Benefits of Attending a Solo Wellness Retreat It’s been miracle after miracle that you were able to get time off work, convince your partner to take care of the kids, water the garden and walk the dog. Your friend convinced you that taking a ‘wellness weekend’ retreat is the greatest way to break up a stressful routine. But extracting yourself from the stressful routine has been even more stressful! With all the favors you’ve had to grant while begging to get away, this weekend had BETTER be worth it! What is a typical wellness weekend about anyway? Typically, wellness care...

Tips to Choose the Best SPIRITUAL RETREAT CENTER You’ve meditated regularly for a while and had some great results. Now you’re ready to take your practice to the next step – you are ready to dedicate a weekend or a week or a month to uninterrupted silent meditation. How do you choose where to go that will support this solitary, silent retreat? Meditation is an ancient art form, a unique and creative method for self-expression developed thousands of years ago. According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, “Meditation is a mind and body practice that has a...

You’ve probably heard that meditation is good for your health, but you may not know exactly how it helps? By practicing meditation, you increase mindfulness which, in turn, reduces stress and anxiety and helps you sleep better. It also helps improve memory and focus, as well as increase energy levels and positive emotions. Some studies have even shown that meditation helps lower blood pressure. Most importantly, is helps you and those around be happier! The practice of meditation is thought to have originated in India over 5,000 years ago and since then has spread all around the world. The word...

I think it’s safe to say that all of us who do meditation retreats have experienced at least stiffness or a few twinges in the back. Human bodies aren’t designed to sit like statues for hours on end. For some, these issues come and go. For others, however, especially those with previous injuries, back pain can be a debilitating problem during a retreat. It’s very hard to meditate when all you can focus on is the pain in your spine! Fortunately, back pain doesn’t have to be the end of your spiritual career. In this article, let’s take a closer...

These days, when people talk about yoga, they’re more likely thinking about learning handstands than learning to meditate. Yoga and meditation both now fall under the vague umbrella of “wellness,” but there’s a lot of confusion out there about the purpose of each one and how they’re connected. Many people consider them totally separate activities: one for the body, one for the mind. This is a complete misconception. Yoga and meditation are intimately connected. They share a common purpose and improving in one naturally puts you ahead in the other. In this article, I will attempt to clarify what exactly...

Are you supposed to do your daily meditation now and you just… don’t want to? Maybe you know you should but you don’t really feel why you wanted to in the first place. Doing just about anything else seems more appealing. Don’t worry it happens to everyone. It’s not the end of your meditation career, just another flavor of it. Try a few of these tips for getting motivated and re-energized for meditation. Soon enough, you’ll be back in the flow. Create the right setting If inspiration isn’t coming from within, find it in your environment. Clean up the space where you meditate and...

Are there any objects other than objects of perception? If I am always changing, how does my karma stay with me? Where does the ego come from? These are questions that spiritual seekers have been grappling with for millennia. The Mind-Only school of Mahayana Buddhism offers a profound and coherent response to these issues and many others. In the last article in this three-part series, I presented a high-level overview of the Mind-Only, also known as Yogācāra. In this article, I invite you to go deeper into the central teachings of Yogācāra. Let’s take a look at the most important...

Imagine you’re a brain in a jar. Just a brain, in some mad scientist’s lab, hooked up to a bunch of wires that stimulate your sense faculties, creating an illusion of reality. Would you have any way of knowing what you are? This is the thought experiment that first comes to mind when hearing about the Mind-Only school of Buddhism. It seems like it says that nothing exists, it’s all just an hallucination and I’m alone in my head. In fact, Mind-Only is a fascinating and profound lineage. Emphasizing strong practice and direct experience, it made great contributions to Buddhist...

Spend enough time in any circle interested in spirituality, wellness or personal growth, and sooner or later you’ll hear someone talk about going on retreat. Hear it enough and you might start considering trying it for yourself. If the words “meditation retreat” make you think of a bearded hermit sitting cross-legged in a cave in the Himalayas, you can relax. These days, there are many group retreats offered for shorter periods of time, during which participants can enjoy expert guidance from a teacher and the supportive presence of other retreaters. You can find retreats catering to all types. Beginner meditators...

So you’ve just completed a meditation retreat. Congratulations! Take a deep breath and rejoice in your accomplishment. What’s next? After a retreat, you might find yourself with more questions than answers. Maybe you’re not sure how to integrate what you’ve discovered into your daily life, or where to go from here in your spiritual practice. If you’re in this boat, you’re not alone. I’m going to share with you what I’ve learned from experience about how to make the post-retreat landing as smooth as possible, and to make the insights you gained in retreat a part of your everyday life....

I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha… Familiar words to anyone who has spent time in a Buddhist context, but not easily understood. What are these “Three Jewels,” the cornerstones of a spiritual life according to Buddhism? What does it mean to take refuge in something? Is it just an old religious tradition or some sort of blind faith? The idea of “taking refuge” is so important in Buddhism that you can say the definition of a Buddhist is someone who takes refuge in the Three Jewels. Refuge taking...