March 20-23, 2025
Queer Retreat: The Paramis as a Revolutionary Act
Leslie Booker
Assisted by Coral Short
2019 New Year’s Retreat - Arnprior
Teacher
Daryl Lynn Ross
When
December 29, 2019 -
January 1, 2020
Where
Galilee Centre
Arnprior, ON
Cost
$395 / $450 / $500
Deposit: $200
Welcome the New Year with reflection and intention, silence and community, surrounded by the beauty of Arnprior and the warmth of the Galilee Centre! Bring your cross-country skis, snowshoes and hiking boots. We will be supported by the meditation practice, dharma talks, and a midnight gathering. This retreat is suitable for those familiar with vipassana practice.
A silent weekend meditation retreat in the vipassana tradition or a MBSR course are the prerequisites.
Teacher
Daryl Lynn Ross lives and transmits the Buddhist teachings from the heart with a sensitivity to the unique path of each person. She has been teaching meditation for over 30 years and is grateful to have teachers and mentors from several Buddhist and other traditions, including mystical Christian. For 22 years as a University Chaplain at Concordia University in Montreal she offered meditation practices and spiritual leadership. Co-founder and guiding teacher for TNI since 2003, Daryl teaches local groups and intensive courses, mentors and counsels in personal meetings and enjoys offering a wide range of retreats. She is known for her clear, gentle, compassionate approach which is both accessible and profound.
Registration Information
LOCATION: Galilee Centre, 398 John Street North, Arnprior, Ontario
http://www.galileecentre.com/
ARRIVAL TIME: 3:30-5:30 pm, Sunday, December 29. The retreat will conclude before lunch on Wednesday, January 1. Everyone is welcome to stay for lunch.
COST: TNI is dedicated to offering affordable rates to all. TNI retreat fees are on a sliding scale basis that allows participants to pay according to individual means. Fees do not include compensation for the teachings, and teachers rely on the generosity of retreatants for a sustainable income. There is an opportunity to offer dana (donations) to the teachers at the end of each retreat. The deposit is included in all of our fees.
Sliding Scale:
$395 - $450 - $500
Deposit:
$200
Embodied Wisdom
Teacher
Pascal Auclair
When
November 27-December 1, 2019
Where
Kio-o
Sainte-Lucie-des-Laurentides, QC
Cost
$505 / $575 / $640
Deposit: $255
To have a free mind, an open heart, with the senses alive no matter what the circumstances—this is what the Buddhist path proposes. It’s up to you to discover if it’s possible. In this retreat the search for happiness involves calming the mind and developing clarity, receptivity and inner stability.
This retreat will be held in French, with the possibility of having an individual meeting with the teacher in English if needed.
Teachers
Photo ©salva magaz | www.magaz.com
Pascal Auclair has been immersed in Buddhist practice and study since 1997, sitting retreats in Asia and America with revered monastics and lay teachers. He has been mentored by Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Massachusetts and Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California, where he is now enjoying teaching retreats. Pascal teaches in North America and Europe. His depth of insight, classical training, and creative expression all combine in a wise and compassionate presence. In addition, his warmth and humour make Pascal a much appreciated teacher.
Registration Information
LOCATION: Kio-o, 1905, ch. du 6e Rang, Sainte-Lucie des Laurentides (Québec) J0T 2J0
ARRIVAL TIME: 3:30-5:30 pm, Wednesday, November 27. The retreat will conclude by lunch on Sunday, December 1. Everyone is welcome to stay for lunch.
COST: TNI is dedicated to offering affordable rates to all. TNI retreat fees are on a sliding scale basis that allows participants to pay according to individual means. Fees do not include compensation for the teachings, and teachers rely on the generosity of retreatants for a sustainable income. There is an opportunity to offer dana (donations) to the teachers at the end of each retreat. The deposit is included in all of our fees.
Sliding Scale:
$505 - $575 - $640
Deposit:
$255
People of Colour Retreat
Teachers
DaRa Williams
Roxanne Dault
Jozen Tamori Gibson
Dawn Mauricio
When
October 24-27, 2019
Where
Galilee Centre
Arnprior, ON
Cost
You Choose Rate* / $450 / $500
Deposit: $60
We are pleased to inform you of True North Insight's inaugural silent meditation retreat for practitioners of colour. While we all may have experiences in common, we are also a tapestry of many colours, backgrounds, cultures, orientations, life experiences, world views, and identities. This retreat aims to bring together a community of people of colour for practice in an environment of safety and ease where all of one's self is welcome and appreciated. It is an intention for the retreat that you will leave on the last day with a new or renewed understanding that there is the possibility for living a life with clarity and wisdom and not reactivity and suffering.
The retreat will offer an introduction to insight meditation (Vipassana) and mindfulness, and as well as an opportunity to practice in a silent retreat context. Through the offering of guided meditations, pointers on sitting and walking posture and an introduction to metta practice, you will become acquainted with the words and philosophy of the dharma through talks and reflections by teachers. In addition, opportunities to ask questions in the full group setting will make this an accessible retreat for meditators in beginning stages of practice as well as those who may have some practice experience. We will explore the fundamental teachings of the Buddha as a doorway to freedom and to meeting life’s difficulties with balance and clarity.
Participants will be offered guidance on bringing the practice into daily life, to live lightly in this world, with a compassionate heart and the spirit of the Dharma in everything we do.
There will also be an opportunity to ask questions and discuss your practice with the teachers in small group meetings, and individually, by sign up request.
It is our hope that through engaging this invitation to retreat you will experience the practice as an antidote to the impact of both the individual and collective stress caused by the cultural and structural manifestation of oppression, racism, genocide and colonization that has impacted POC for and through the generations.
Looking forward to seeing you in October 2019 and walking a bit of this journey together as a community.
Teachers
DaRa Williams has practiced vipassana meditation for 25 years and serves as an IMS guiding teacher. She is also a certified coordinating trainer for Aboriginal Focusing Oriented Complex Trauma Therapy and maintains a private psychotherapy practice in the New York City area. "It is my experience that meditation and the Dharma are ideal for transforming suffering. Awareness, wisdom and a compassionate heart become the vehicle for transformation, connection and freedom."
Jozen Tamori Gibson (they, them) began formal meditation practice in 2004 through Zen while living in Japan, joined by a Theravada practice in 2010. As a senior student with the Brooklyn Zen Center (BZC) they also serve as co-facilitator and member of the BZC People of Color sangha, the center’s male identifying sangha engaging in Undoing Patriarchy and Unveiling the Sacred Masculine, and mentor for the Awake Youth Project. Jozen studies in the 2017-2021 Insight Meditation Society Dharma Teacher Training and serves on the New York Insight Meditation Center’s teacher council. With certifications and embodiment studies in Yoga, Qigong, Indigenous Focusing Oriented Therapy (IFOT) and Complex Trauma, Jozen lives to provide and nourish contemplative mind-heart-body alignment practices and spaces rooted in wellness, anti-oppression and interdependent liberation for all beings. Jozen honors the wisdom and compassion of all teachers, highlighting their mother, Akimi, and dharma root teacher, Pamela Weiss.
Roxanne Dault A dedicated practitioner of Vipassana (insight) meditation for more than 10 years, Roxanne has sat many long retreats in Canada, USA, India, Burma, Thailand and Nepal, spending more than two years in silence in the last decade. Roxanne has completed a two-year Buddhist Study and Practice Program and was part of a two-year Teaching Mentorship with Pascal Auclair and Daryl Lynn Ross. She is currently part of the four-year Insight Meditation Society (IMS) Teacher Training in the USA. Her teaching is influenced by her indigenous ancestry, her many travels and her experience in Somatic Experiencing® for the healing of stress and trauma. Roxanne wants to share her love for the Dharma so that we can all touch the freedom in every moment!
Dawn Mauricio has been practicing and studying Insight Meditation since 2005, sitting silent residential retreats in Canada, United States, Thailand, and Burma. Since discovering the Dharma, she has graduated from Spirit Rock's Mindfulness Yoga and Meditation Training and the Dedicated Practitioners' Program, as well as the first teacher development group of True North Insight. Dawn teaches with a playful, dynamic, and centered approach, currently leading a weekly sitting group, daylong retreats, and mindfulness workshops. She is a meditation retreat teacher for teenagers with Inward Bound Mindfulness Education and is currently in Spirit Rock's 4-year Teacher Training.
Registration Information
LOCATION: Galilee Centre, 398 John Street North, Arnprior, Ontario
http://www.galileecentre.com/
ARRIVAL TIME: 3:30-5:30 pm, Thursday, October 24. The retreat will conclude by lunch on Sunday, October 27. Everyone is welcome to stay for lunch.
COST: TNI is dedicated to offering affordable rates to all. TNI retreat fees are on a sliding scale basis that allows participants to pay according to individual means. Fees do not include compensation for the teachings, and teachers rely on the generosity of retreatants for a sustainable income. There is an opportunity to offer dana (donations) to the teachers at the end of each retreat. The deposit is included in all of our fees.
Sliding Scale:
You Choose Rate* - $450 - $500
Deposit:
$60
*So that TNI can offer this form of financial assistance to as many as possible, please be as generous as you can when choosing your rate, at or above $20 per night ($60 minimum total).
Awakening the Heart
Teachers
Molly Swan
Norman Feldman
When
November 20-24, 2019
Where
Loyola House
Guelph, ON
Cost
$540 / $610 / $675
Deposit: $270
Experience the transformative influence of Metta (the Pali word for lovingkindness or friendliness) as it is partnered with Insight Meditation on this silent four-day retreat. With the conditions of struggle and stress so prevalent in our personal lives, and with hatred, fear and violence showing forcefully in the world, the cultivation and expression of Metta becomes increasingly necessary to bring about and sustain peace, both inwardly and in the outer world. We long for peace. May these days together support our efforts for wisdom and peacefulness.
You will be supported by daily yoga practice, silence, meeting with a teacher, guided meditations, beautiful grounds, amazing food and a private room.
Teachers
Molly Swan has been engaging in spiritual inquiry and meditation practice since the 1980's in North America, India, and England, primarily with teachers in the Theravada Buddhist tradition. Since 1997 she has been teaching Insight Meditation retreats as well as mentoring individuals and groups. A part of Molly's practice has been supporting others in accessing the precious gift of the Buddhist teachings. She is a co-founder and past Guiding Teacher for True North Insight Meditation Centre, and organized and managed retreats for many years in India, England, and Canada.
Molly's path has been primarily the teachings and practice of the Buddha because they speak with such clarity and possibility of liberation from suffering and struggle that is possible right here, right now - allowing the heart, and life, to truly flower. Other sources of inspiration for Molly have been months of pilgrimage in India, and living 'on the road' where the experience of stepping into the unknown as a daily experience is a powerful teacher.
Although Molly has been teaching and supporting the Dhamma whole-heartedly for years, she is enjoying a much-reduced teaching schedule now, allowing time in semi-retirement for supporting others in the meditation teacher role, for pursuing other interests, and for simply ‘being’.
Norman Feldman attended his first Insight Meditation retreat in 1971, while traveling in India. Since then he has practiced and studied with many teachers in the Theravada, Tibetan and Zen traditions of Buddhism, as well as with teachers in the Advaita-Vedanta tradition of Hinduism. He has spent long periods of time without a home, practicing intensively in India, Thailand and Sri Lanka, and in the West. He has also lived in Buddhist communities in England and Canada. Norman began teaching Insight Meditation retreats in 1986, and since then he has taught retreats throughout Canada and the US, as well as in England, in Bodh Gaya, India and in Israel.
Since 1998 Norman has been engaged full-time in offering Dharma support to others. He has also taught Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programmes. Norman is a co-founder and has been a Guiding Teacher for TNI.
As well as leading formal retreats, Norman has offered forms of practice that facilitate the integration of meditation into daily life. These have included canoe retreats, study classes in the Buddhist texts, non-residential retreats that emphasize the integration of meditative awareness, insight and inquiry into daily life, and pilgrimage to the sacred Buddhist sites of India and Nepal.
Currently, Norman lives in Guelph, Canada. He is reducing his teaching schedule and giving more attention to mentoring and supporting the next generation of dhamma teachers. In previous lives he has been a pharmacist and a shiatsu therapist.
Registration Information
LOCATION: Loyola House, 5420 Highway 6 North, Guelph, Ontario
ARRIVAL TIME: 4:00-6:00 pm, Wednesday, November 20. The retreat will conclude by lunch on Sunday, November 22. Everyone is welcome to stay for lunch.
COST: TNI is dedicated to offering affordable rates to all. TNI retreat fees are on a sliding scale basis that allows participants to pay according to individual means. Fees do not include compensation for the teachings, and teachers rely on the generosity of retreatants for a sustainable income. There is an opportunity to offer dana (donations) to the teachers at the end of each retreat. The deposit is included in all of our fees.
Sliding Scale:
$540 - $610 - $675
Deposit:
$270
Freedom through Understanding: Insight as the Path to Peace
Teachers
Michele McDonald
Jesse Maceo Vega-Frey
When
September 5-13, 2019
Where
Galilee Centre
Arnprior, ON
Cost
$975 / $1140 / $1285
Deposit: $490
The teachers will be offering Vipassana practice rooted in deepening our understanding of mindfulness as the intention to understand our experience rather than to judge and control it.
Learn to develop a field of awareness that can be narrowed or broadened, that can incline toward clarity or compassion, depending on the needs of the circumstance. Learn to move with courage toward difficulty when mindfulness and equanimity are strong, and to infuse one's awareness with gentle care when the challenges seem overwhelming.
The practice is grounded firmly in the Theravada teachings of the Buddha and offered in the spirit of our times. All four foundations of mindfulness will be taught so that yogis can access deeper levels of insight and peace.
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Teachers
Michele McDonald has taught Insight meditation for over 35 years. Beyond her commitment to the Vipassana Hawai'i Sangha in Honolulu, she has taught extensively throughout the United States, and regularly teaches in Canada, Burma, and elsewhere around the world. Having worked with a wide range of Asian and Western teachers, Michele is most inspired by her practice with Dipa Ma and Sayadaw U Pandita and more recently in Burma with the Mya Taung Sayadaw.
She appreciates teaching at many levels of practice and has enjoyed teaching three-month retreats for experienced students as well as developing meditation retreats for youth. Her style of teaching emphasizes helping individuals find entry points into stillness that are natural for them. She encourages an understanding of the path of insight and a gentle strengthening of mindfulness and concentration so that, ultimately, people can access the peaceful depths of their experience in every moment. Michele is thrilled when students begin to love their practice.
www.vipassanahawaii.org
Jesse Maceo Vega-Frey is a teacher of Vipassana (insight) meditation. His teaching aims to inspire the skills, determination and faith necessary to realize the deepest human freedom.
Understanding that inner freedom exists in dynamic interplay within a context of social justice, Jesse also facilitates workshops and trainings that help people take skillful leadership in their many webs of worldly entanglements in order to unbind relationships of oppression and promote liberation.
He is co-founder of The Stone House, a center for spiritual life and social justice in Mebane, NC. His teaching schedule can be found at www.dolessforpeace.org.
Registration Information
LOCATION: Galilee Centre, 398 John Street North, Arnprior, Ontario
http://www.galileecentre.com/
ARRIVAL TIME: 3:30-5:30 pm, Thursday, September 5. The retreat will conclude by lunch on Friday, September 13. Everyone is welcome to stay for lunch.
COST: TNI is dedicated to offering affordable rates to all. TNI retreat fees are on a sliding scale basis that allows participants to pay according to individual means. Fees do not include compensation for the teachings, and teachers rely on the generosity of retreatants for a sustainable income. There is an opportunity to offer dana (donations) to the teachers at the end of each retreat. The deposit is included in all of our fees.
Sliding Scale:
$975 - $1140 - $1285
Deposit:
$490