Tag Archives: Vipassana

Spring Renewal Residential Meditation Retreat

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The Path of Awakening

Bethany Hills Retreat Center, Kingston Springs TN

Thursday Evening, April 11 – Sunday Noon April 14

Early registration discount due by March 11

Led by Lisa Ernst

 bethanyhall

Each spring the earth awakens from its winter slumber. Surrounded by the fresh green of newly leafed trees and longer, warmer days, we will renew our minds and hearts in the simple yet profound practice of sitting and walking meditation.  Gradually this practice will penetrate all realms of our being as we awaken to this moment with deep gratitude and joy.

The retreat will be held at Bethany Hills Retreat Center, Kingston Springs, TN. Retreat cost  the cost is  $215. A reduced fee sliding scale spot is available if you need financial assistance. Please inquire for rates. Participation for all three days is required. There will be a separate opportunity at the retreat to make a *dana offering (donation) to the teacher. Two sliding scale spots are available for those who need financial assistance. Make your retreat payment to One Dharma Nashville and send to: One Dharma Nashville c/o 12 South Dharma Center, 2301 12th Avenue South, Suite 202, Nashville, TN 37204. Please include your email address. Paypal is also available here. Use the first “donate” button.

Lisa Ernst is the founder and guiding teacher at One Dharma Nashville. She began meditation practice in the late ’80’s in the Zen Buddhist tradition, studying closely with two Rinzai Zen  Masters and attending numerous mediation retreats. Lisa has also studied and practiced in the Theravada tradition since the late 90’s. She has been teaching since 2005 and was given full dharma transmission from Trudy Goodman in 2010 in the lineage of the Thai Forest tradition of Ajahn Chah.

*Dana: According to the Buddha, generosity, or sharing what we have, is one of the central pillars of a spiritual life. In the act of giving we develop our ability to let go, cultivate a spirit of caring, and acknowledge the inter-connectedness that we all share.

Please contact  onedharmaretreat@gmail.com for questions or to reserve your spot.

Huffington Post’s “Power of Mindfulness”

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Last Tuesday I was invited to participate in a webcast panel discussion on  Huffingtonpost Live. The topic was the “power of mindfulness.” Special thanks to Tanya Touchstone for the referral. I hope the webcast was helpful to those who can benefit from mindfulness and meditation practice. You can view the webcast here. Huffscreenshot

Writing and Meditation Retreat Recap

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This past Saturday a group of us met at the Dharma Center for a day of writing and meditation, a first for One Dharma. Despite some early morning snow and initial travel uncertainty, the retreat went on and gratefully, all the available slots were filled.  I was very relieved the weather didn’t cause us to cancel as two people had come in from Knoxville and two others from St Louis. I’m always grateful to google when interested out of towners find our retreats!

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At this workshop we spent a lot of time writing, quite a bit more than many attending were accustomed to. This kind of focused writing, like meditation, will quickly reveal a person’s blocks and doubts. The process of learning to accommodate the discomfort, the hesitation and dry spells is identical to we do in our sitting practice. Finding room for the imperfections, the times that the writing practice deviates from expectations, is vital to persevering and tapping into the deeper well of creativity and insight. Most people had at least taste of this at the retreat, while some reported important breakthroughs that opened up new depth in their writing.

I heard from a number of people who were interested in attending but couldn’t make it this time. Nashville also had two other daylong meditation retreats happening on Saturday, a rarity for our town. Because of the interest I anticipate we will do this again before too long. In the mean time, keep sitting, and for you writers, keep writing! Here’s reinforcement from Ajahn Chah that applies to both:

“It’s like a child who is learning to write. At first he doesn’t write nicely — big, long loops and squiggles — he writes like a child. After a while the writing improves through practice. Practicing the Dhamma is like this. At first you are awkward…sometimes calm, sometimes not, you don’t really know what’s what. Some people get discouraged. Don’t slacken off! You must persevere with the practice. Live with effort, just like the schoolboy: as he gets older he writes better and better. From writing badly he grows to write beautifully, all because of the practice.”

The Silent Well

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 This morning I fell

into a well of silence.

Not a push, not a jump,

just a breath and an instant

and all is still

like a snow covered morning

at first light.

Before the mind stirs

Before the heart wants

something else

this silence

enters me, washes me away

into the joy of this

undying moment.

– Lisa Ernst

Daylong Mindfulness Meditation Retreat

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Deepening Your Practice

Saturday, March 9, Harmony Landing Retreat Center

9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Led by Lisa Ernst IMG_0589

Please join us at a beautiful location just west of Nashville for a day of sitting and walking meditation. We will cultivate insight and lovingkindness through awakening our minds and hearts to the present moment.

Led by meditation teacher Lisa Ernst, this silent retreat will focus on mindfulness meditation. We will train our minds in present time awareness by bringing attention to the breath and sensations in the body, cultivating awareness of the myriad states that arise. Through this practice we gradually embrace the truth of the constantly changing nature of things, and we learn to respond with compassion and friendliness to all that arises.

This retreat is suitable for both beginning and experienced meditators; it will include sitting and walking meditation, practice instructions, and a dharma talk.

Cost: $50, plus dana (donation) to the teacher. A deposit of $50 will reserve your space.  Paypal is available at this link. Use the first “donate” button. Directions and additional information will be emailed prior to the retreat. Please contact onedharmaretreat@gmail.com with any questions.

Penetrate Everything

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What happens when you resist? Have you spent some time in your practice cultivating true intimacy with your mind and body in a state of resistance? You probably know where you hold your tension, where your body contracts and how your mind seeks diversion. But the true payoff comes when you take an even closer look. Can you become truly intimate with the tension in your body? Get to know it like a mate or a best friend? Open your heart and mind wide enough that it penetrates every cell, every infinitesimal particle of time and matter. When you can do this, you will taste complete freedom. This is where transformation occurs; in a moment of full surrender, when your resistance dies, you die.  But your great nature, your true self that embraces all and leaves nothing out, remains. What is this true nature? You can only find out for yourself. Just let your Bodhicitta, your inherent desire to wake up, guide the way.

– Lisa Ernst

A Sliver of Moonlight

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A sliver of moonlight

against a slate sky

wakes me up

offers no words

but pierces my heart

breaks it open,

tears, silence.

A screech owl

penetrates the stillness.

Then another,

back and forth they shriek

then silence, tears dry.

The moon fades

as dawn lights the sky.

The Heart at Rest

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IMG_6237

Misty Winter Morning at Radnor Lake

Even if you have a regular meditation practice, you probably encounter moments when you feel overwhelmed and challenged to sit in the midst of your experience.  Especially when strong feelings of anxiety or fear arise, the mind’s tendency to identify with thought and avoid the present moment is particularly strong.

What is your resistance point? When do you reach the precipice of overwhelm, when you believe you can no longer stay present? Cultivating awareness of this tipping point, when you exceed your capacity for presence, can help you expand your awareness beyond any imagined self limitations you have.

How? First it helps to remember and practice this core teaching from the Buddha:

“Nothing whatsoever is to be clung to as “I” or ‘mine.’ Whoever has heard this truth has heard all the Teachings, whoever has realized this Truth has realized all the Teachings.”

You may ask how Buddha’s teaching of non-clinging applies to resistance and emotional overwhelm. As our practice deepens, we begin to recognize when we cling to desired things such as relationships, possessions, health and happiness. But we may overlook how we cling to our unwanted mental states and interpret them as “I” and “mine.” It’s all too easy to perceive depression, shame, fear and anxiety as part of who we are.  As soon as we create this self-identification, the emotions feel fixed and personal. Letting go, releasing our clinging, is challenging.

When I speak of letting go, I don’t mean trying to get rid of anything, but instead allowing our emotions and mind states to be exactly as they are, without self-identification. This is how we begin to loosen the knot.  As soon as we quit identifying with these feelings as “me,” we see them for what they are – the temporary and changing mosaic of thought and emotion that we experience throughout our lives. If these emotions and mind states were only a kaleidoscope of color passing by our eyes, we wouldn’t identify with them as ourselves; we could allow them to simply come and go. No resisting and no clinging. When we cultivate this attitude toward emotions we invite equanimity and non –identification. We may still feel the anxiety or sadness, perhaps even more deeply, but we don’t interpret them as “I” or “mine.” They are simply part of the moment, along with the sounds, scents, and physical sensations, everything that is here. We have room for it all. This is a heart at rest.

The Dharma of Writing and Meditation Workshop

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Saturday, February 2

10 a.m. – 4 p.m., 12 South Dharma Center

Led by Lisa Ernst

IMG_0585Please join us for a day of mindful writing and meditation practice. We will cultivate writing inspiration through meditation and exercises that help us open our hearts to the truth of what we most want to express.  These practices will also help us to communicate more eloquently from our authentic voice, both in written and verbal from. In addition, we will have an opportunity to share our writing in an atmosphere of compassionate support.  This workshop is suitable to beginning and experienced writers and meditators.

The class will be limited to twelve participants. Cost is $75. Two reduced fee spots are available for those in financial need. Registration is due by Friday, January 25. Please make checks out to One Dharma Nashville and send to 12 South Dharma Center, c/o One Dharma Nashville, 2301 12th Avenue South, Suite 202, Nashville, TN 37204. If paying by PayPal, go to this address and use the first “donate” button. For more information or to confirm your spot, email onedharmaretreat@gmail.com.

Lisa began her meditation practice in the late ’80’s in the Zen Buddhist tradition, studying closely with two Rinzai Zen Masters and attending numerous meditation retreats. Lisa has also studied and practiced in the Theravada tradition since the late 90’s. In 2005 Lisa was given authorization to teach by Trudy Goodman, founder and guiding teacher of InsightLA. Lisa received full dharma transmission from Trudy in 2010 in the lineage of the Thai Forest tradition of Ajahn Chah. Lisa has written for magazines, newspapers and newsletters since 1990. She was the technical editor for the current edition of Meditation for Dummies. Her blog includes many essays and poetry: www.thelotusbloomsinthemud.com.

Happy Holidays: Live it Up in Loving Awareness

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This is from an InsightLA blog post by my teacher and friend Trudy Goodman:

Live It Up!

Recently I’ve been teaching about women in the dharma, about the “Feminine Principal,” as Andrea Miller wrote in her article in Shambhala Sun this past month. I want to tell you a story about Maurine Stuart Roshi, who was my heart teacher from 1979 when I first met her until she died in 1990. A story for this holiday season.

One February night in Cambridge, Maurine was resting on the couch in her living room. It was one week before she was to die. I came over to bring her some supper. I felt close to her. We were intimate in the way you may know from sitting together — you know this from letting go of whatever holds you back, from stripping down to the aliveness and radiance of who you truly are.

Straightening up the cooking magazines on her coffee table, I decided to go for it — maybe it’s my last chance to ask her what I most wanted to know: “After a whole life of Zen practice, teaching and deep enlightenment, what’s the truest thing you can say to me now?” And she didn’t miss a beat. Speaking with her usual authority and power, she said simply, “Live it up!”

I was surprised. After all those years of sitting in the fire….“Live it up!”? This is the wisdom of my Zen teacher, so close to her dying…but what does she mean, exactly? Eat, drink, be merry?

True mindfulness IS living to the hilt, living it up — because it includes everything. When our mindfulness gets strong, nothing is too crazy, too weird, too exciting, too scary, too sad, too upsetting, too tragic, too overwhelming or too huge to be held in our loving awareness. Living it up is living fully, taking the time to look deeply, making the effort to recognize and stay with what’s true for us moment by moment. Like a mirror reflecting just what’s happening, like the water of a pond reflecting the blue sky and the passing clouds. Only here the mirror is awake and sees, and the water is responsive. Our mindfulness, this loving awareness, is our own consciousness actively participating in the ongoing process of being alive — Live It Up! And may your week be graced by moments of boundless love and freedom.

Trudy Goodman