kornfield and other beloved colleagues, as well as InsightLA teachers she has mentored over the years.

Trudy conducts retreats and workshops internationally. She is a contributing author of Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness (Springer, 2008); Compassion and Wisdom in Psychotherapy, (Guilford Press, 2011); and Mindfulness and Psychotherapy, (Guilford Press, 2013).

Teja Bell (Fudo Myoo Roshi) is a lineage dharma teacher and Rinzai Zen master, the 85th ancestor of the lineage of Lin-Chi I-Chuan. He teaches dharma and qigong as embodied mindfulness through integrating somatic skills with meditation practices, and has taught over 150 retreats at Spirit Rock since 1999.