Online Urban Retreat: Sweeping Our Temple – Remembering Kind Awareness
with Leslie Booker & Bart van Melik
Saturday February 27th, 2021 | 9:00 am – 5:00pm ET
Sunday, February 28th, 2021 | 9:00am – 3:00pm ET
The Buddha’s teachings are timeless and can be applied in all circumstances. Wherever our location, we can come home to kind awareness, attune to nature and meditate in community. On this urban retreat we invite you to be mindful of your life at home. There’s no enlightenment outside of daily life.
With the teachings on the 5 Spiritual Powers, (Faith, Energy, Mindfulness, Concentration, and Wisdom), we will train our ability to bear witness to personal and social pains and will immerse ourselves in heart qualities inviting us to dance and vacuum in our temple we call home.
This retreat is open to everyone. There will be periods of guided meditation, mindful movement and group inquiry with room for Q&R.
The weekend’s practice schedule will be:
Saturday:
First Session: 9:00am – 12:00pm
Second Session: 2:00pm – 5:00pm
Sunday:
First Session: 9:00am – 12:00pm
Second Session: 1:00pm – 3:00pm
with instructions for how to practice between the formal meditation periods.
Registration:
Please register at the highest level that your generosity offers.
Explanations of levels follow below.
If you are registering via a mobile device such as a phone or tablet, you can scroll right and left and up and down within the below form if it is partially obscured or cut off. Please contact [email protected] if you need assistance.
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.
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 [email protected].
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 [email protected].


Booker is a heart – centered, spirit – driven activist and meditation teacher committed to creating a culture of belonging through her teaching and writing. She completed Spirit Rock’s 4 year Retreat Teacher Training in 2020, and shared the practices of yoga and mindfulness with New York City’s most vulnerable populations for over a decade. Booker has co – authored and contributed to several publications including the trauma – informed anthology Practicing Liberation and its accompanying workbook, for folks working towards social justice. She is a co-founder of the Yoga Service Council at Omega Institute and the Meditation Working Group of Occupy Wall Street. In 2020 she was invited to be a Sojourner Truth Leadership Fellow through Auburn Seminary and was voted by her peers as one of the 12 Powerful Women in the Mindfulness Movement.
Bart van Melik is the Guiding Teacher at the Community Meditation Center. With training from Joseph Goldstein, Carol Wilson, and Gregory Kramer, he has been teaching meditation globally since 2009. Co-author of Still, in the City, he has brought mindfulness to diverse communities, including juvenile detention centers, homeless shelters, and NYC public schools. A graduate of the IMS/Spirit Rock Teacher Training, Bart is dedicated to helping people find new ways to navigate life’s stresses. Originally from Holland, he is passionate about making meditation accessible to all.