Mindfulnessinaction’s Blog
An interactive Mindfulness Meditation blogOnline Meditation Retreats
Retreats….An overview
These online retreats are bothinteractive and individual events. I will post about our topic for meditation which you can practice on your own. In addition you can also comment about these posts in a public setting. You can talk about your experience with your practice or just comment on the posts and how they may apply to your life as you live it on or off the cushion.
Ideally each retreat is going to break down into five, thirteen day weeks. Now I know this may sound a little strange and probably seems like a weird time frame. This is not the seven day pattern of time we are used to but I want to interject a tradition that is different from what many of us are used to. In many cultures time is a spiritual event and process. In our culture we only pick one day out of the week to assign a spiritual significance to. This way of thinking tends to inform our spiritual life and experiences outside of one designated day. However, the ancient Mayan’s believed that time itself was spiritual and they structured their calendar to reflect the spiritual energies that came with the dawn of each new day and that is the theme I want to establish for these retreats. In my practice this way of experiencing time has helped me to tune in with the energies that each new day brings. As a point of references you might be able to better understand it if you think in terms of Astrology.
I know this is probably throwing some of you for a loop so I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this aspect (although I will in the future). I have posted a link that should give you more than enough exposure to this information if you want and is under the title “the Mayan Calendar” where you can also learn about the 2012 date that you might have heard people mention.
For now, I just wanted to give you a little background on why a 13 day week. Now, for conventional purposes we will still operate on the days we are used to as is our custom in society. So think of it as more of a 13 day diet or exercise routine. The days don’t matter as much as the time frame.
That being said, most retreats should or at least are intended to run over the course of five, thirteen day periods. So for instance, let’s say we do a retreat on the Five Precepts. Then we would take each precept and discuss it for a period of 13 days and the schedule would look something like this:
Precept 1 – 13 days
Precept 2 – 13 days
Precept 3 – 13 days
Precept 4 – 13 days
Precept 4 – 13 days
Because this is an online event the very nature of it does not require everyone read, meditate and comment at the same time so you should be able to follow along. I will do all I can to make the posts short and engaging out of respect to your time and I hope that after we have been together for a while this retreat will become a priority for your daily source of spiritual growth.
In conclusion, I want to add one quick note about how to navigate around the Mindfulness in Action blog . You will see that this blogis structured a lot like a web site with menu tabs you can click on for content.
On the home page you will find general blog posts that I will write from time to time. These posts may or may not be in reference to the retreat subject and could be on just about anything relating to spiritual topics. You may or may not want to read these. They will be more frequent during times when there are no retreats and far less frequent during a retreat.
You will notice a page called ”The 5 thoughts for all”. This will be where you can join in on the first retreat which will officially begin on Thursday, May 28th. You can visit this page now to get a head start on what we will be doing. Other pages include a page for loving kindness meditation and page for interfaith discussions.
