Hosted by Andrea Lieberstein, MPH, RDN, RYT

Vajrapani Institute for Wisdom Culture

Boulder Creek, California

May 24-27, 2019  

This three-day retreat will focus on cultivating mindfulness and compassion and the meditation practices of Mindful Eating. When we eat mindfully, we involve all the senses by engaging our body and our mind. We utilize color, texture, smell, taste, and sound to nurture our experience. We learn to pay attention to what our body really needs and why. To support cultivating our awareness, we will quiet the mind and open the heart through yoga, sitting and walking meditation. Through these practices of deepening our inner awareness of the body and mind, we will experience wisdom and compassion, which is our true nature. We will be working with teachings of the Buddha and contemporary applications, how to stay present and embodied in the moment, aware of and working with mind states that create obstacles to awakening, while cultivating qualities that enhance well-being in everyday life. This will include the exploration of craving and grasping, and cultivation of compassion. We can experience food as pleasure and nourishment while finding our right relationship to amount and quality in each moment. Mindful eating and living can nudge us beyond what we’re craving so that we wake up to why we’re craving it. We can learn to live life with more equanimity and ease, with the skills to make conscious choices.

Teachings are appropriate for health care professionals as well as the general public. Health care professionals will be able to incorporate the tools and practices offered in this program in ways beneficial to clients or patients.