Michael Finkel, Men’s Journal Magazine: These are my final words: “Why a camp chair?” I speak them to a man named Wade. Wade from Minnesota. I’m in line behind him, waiting to enter the Dhamma Giri meditation center, in the quiet hill country of western India, for the official start of the 10-day course. Wade tells me that this is his second course and that he learned a valuable lesson from the first. “I’m so glad I have this,” he says, indicating the small folding camp chair tucked under his arm. I utter my last question. It’s never answered. One of the volunteers …

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James Atlas, New York Times: was I in a tent in northern Vermont? Much less a tent in the woods at a Buddhist meditation center, reading Sakyong Mipham’s “Turning the Mind Into an Ally” by the light from my smartphone?

If you really want to hear about it (to borrow a phrase from Holden Caulfield), I was on retreat. Perhaps I should say, I was in retreat, from a frenetic Manhattan life, hoping to find the balance and harmony that have formed the basis of the Buddhist tradition ever since Siddhartha Gautama discovered enlightenment around 2,500 years ago while sitting under a Bodhi tree …

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What does it means to live mindfully? How do we bring more calm and inner clarity into our daily lives? How can we stay confident and purposeful when times get rough?

This gentle introductory residential retreat is open to all, especially those with no prior experience with meditation or Buddhism. We will explore the Buddha’s teachings on mindfulness in a down-to-earth, practical way through meditation, discussion, and hands-on exercises. We’ll also investigate how to live with greater awareness and contentment with ourselves, and in turn, how to live in harmony with the world around us.

What are we looking for? What gives our lives a sense of meaning? How can we find a sense of confidence in a world marked by change? In the Noble Quest sutta from the Middle Length Sayings, the Buddha offers a first-person guide to the pursuit of a meaningful life. Drawing on his own life story, he beautifully outlines the creative spiritual restlessness that drove him to reject any goal short of complete awakening.

On this weekend led by Bodhipaksa, through study, discussion, personal exploration, and meditation, we’ll explore the Buddha’s teaching on attaining the sorrowless state and get in touch with the spiritual rebel within.

Bodhipaksa has been a …

Matthew Green: The guru looked troubled. A spry 75-year-old, who could have passed for 60, he usually wore an expression as pure as his ivory robe. Peering into my cell, he watched as I wept harder than I could remember, for a reason my mind could not fathom. Then he beamed. “You are very lucky,” he said. “This is a very big sankara leaving your body – perhaps it was an illness that even a doctor could not cure.”

Perplexing as his words sounded, their meaning would become clear later. All I could grasp then was that the Indian meditation master believed that my …

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Actor David Duchovny recently spent a weekend shovelling horse manure as part of a Buddhist meditation retreat.

The Californication star escaped to upstate New York for a few days to join a monastery programme aimed at helping guests find inner peace through meditation.

But Duchovny admits the stay wasn’t as relaxing as he thought it would be – because he was put to work as soon as he arrived.
He says, “I just went on a retreat to a zen monastery in upstate New York. It’s a type of Buddhism and meditation is a big part of it…

“I’m a beginner, I’ve only …

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Hilary Stout: On a Friday morning in October — Oct. 21, to be exact — Mark Trippetti, an advertising consultant from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, surrendered his laptop and iPhone to storage at a remote mountainside center in southern Colorado and prepared to drop out of human contact for a month.

The previous week he had begun the withdrawal process, leaving word with clients, cutting back his use of technology and giving up caffeine. Before checking out completely, he made one final call to his girlfriend, Jee Chang.

By careful design, Mr. Trippetti would not see or communicate with anyone until Nov. 20. At his spartan cabin …

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On the third anniversary of the start of the deadly attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai that left 165 people dead, the BBC’s Rajini Vaidyanathan reports on some of the survivors who are preaching forgiveness in a newly published book.

The Mumbai 25 – as they were known – were in Mumbai on 26 November 2008 as part of a meditation retreat.

Two members of the group were killed in the attacks, but the survivors hope that showing compassion will bring something good from a terrible tragedy.

It was a last-minute cancellation that led Linda Ragsdale to travel from the US to Mumbai in November 2008.

She …

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Writer and meditator Mandy Sutter views the reporting-in process at the end of silent retreats with a mixture of dread and excitement.

Many Buddhist retreat centres embrace the custom of the ‘Closing Circle’.

This doesn’t mean sitting in the middle of a razor toothed torture ring that gradually closes in and squeezes the life out of you, like something out of a James Bond movie.

No. It’s worse than that.

It means that after spending, say, a fortnight in silence with thirty strangers, the group sits in a large circle on the last evening to share their experience.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not against hearing how everyone else got on. …

Shefalee Vasudev (Indian Express):

A seven-day course in silent meditation is buttered bliss.

Are you a morning person?” she asked. The bristles of hair on her shaven head were golden, her skin alabaster and she wore androgynous clothes.

This was at an “Introduction to Buddhism” course at Tushita, a meditation centre in Mcleodganj, Dharamsala. I was taken aback to see a hundred-odd people trooping into the quiet retreat and felt momentarily lost in the crowd dominated by foreigners. Most looked like spiritual shoppers dressed in psychedelic tops, T-shirts and scarves with Om and other spiritual symbols, harem pants, shawls, silver jewellery, braided hair, ear and nose…

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