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Finding Freedom Through Insight Meditation....
ONE-WEEK VIPASSANA RETREAT
June 27 - July 3, 2015 
with Brian Lesage 
at the Columbine Inn
Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico

Please contact TMH office
re: available spaces...


Insight meditation is a simple and direct practice based on moment-to-moment awareness, a technique that opens the heart and clears the mind. This will be an opportunity to practice continuous mindfulness in silence throughout the day - in sitting and walking meditation. In the silence we are freed from much of the daily barrage of stimulus that draws our attention outward, letting us delve deeply inward. Learning to be aware of our experience from a place of stillness and equanimity allows us to see more clearly, and as insight deepens, compassion and wisdom can arise.
The retreat is designed for beginners and
experienced practitioners alike.
Brian Lesage has practiced Buddhist meditation since 1988 and has taught meditation since 2000. He has studied in the Zen, Theravada and Tibetan schools of Buddhism. He was ordained in the Rinzai Zen tradition in 1996. His training in Vipassana Meditation includes doing extended meditation retreats in Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, and India as well as numerous retreats in the U.S.  He leads retreats and teaches meditation courses nationwide.  Brian also has a private practice in Somatic Experiencing, a naturalistic approach to healing trauma. 
Sliding Scale Fees:
$444 (low)   $644 (actual cost)  $844 (benefactor) 
Partial Scholarships Available - Application Necessary
FEATURED ARTICLE
Teacher Gina Sharpe
Reflects on
The Power of  Forgiveness

Buddha face 13
April 12-May 10, 2015
Please contact TMH office re: available spaces...
The Columbine Inn  
in Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico
(April 12-26 or April 26-May 10 Options)

Vipassana, Brahma Vihara & Concentration Guidance Available....
Guiding Teacher: Marcia Rose
Marcia2 cropped more
Sliding Scale Fees  
   One Month/28 days:
$2186 -  $2586 -  $2986
2 weeks/14 days:
 $1093 -  $1293 -  $1493
Manifesting Spiritual Aspiration by Deepening Practice...
Teachers:  Gina Sharpe
 & Larry Yang
Columbine Inn in Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico

Co-sponsored by New York Insight and the East Bay Meditation Center (Oakland, CA)

This retreat for Communities of Color will be the first such retreat of 10 days' duration, for those who have been undertaking study and practice for at least four years. Accompanying the instructions for retreat practice will be deep exploration of what constitutes authentic personal expression of the traditional teachings and what bridges the contexts of practice between the Buddha's time and our present day cultures.  We will examine the relationship of the personal and the collective in reflection and practice.  We will also explore how to live in the relative world with transcendent understanding and how to apply transcendent values to living immanently in the relative world.  We deepen practice to live with integrity, kindness, attention and true service in our vulnerable world.

Gina Sharpe Gina Sharpe was born in Jamaica and immigrated to New York at the age of 11. After retiring from the practice of law, she co-founded New York Insight Meditation Center where she serves as Guiding Teacher.  She has taught at Retreat Centers and other venues around the United States including a maximum security prison for women.  She has been teaching the Dharma since 1995 and is particularly inspired by the potential and application of Dharma to transform and illuminate interpersonal and multicultural relations.

Larry Yang teaches meditation retreats nationally and has a special interest in creating access to the Dharma for diverse multicultural communities. Larry has practiced extensively in Burma and Thailand, with a six month period of ordination as a Buddhist monk under the guidance of Ajahn Tong.  Larry is on the Teacher's Council and the Board of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, is one of the core teachers of East Bay Meditation Center (Oakland), and is the Guiding Teacher and on the Board of the Insight Community of the Desert (Palm Springs). He is part of the coordinating team developing future community dharma teachers in Spirit Rock's Community Dharma Leadership Program. In addition, Larry is trained as a psychotherapist and a consultant in cultural competency-giving workshops and presentations in diversity and multicultural issues.

Sliding Scale Fees:  

 $744  (low)     $994  (actual cost)     $1244  (benefactor)
There will be ample scholarship support for students 
 wishing to attend this retreat. Space still available.
A Reflection from Gina Sharpe on The Power of Forgiveness...
Forgiveness is not simple. When we have been harmed, hurt, betrayed, abandoned, or abused, forgiveness may seem out of the question. And yet, unless we find a way to forgive, we will hold hatred, resentment and fear in our hearts forever. Without forgiveness, we're forced to carry the suffering of the past as a great burden on our shoulders. As Jack Kornfield says, "Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past." Thus, when we begin the work of forgiveness, it is primarily a practice for ourselves.
 

Forgiveness is often spoken of as a kind of indiscriminate absolution, without taking the need for fidelity, loyalty and right action into account. Instead, principled forgiveness asks us to reflect deeply and rigorously, cleaving to compassion for our shared humanity balanced with, and without dismissing, the need for accountability. Our ability to forgive allows us to make space with a kind heart for our shared humanity, and for our suffering as well as the suffering of others.

 

The Buddha said, "If it were not possible to free the heart from entanglement and greed, hate, fear, and delusion, I would not teach you or ask you to do so." The power of forgiveness releases us from the power of our mental defilements. Our practice of loving-kindness is enhanced by our practice of forgiveness, because forgiveness allows us to be free from self-defeating emotions like vengeance and to be uplifted by our offer of kindness.

 

Forgiveness does not gloss over what has happened in a superficial way. The practice is not a misguided effort to suppress our pain or to ignore it. If you've suffered a great injustice, coming to forgiveness may include a long process of grief and outrage, sadness, loss and pain. Forgiveness is a deep process, calling us to investigate our difficult questions, and repeated over and over and over again in our hearts. It honors the grief and it honors the betrayal. The forgiving person, knowing she has the strength to express anger and resentment toward the offender, also knows she is strong enough to give away that anger and resentment. And in its own time, that strength ripens into the freedom to truly forgive.

 

If we look honestly at our own lives, we can see the sorrows and pain that have led to our own wrongdoing. In this way we can finally extend forgiveness to ourselves and hold the pain that we have caused in our heart of compassion. Without such mercy, we would live in isolation or in exile, unable to ever forgive.

 

In order to cultivate a truly loving and kind heart, we need to develop the practices that cultivate and strengthen forgiveness and the natural compassion within us. As you practice forgiveness, let yourself feel whatever small or large release there is in your heart. Or if there is no release, notice that too. And if you are not ready to forgive, that's all right. Sometimes the process of forgiveness takes a lifetime, and that's perfectly fine. You can unfold in your own time and in your own way. Emotions will come not because we force them to but because they're expressions of deep feeling inside. Forgiveness is an attitude of welcoming, inviting and spaciousness rather than an emotion that we force and pump up in our minds and hearts.

 

We practice with the faith that as we practice, body, mind, and heart learn. That's the beauty of these practices; we learn that we're not in control of the fruits of our practice, but we are in control of how we practice - whether we do it with patience, diligence, determination, wisdom, effort and energy. We're not in control of how it then manifests in our life. We're not trying to make anything particular happen, because in the trying to make something happen, we will miss the beauty and delightful surprise of what does happen.

 

This is excerpted and edited from an article in Tricycle's Wisdom Collection:
More 2015 retreats...                                   (just click on retreat to go to website page)
September 18-20, 2015 HEALING ECOLOGY - A BUDDHIST RESPONSE TO THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY: A Weekend with Buddhist Teacher & Environmental Activist David Loy at San Geronimo Lodge
Does Buddhism provide any special insight into the ecological crisis? Do its teachings imply a different way of understanding the biosphere, and our relationship to it, which can really help us at this critical time in history, when we are doing so much to destroy it?

November 13 - 20, 2015 LISTENING, CONTEMPLATION &  MEDITATION: Study Retreat on The Art & Practice of Loving with Ven. Dhammadinna & Tenzin Jesse
This retreat will combine the practice and study of metta, or loving friendliness meditation. The Tenzin Jesse cropped close Buddha taught metta meditation to quell fear and anger, to promote harmonious  relationships, and to purify the mind in concentration. The benefits of this practice touch every aspect of our lives.
How you can help...
We alwaBegging bowlys need donations to help with operating expenses & to support those who would not be able to attend our retreats without financial help.
Seated Buddha statue with flowers
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"If beings knew, as I know, the benefits of generosity, they would not let an
opportunity go by  without giving and sharing." - The Buddha
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For more information on all these retreats, you can contact us....
(575) 758-0633 or [email protected]
Taos Mountain Evening
Limited scholarship support available for all of our retreats. Application Necessary.
Extensive information on the website: www.mountainhermitage.org

NOTE: We now accepts credit card payment through PayPal for retreat balance.
Contact TMH office for details.

May our practice serve towards the welfare, the happiness & the awakening of all beings.
Tuan lotus reflection
"In this world
Hate never yet dispelled hate.
Only love dispels hate.
This the law,
Ancient and inexhaustible."
---The Buddha, from a translation of the Dhammapada
by Thomas Byrom