Tag Archives: meditaiton

Daylong Meditation Retreat: Touching the Boundless Mind and Heart

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Please join us at a beautiful, rural West Bellevue location for a day of sitting and walking meditation. In this silent retreat, we will stabilize our attention and deepen concentration through the breath and body, then gradually open our awareness to the boundless space of mind and heart. These practices help us touch moments of freedom from our habitual patterns and thoughts and find equanimity in our present moment experience.

Led by meditation teacher Lisa Ernst, this silent retreat is suitable for beginning as well as experienced students. The retreat will include periods of sitting and walking meditation, instructions and dharma talk. Cost is $50. There will be a separate opportunity at the retreat to make a dana (generosity) offering to the teacher. A reduced fee spot is available in the case of financial need. Please inquire for details.

Paypal is available here or write a check, made out to One Dharma Nashville, and send to: One Dharma Nashville, 2301 12th Avenue South, Suite 202, Nashville, TN 37204. Please include your email address. For questions, email onedharmaretreat@gmail.com.

Riding Free

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Its like you’re throwing away your canoe and oars and are riding the waves of emptiness. Its scary at first, you’ve no control. You feel vulnerable and completely without knowledge of where you are going, or even where you are. So you have to surrender completely to the waves when they come. It may take a while. It may take weeks or months or years. You may ask, “what if I drown?” Then I ask you, “who and what drowns? What do you lose? And what might you gain?”

You may decide to climb back into your canoe if you can. But if you’re truly on this path, the water will draw you in again and again until finally you drown and then you’re riding the waves and those waves are you, and you are the waves, there’s really no difference any more, and you arrive exactly where you need to be, where you always have been, but just didn’t know it until now. You are home.

~Lisa Ernst

Morning Beams

Morning Beams

June Daylong Meditation Retreat

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Stilling Mind and Heart with Mindfulness and Lovingkindness
Saturday, June 13, 2015
9:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m., Nashville Friends House
Led by Lisa Ernst

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During the busyness and activity that often accompany our daily lives, this meditation retreat will offer a quiet time to slow down, mindfully connect with our bodies and extend kindness and compassion to ourselves and others. Slowly, in the simplicity and silence of the day, we will learn to let go of distractions and touch our experience with a kind and open heart.

Led by meditation teacher Lisa Ernst, this silent retreat is suitable for newer and more experienced meditators. It will include periods of sitting and walking meditation, practice instructions and dharma talk.

Retreat fee is $50. A reduced fee spot is available, please inquire to the email below. Paypal is here. If paying by check, you can find instructions on where to send it at this link. Be sure to include your email address. There will be a separate opportunity at the retreat to make a dana offering (donation) to the teacher.

For questions, contact onedharmaretreat@gmail.com.

Three Week Basics of Meditation Course

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Sponsored by One Dharma Nashville
Thursdays April 30, May 7 & 14
7 – 8:30 p.m.
12 South Dharma Center

This 3 Week course is appropriate for beginners as well as more experienced meditators who want to refresh the fundamentals of their practice. In a step-by-step process you will learn the basics of insight meditation and mindfulness practices. You will learn to be more in touch with your body, emotions and mind. You will complete the class with tools to establish an effective and ongoing practice. These practices will help you reduce stress and expand your capacity for well-being and compassion. The class will also provide a supportive environment with plenty of time for discussion and Q&A.

Led by senior meditator and One Dharma co-founder Patsy Cutillo, with guidance from founding teacher Lisa Ernst. Patsy has been meditating for 15+ years and has attended numerous daylong and residential meditation retreats. She is also certified as a Medical QiGong therapist.

Course fee is $60 and can be paid through Paypal here.  A reduced fee spot is available in the case of financial need. Please inquire. For information or to reserve your spot, email pccutillo@yahoo.com.

Stability and Clarity Daylong Meditation Retreat

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Saturday, February 28, 2015, 9:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Rural West Bellevue
Led by Lisa Ernst

Retreat full, wait list only

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Cultivating clear awareness of our present moment experience reveals insights into the nature of suffering and liberation. We see that everything that arises is not my “self” but a display of impermanent conditions. When the mind sees life through this clarity and is unclouded by confusion, we create the foundation for well-being, joy and equanimity.

Led by meditation teacher Lisa Ernst, this silent retreat is suitable for beginning as well as experienced students. The retreat will include periods of sitting and walking meditation, instructions and dharma talk. Cost is $50. There will be a separate opportunity at the retreat to make a dana (generosity) offering to the teacher. A reduced fee spot is available in the case of financial need. Please inquire for details.

You can pay through paypal  here or write a check, made out to One Dharma Nashville, and send to: One Dharma Nashville, 2301 12th Avenue South, Suite 202, Nashville, TN 37204. Please include your email address. For questions, email onedharmaretreat@gmail.com.

Meditation Series at Nashville Library Branches

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I’m doing a series of mindful meditation classes for the Nashville Public Library. These classes include instruction, guided and silent meditation and time for questions. There’s no registration or fee, you can just drop in. Here’s the current schedule:

Downtown: De-stress during lunch, 12:15 – 12:50 p.m. every second Monday of the month. Next meeting coming up on January 12.

Mindful Meditation Class at the Green Hills Library, Thursday, January 22, 6:30 – 7:30  p.m.

Mindful Meditation Class at the Bellevue Library, every first Wednesday of the month, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. Next meeting coming up on February 4.

If you’re in Nashville I hope you’ll join me for any of these sessions that work for you. Here’s a link to the local public library system events list.

It Changes Not

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Something there is, prior to heaven and earth,

Without form, without sound, all alone by itself.

It has the power to control all the changing things;

Yet it changes not in the course of the four seasons.

– Fu Ta-shih

7 Day Residential Retreat Recap

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One Dharma held its first 7 day residential retreat in early November at Bethany Hills Retreat Center in Kingston Springs, Tennessee. By all measures it was a success and I anticipate we will do another one when the time is right.

We had all levels of experience, from three out of towners who had sat countless long retreats, to three who where on their first ever residential retreat. Sooner or later, all settled into the rhythm of deep practice and many reported transformative openings and insights during the week.

Here is a photo guide of our retreat. Thanks to Frankie Fachilla for contributing the photos..

Once the temps dropped, we had a fire going continuously in the meditation hall. Photo by Frankie Fachilla

Once the temps dropped, we had a fire going continuously in the meditation hall. Photo by Frankie Fachilla

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Our retreat altar. Photo by Frankie Fachilla

This stray cat was quite friendly and had a way of slipping through the lodge door. One of our retreat attendees, Christie Bates, kindly adopted the cat, now named Khit Nhat Hanh. Photo by Frankie Fachilla

This stray cat was quite friendly and had a way of slipping through the lodge door. One of our retreat attendees, Christie Bates, kindly adopted the cat, now named Khit Nhat Hanh. Photo by Frankie Fachilla

Still some leaves hanging on. The paths and trails around Bethany Hills Camp provided some good hiking opportunities. Photo by Frankie Fachilla

Still some leaves hanging on. The paths and trails around Bethany Hills Camp provided some good hiking opportunities. Photo by Frankie Fachilla

These rocking chairs on the deck weren't used too often once the "arcitc blast" hit on Wednesday. They still looked inviting. Photo by Frankie Fachilla

These rocking chairs on the deck weren’t used too often once the “arcitc blast” hit on Wednesday. They still looked inviting. Photo by Frankie Fachilla

We closed the retreat with this offering of merit:

The Buddha said that when we dedicate merit, it is just like adding a drop of water to the ocean. Just as a drop of water added to the ocean will not dry up but will exist as long as the ocean exists, so too, if we dedicate the merit of any virtuous action, it merges with the vast ocean of merit and endures until enlightenment.  ~Padmasambhava

By the power of this compassionate practice,

May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness

May all beings be free from sorrow and the causes of sorrow

May all live in equanimity.