An often overlooked, but centrally important, topic in early Buddhist teachings is that of the five ‘khandhas’ (Pali) or ‘skandhas’ (Sanskrit). Typically translated as ‘the five aggregates’, these teachings describe the elements which comprise our on-going experience of ourselves and our worlds. Through a meditative investigation of the aggregates, we can develop an understanding of how our experience develops from moment to moment and over time into the complex cognitive and emotional processes we inhabit every day. The purpose of this retreat will be to explore these teachings in a direct and personal way to make them accessible and meaningful to us in our modern, twenty-first century lives. In the spirit of Reflective Meditation, we will re-envision the five aggregates through our curiosity about our own experience and with an openness to our creative impulses.

With Bill Wellhouse, Brad Parks and Anna Delacroix
Friday, October 7 – Sunday, October 9, 2022
Online via Zoom — Link will be sent after registration

Register

During this online retreat, we will approach the topic of the five aggregates with an open meditation practice followed by reflection and journaling. We welcome continuing students as well as meditators who are new to Reflective Meditation practice and retreats. The roots of this practice can be found in the Buddha’s early teachings and are based on learning to trust the ways of knowing that develop in meditation so that we may be more responsive and present in our everyday lives.

What am I experiencing? How does my experience work? What elements combine, from moment to moment and over time, to give my inner world its various dimensions and shapes? Experience is deeply personal and at the same time has aspects which we all share – for example, the five senses and the human mind and heart. In this retreat we briefly introduce the traditional Buddhist presentation of the aggregates to serve as stepping stones toward developing an understanding of our own internal processes of experiencing. Together we will be revising and re-envisioning the aggregates in more contemporary terms. Through a creative engagement with the traditional and re-envisioned aggregates, we then explore how an understanding of the aggregates can become a way to deepen and expand our relationship to our own experience.

WHY MEDITATE AND REFLECT?

We believe that you can learn beneficial ways of meditating by seeing how your mind operates within meditation. This kind of “seeing” can be naturally developed through recollection and reflection, whether done in a journal or expressed verbally to an experienced teacher or peers.

Most likely you will have a goal in mind when you come to meditation practice. What is in your mind and heart matters deeply and does not need to be separated out from your meditation practice. Much of the learning comes from your own recognition and insight, rather than from an authority, a tradition, or any dogmatic and rigid way of thinking about meditation.

This retreat will be beneficial for you if:

• You want to have a retreat in your own home.

• You want to participate in an online group practice with a live teacher and sangha.

• Want to choose your own getaway destination while participating in an online meditation retreat

• Your work schedule does not allow you to get away for a longer retreat.

During this retreat we will have a lighter schedule. Our experience with online retreats shows that having more open space in the schedule helps prevent the fatigue of being online.

Periods of meditation and free time will be on your own. The Dharma talks will be given online, but recorded, so you can log online to listen “live” or listen later to the recordings. Small group sharing will be scheduled online and is optional.

Reflective meditation encourages and supports an independent practice that fits with the conditions of your life. For most of us, our practice at home is usually quite different from when we go on retreat. An online retreat helps establish or deepen your independent practices, and integrate them into your everyday life. You will inevitably bring your life right into your meditation and your retreat, because the retreat resides wherever you are.

DANA & SUPPORT RANGE

Sati Sangha has a desire to lead a generous, respectful life and to share it with others. Your giving and generosity for the teachings will be received with gratitude.

For retreats and larger workshops we have established our registration fees and dana as a range, rather than setting one amount to cover expenses with a request for an additional donation for the teachings. The low end of the range covers expenses for the online retreat. Payment at the higher ranges supports the teaching, and helps students experiencing financial challenges. We do not want to turn anyone away for lack of financial resources.

Suggested Support and Dana Range: $100-300

Sati Sangha will be taking care of the dana for this retreat. Honorariums will be given to Anna, Brad, and Bill. Deposits and support/dana can be given via paypal or check. When you make a donation, please note that it is for the 2022 October online retreat. https://satisangha.org/donate/

SCHEDULE (all times are in PDT)

Friday evening (Oct 7)
5:00 to 6:30 Introductions and Orientation
7:30 to 8:30 Meditation and Reflection

Saturday (Oct 8)
9:00 to 10:00 Daily Online Meditation
10:30 to 11:30 Reflection Groups
2:00 to 3:00 Dharma talk and Creative activity
3:30 to 4:30 Meditation and Reflection
5:00 to 6:30 Dyads and Discussion
7:30 to 8:30 Meditation and Reflection

Sunday (Oct 9)
9:00 to 10:00 Daily Online Meditation
10:30 to 11:30 Reflection Groups
2:00 to 3:00 Dharma talk and Creativity activity
3:30 to 4:30 Meditation and Reflection
5:00 to 6:00 Closing

USING ZOOM

• Log in a few minutes early for meetings. Your device will be muted upon entry. Please keep silent when you come on the call.
• In the upper right hand corner of the video you can choose speaker view or gallery view. Speaker view allows you to see the speaker full screen, and gallery view shows all participants.
• Mute and stop video functions are in the lower left hand corner. Locations may be different on iPad or smartphone.
• Unmute when you choose to speak. You can choose to turn your video on or off. Please keep your video off during meditation sessions. If you are using an iPad or smartphone, please stabilize the device. If you need to move around, please turn off the video.
• We request that you use a private room whenever possible. A headset with a built-in microphone is optimal, but not required.
• For optimal video conferencing, please consider rebooting your computer (and modem in some cases) some time before the meeting, and closing out all browser windows when on the call.
• Please understand that we will not be able to offer technical assistance once each segment of the day has started. You can email before or after the segment and we will try to help at those times.

AGREEMENTS TO PARTICIPATE

• Beginning with self honesty – being truthful with yourself
• Respecting autonomy – the right for you to control the direction of your meditation practice
• Avoiding actions that harm yourself and other participants during our sessions
• Practicing confidentiality
• Treating different kinds of experience and people equitably

BASIC INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRACTICE

• Choose a comfortable position – we will be meditating for 30-40 minutes. You can choose to meditate for a shorter amount of time.
• Let your thoughts, feelings and sensations move, holding your body relatively still. You may start with any practice you feel comfortable with, and change the focus of your practice at any time during the sitting.
• If you feel overwhelmed at any point you can open your eyes, you can bring your focus to an object (your body, a phrase or picture, the breath), or you can get up and move around.
• At the end of your meditation session, reflect back upon your experience by writing it down or simply remembering.
• We encourage you to explore your experience in meditation daily in the small reflection groups.

RETREAT TEACHERS & FACILITATORS

ANNA DELACROIX

I have been meditating since 1974, having learned Transcendental Meditation while living in a small rural town in southwest Washington State before attending my first 10-day Goenka retreat and discovering my deep affinity for early Buddhism. As a co-founder and for many years co-director of Cloud Mountain (a Buddhist retreat center near Castle Rock, WA) and Northwest Dharma Association (a Seattle-based consortium of Buddhist groups located throughout the Northwest), I had the opportunity and privilege of attending teachings and retreats with both monastic and lay teachers from many different Buddhist traditions (Theravada, Zen, Tibetan, Vipassana) – discovering with time and life’s lessons that basic (non-sectarian) awareness and insight practices seemed best suited to my temperament and understanding of the dharma. For many years I have been engaged in the study of Buddhist and Western psychologies, earning a Masters degree in counseling and training in psychoanalysis. After meeting Jason Siff in 2005, I began attending retreats with teachers of the Skillful Meditation Project, and since 2016 have been involved in Sati Sangha’s online community, study groups, and teaching council. I currently live in Seattle where I have a private practice in psychotherapy and offer meditation instruction and guidance.

BRAD PARKS

I was drawn to Buddhism as a young man — but, as Bob Dylan sang, “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now” — in response to a radical experience of “opening up” for which I had no framework at the time. Since I was already a bookish person, I sought out everything I could find to read on such discoveries, and Buddhism seemed to make the most sense. However, I studied for years without simply sitting still and seeing what happened. When I finally decided to “walk the talk”, I chose to study with Chogyam Trungpa who had famously — and infamously — brought Tibetan Buddhism to the West. His introduction to meditation lives in me to this day. As time passed I found a home in the Vipassana tradition as taught through the Insight Meditation Society with Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein. There I deepened my appreciation of the challenges and joys of solitude, clarity and discipline. Fifteen or so years ago I encountered the practice of Recollective Awareness through Jason Siff and my relationship to the Dharma became more radically personal and rich. For many years now I have been actively engaged with Linda Modaro’s teaching of Reflective Meditation, which has moved my understanding of the Dharma into deeper dimensions of feeling, creativity and honest self-awareness, with a focus on ethical living. I look forward to developing this deep and rewarding approach through my own practice and teaching.

BILL WELLHOUSE

Like so many others of my generation, I first became interested in Buddhism by reading books by Alan Watts, the Beat Poets, and others. Then in 1975 I sat my first retreat and began actually practicing meditation, first in Rochester, New York, and then at the Zen Center of Los Angeles with Maezumi Roshi. Later, in 1983, my wife and I moved to San Diego to join Joko Beck when she opened the Zen Center of San Diego. I studied there for many years while maintaining a career in education and helping to raise a small family. Around 2012, after my retirement, I was looking for a fresh approach and joined the Skillful Meditation Project led by Jason Siff. After sitting several retreats, I joined a teacher training cohort, and now work with Linda Modaro to develop my skills in leading meditation groups in Reflective Meditation.

I think what really attracts me about this approach is the spirit of exploration and the quality of kindness to myself and others that seems to arise from the practice. I currently work with students in San Diego under Linda’s guidance. My other interests include a very strong engagement in the climate change movement as well as continuing to hike in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California and the canyons of Utah and Arizona as I have for years.