Finding the Way Home to Kind Awareness: An IMS Urban Retreat
with Bart van Melik and Leslie Booker
Saturday, January 25th, 2020 | 9:30am – 6:00pm
Sunday, January 26th, 2020 | 9:30am – 4:00pm
Insight Meditation Society (IMS) is pleased to present this weekend urban retreat at New York Insight (NYI). During this retreat, we will explore the heart of the Buddha’s teaching: suffering and its causes and freedom from its causes. With the help and cultivation of our kind and natural awareness, we can become intimate with what it is like to be human.
We will train our ability to bear witness to our personal and social pains and will immerse ourselves in timeless teachings to incline our heart-minds towards appreciating the joy of living. By taking refuge in the heart of kind awareness we will slow down and listen to the truths of the present moment and find peace in our own awakened heart.
This retreat is open to everyone. We will honor and abide in noble silence including the periods of silent sitting, mindful movement practice and group inquiry. There will be group meetings with the teachers and plenty of time for Q&A.
NYI will provide a plant-based lunch with gluten free options for these two days as well as teas and nutritious snacks.
IMS Urban Retreats at New York Insight: These non-residential retreats are a great opportunity to deepen and integrate our mindfulness meditation practice into our daily lives within the urban environment and within the container of noble silence. While this weekend retreat is suitable for beginners through experienced meditators, some meditation exposure is helpful.
Learn more about IMS Urban Retreats here.
This program is made possible with major support from the Laura S. Rodgers Fund of the Community Foundation of New Jersey.
Registration:
Please note that consistent with IMS practice, teachers for IMS Urban Retreats offer their talents and services to our community through the practice of dana, the generosity of donations from participants which are collected at the end of the retreat. The registration fees listed below only cover NYI’s direct costs for presenting these programs such as rent, staffing, registration processing, volunteer management, etc.
This event is sold out and the waiting list is closed. We will not be accepting walk-in registrations on the day of. Please check out the upcoming IMS Urban Retreats at New York Insight HERE.
Registration Fees
New York Insight Meditation Center has streamlined the registration fee levels. Members of our Circle of Friends are eligible to receive 20% off of the Sustaining Rate via a code provided in the email confirming membership, which you can enter after clicking the Sustaining Level registration.
*Benefactor Level: Supports NYI’s ability to offer the Subsidized Base.
**Sustaining Level: This level reflects the actual costs to support this program. Circle of Friends members eligible for 20% discount with code. Click here to join.
***Subsidized Base: Made possible by the generosity of Benefactor Level above and other donations to ensure participation by those requiring financial assistance.
If you have questions about your registration (cancellation policy, membership discount, email confirmation, etc.), please read our FAQs. If your question is not addressed in the FAQs, please email registration@nyimc.org.
Teacher(s)
Bart van Melik
Bart van Melik is the Community Meditation Center Guiding Teacher. Trained by Joseph Goldstein, Carol Wilson, and Gregory Kramer, he has taught meditation worldwide since 2009. Co-author of Still, in the City: Creating Peace of Mind in the Midst of Urban Chaos, Bart has been bringing the practice to diverse communities like juvenile detention centers, homeless shelters and NYC public schools. He is passionate about supporting people to discover how they can find new ways to relate to life’s stresses. Bart graduated from the IMS/Spirit Rock Teacher Training. Bart is originally from Holland.
Leslie Booker
Leslie Booker is a Guiding Teacher at New York Insight. She brings her heart and wisdom to the intersection of Dharma, Embodied Wisdom, and Liberation. Using this framework, she supports folks in creating a culture of belonging through her teaching and writing on changing the paradigm of self and community care.
After training as a yoga teacher in 2007, Booker was drawn to Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Mindful Yoga and Meditation training which she completed in 2012. Supported by her teacher Gina Sharpe, she continued her formal teacher training at Spirit Rock through their Community Dharma Leaders Training, graduating in 2017, and their Retreat Teacher training program which she completed in 2020. Throughout these years, she worked as the Director of Teacher Trainings for Lineage Project, where she shared the practices of yoga and mindfulness with incarcerated and system-involved youth for over a decade. She also worked with the youth population on Rikers Island through the LionHeart Foundation and at the National Institute of Health for two years.
Booker has spoken at venues including the Mind & Life Institute’s International Symposium, Contemplative Minds in Higher Education, the Fetzer Institute, and Vassar Colleges. She is a co-author of ‘Best Practices for Yoga in a Criminal Justice Setting’, and a contributor to Sharon Salzberg’s book ‘Happiness at Work’ and Dr. Rima Vesely–Flad’s book ‘Black Buddhist and the Black Radical Tradition’. Her writing and other work can also be found in Lion’s Roar, Tricycle Magazine, Yoga Journal and Ten Percent Happier. She currently lives in Philadelphia with her partner and pup.
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