In-Person: Mahapajapati’s Celebration – A Half-Day Retreat For Those Who Identify On the Gender Spectrum as Women
with Wildecy de Fátima Jury and Gayah (Imani) Gillson
Saturday, August 12th, 2023 | 1:00pm – 5:30pm ET
In-Person Location: Balance Arts Center at 151 W 30th St. 3rd floor, New York, NY
“Where do I go when there’s no one to turn to,
Feel all alone, wondering why I am,
Where do I go when I need familiar,
Woman Hold My Hand”
-From “Mae Frances” by Sweet Honey In The Rock
Mahapajapati, the Buddha’s aunt, raised him after his mother passed away seven days after his birth. When Mahapajapati wanted to go into spiritual life, she was denied three times by the Buddha even though he intended to break the caste system. Mahapajapati didn’t give up. She put on a saffron robe, shaved her head, and walked 150 miles barefoot to where Buddha was residing. She took with her 500 unprotected and vulnerable women: widows, prostitutes, enslaved women, and many from harems, including the Buddha’s.
Mahapajapati held the hands of these women who may have felt angry, abandoned, resentful, and desperate, with a great amount of suffering during a time when many women were outcasts and left by their husbands who were enlisted or went into monastic life. Mahapajapati offered some of the widows a choice besides throwing themselves into the pyre when their husbands died.
Mahapajapati was known as an exceptional woman with a deep level of dignity, compassion, and wisdom. She was caring and nurturing and an archetype of caregivers, mothers, heroes, and leaders. She was a great Bodhisattva whose life is relatively unknown and little spoken about.
Many women today carry patterns that demonstrate Mahapajapati’s divine qualities. Yet, many also face challenges that Mahapajapati and those 500 women encountered 2600 years ago. If not in our day-to-day lives, perhaps these challenges are printed in our psyches and our relationships.
In this half-day retreat, we will:
-Celebrate Mahapajapati’s virtues, attributes, actions, and merits
-Reflect on her compassion and renunciations in order to cultivate her bodhisattva nature
-Contemplate Mahapajapati’s wisdom and how to apply it to our own lives to become a deeper knower of the Dharma
During this program, we will:
-Meditate, contemplate, and chant
-Dance and move as our body allows
-Enter dialogues and group sharings
-Collectively write a script and perform together.
Before registering, please ask yourself if you can commit to staying the entire time. Bring a journal if desired.
Registration:
Please register at the highest level that your generosity offers.
Explanations of levels follow below.
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Registration Fees include Teacher Support
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.
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If you are unable to pay the Subsidized Base Fee, you can learn about volunteering to offer work exchange and letting us know how much you are able to pay for this program by emailing registration@nyimc.org.
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Teacher(s)
Wildecy de Fátima Jury
Wildecy de Fátima Jury has been formally practicing Theravada/Vipassana meditation over 20 years. She graduated from the Dedicated Practitioner Program and the Community Dharma Leader Program at Spirit Rock, in California. In 2015, she received a non-monastic ordination through the Dharmacharya Program with the Venerables Pannavati and Pannadipa. She has completed the Dharmapala Training with teachers Thanissara and Kittisaro.
She has offered classes and retreats at East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, Insight LA, Zen Center and University of Syracuse, many meditation centers in Brazil, Harlem Insight, Community and New York Insight Meditation Center. At the moment Fátima is at NYIMC Teachers’ Council.
She has studied different spiritual practices and as a spiritual practitioner she has worked with many multicultural communities and groups. She holds a BA in Psychology and Women’s Study and a Master in Social Work. She is certified in Aboriginal Focusing Oriented Therapy through the Justice Institute in Vancouver, BC.
Her intention is to promote the strengthening of sanghas and communities through the cultivation of compassion, unity and decolonization of oppressed and oppressive minds. She is an artist, a writer, and a poet who describes herself as a person within floating identities.
Gayah (Imani) Gillson
Gayah (Imani) Gillson began her meditation journey studying the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh and then subsequently studied directly with S.N. Goenka, Ruth Denison, Ven. Pannavati and Ven. Pannadipa, Ruth King, Gina Sharp, Phillip Moffit, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Deepak Chopra, Arisika Rasak, Larry Yang, Pascal Auclair, and Kittisaro and Thanissara.
Gayah [pronounced Guy-uh] is a Dharmacharya Lay-Ordained Monastic Minister, Theravadan practitioner with Mahayana, Vajrayana, and Zen influences.
She/They/Kin graduated from the Dedicated Practitioner Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, in Woodacre, California. Gayah has additional roots in intersectional spiritual/mysticism/wisdom practices such as indigenous ceremonies, orisha circles and new-thought christianity.
She also has background training in Peer Counseling, Compassionate Communication and healing racial trauma. She is a California Certified Mediator, has studied Restorative/Transformative Justice and served as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA).
Her teaching venues include NYIMC (POC class) at Brooklyn Zen Center, Zen Center of Syracuse, Syracuse University, Dai Bosatsu Zendo Kongo-Ji Zen Studies Society, Gowanus Community Art Center, Brooklyn POC and Allies Sangha Online. She has taught, facilitated, and co-created retreats and workshops in the US and abroad, in Brazil. At both East Bay Meditation Center (EBMC) in Oakland (CA) and at the Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center in Hendersonville (NC) Gayah has taught the sutras by using her theatrical skills to bring ancient texts to life.
As an actress, director, songwriter, artist, lgbtq activist, community organizer, and international speaker-presenter, Gayah brings dharmic values and principles to all activities. She Is the founding director of Theater of the Liberated, as well as chief enthusiasm officer of Artist Temple Film & Music – both companies specializing in creating performance and distribution art through a social justice and spiritual healing lens.