October Half-Day Retreat with Michael Bresnan: Meditation and the Eightfold Path (10/5/2024) (In Person Only)

The centerpiece of the Buddha’s teaching is the Noble Eightfold Path (right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration). It expounds the factors necessary to successfully walk the path to awakening. In this retreat, we will explore how the morality-based factors, such as right intention, right speech and right action, smooth the way for the meditative factors of right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration, and how these meditative factors in turn naturally support the further development of right behavior. This virtuous cycle gives one’s practice the energy needed for the mind to break free from its habit of reactivity, and in the end, it becomes a manifestation of awakening itself. The Eightfold Path is thus both path and destination.

This short retreat is open to both beginners and experienced meditators. While it will be conducted mainly in silence, there will be brief instructions in vipassana meditation, a Dhamma talk, and a discussion period at the end.

Wenham CfMIM currently offers retreats once per month. We recommend and encourage participation in these monthly programs—the extended practice period, two-hours longer than our weekly classes, supports the mind in becoming stable and thus insight can arise more naturally.