​Due to cultural conditioning, many of us find it difficult to imagine the potential of our minds to experience the sure heart’s release from suffering.  However, the message of the Buddha was clear – each of us has this innate capacity for freedom.  The path of awakening the Buddha identified is a natural process leading to non-clinging, intuitive wisdom, and deep compassion for ourselves and others.  In order to make space for the liberative process to emerge more fully, we need to understand the mind’s potential and recondition ourselves to be free of false, self-limiting views and mind-states.
 
In this four-week class, we will explore the process of liberation that unfolds in our practice as we naturally, sequentially cultivate the wholesome qualities of mind known as the seven factors of awakening: mindfulness, investigation (of physical and mental experiences), energy, tranquility, rapture (rapt attention), concentration, and equanimity.  We will begin and end this four-week class by exploring awakening itself and what awakening means for each of us.

Join Tara for The Seven Factors of Awakening beginning on Monday, November 18, 7:15pm.

By Peggy Gillespie, IPV Teacher  

Fall is here. It gets dark earlier, gardens have been touched with frost, and it's time for many of us to hunker down and figure out ways to stay physically, emotionally, and spiritually warm-hearted despite the coming of the snow and ice outside.

I will share some of my recipes for living well in the New England wintertime—meditation practices that can lead to self-care and self-nourishment. I hope you'll bring some of your practices as well (and bring some copies of your favorite soup recipes, too, to share with our community). Together, we can create a very yummy evening and take the leftovers to "eat and digest" at home.

Join Peggy to sit together with other sangha members in a relaxed atmosphere on Wednesday, November 6, 7:00pm.

by David Loy, visiting teacher
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by Mark Hart, IPV teacher
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Our culture places a lot of value on mental acuity and on conceptual learning and knowledge.  Most of our work involves extensive planning and concern about the future.  It is no wonder that when people meditate, the conceptual mind often keeps running.

In meditation, the instruction is often simply to notice thoughts as they arise and then return to the breath or some other focus point.  While this does indeed usually settle the mind at least somewhat, and over time gets us to notice and to dis-identify more from thoughts, meditators may find thoughts still dominate. 

In this retreat I'd like to introduce some other techniques for stepping out of the conceptual mind that I have found useful in my practice.  Some focus on moving energy and will sound more like Taoist teachings than Buddhist -- though in fact I discovered them for myself; some come from non-dual traditions.  I will probably also talk a bit about the process of coming to trust non-conceptual intelligence more than Planning Mind, what I sometimes refer to as "falling out of love with thinking." 

Come with a willingness to experiment and play with what I present.
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by Jean Esther, IPV Guiding Teacher Council Member
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So often we come to Buddhist practice looking for relief from pain, particularly when it’s emotional. Paradoxically our meditation practice leads us to opening to ‘what is’. Not uncommonly, what can surface in meditation is the unresolved pain in our hearts.

• What did the Buddha teach about working with heartbreak, fear, anger, grief, despair?
• How do we relate to these feelings in ourselves?
• How can we find peace amidst these often very challenging states of mind and heart? Is it even possible?

In this evening of meditation, Dharma Talk and discussion we will explore these questions through the Buddha’s teachings that point us towards an unshakable peace.

Whether new or experienced in meditation please join Jean for this evening of exploration. Wednesday, October 23, sitting at 7:00pm and talk at 7:35pm. 

By Rebecca Bradshaw, IPV Guiding Teacher Emeritus
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In this dharma talk and discussion, we will explore the cultivation of the qualities of connection, belonging, fullness and enoughness that come from engaging openly in gratitude and generosity.

Sit together with other sangha members in a relaxed atmosphere on Wednesday, October 16 (7:00pm-7:30pm). Dharma Talk by the IPV Guiding Teacher Emeritus (7:35-8:30pm). 

By Manny Mansbach, IPV Teacher

Ajahn Chah’s term, The One Who Knows, refers to an innate knowing in us. Sometimes people use the term “Buddha Nature” to speak to this understanding that we’ve always had that knows about life. This quality of awareness can be a profound refuge, especially when we are able to clarify it and take that quality as the vantage point through which experience is known. One truly wonderful thing about it is this knowing is not something we have to acquire, but is an already an existing quality of our true nature!

Learning to rest in The One Who Knows is not a self-improvement project, but coming to know in accordance with the truth. As we come home to this knowing, our lives can settle and clarify. Ajahn Amaro speaks about it this way:

“Training the heart to rest in that quality of awareness, to be that very knowing, that space that receives and knows the world without confusion, that holds the whole world and all of its beauty and ugliness and ordinariness, and all its arising and ceasing. And the more that we are able to abide with this quality of knowing—be the one who knows—then we find a quality of integration, a quality of peacefulness.” 

In this class we will keep bringing kind awareness over and over to what we are doing, encouraging a simplicity and clarity of heart and mind that facilitates a shift of identity from thought-structure identification into the spacious experience of the present moment.

Join us for The One Who Knows: The Wisdom Teachings of Ajahn Chah,
5 Mondays, October 7 - November 4; 7:15 - 8:45pm

The Buddha identified 3 poisons as the cause of unhappiness: greed, hatred,  and delusion. When acted upon individually and systemically they perpetuate unhappiness and suffering for ourselves, for each other,  and in our world.

This evening we will investigate their nature and how their antidotes can be cultivated and nourished leading to peace and happiness of the mind and heart.

Included will be sitting meditation, a Dharma Talk, and time for discussion.​