Meditation

In 1996 Evelyn began a serious exploration of the art of meditation. She attended extensive meditation retreats at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Mass.. These retreats consisted of sustained seated, standing and walking meditation for periods of 16 hours a day. The retreats she attended included periods 4 and 6 weeks, and many 3 and 8 day retreats.

Vipassana (insight meditation) is the simple and direct practice of moment-to-moment mindfulness. Through careful and sustained observation we experience for ourselves the ever-changing flow of the mind-body process. This awareness leads us to accept more fully the pleasure, pain, fear, joy, sadness, and happiness that life inevitably brings. As insight deepens we develop greater equanimity and peace in the face of change, and wisdom and compassion increasingly become the guiding principals of our life.

Vipassana is simple, profound, ancient; promoting clarity, concentration and insight.

Evelyn offers workshops to deepen your experience of calm abiding.

Don’t go outside your house to see flowers.

My friend, don’t bother with that excursion.

Inside your body there are flowers.

One flower has a thousand petals.

That will do for a place to sit.

Sitting there you will have a glimpse of beauty.

Inside the body and out of it,

Before gardens and after gardens.

- KABIR

Practice is not about having experiences,

Not about having giant realizations,

not about getting somewhere or becoming something.

We are perfect as we are.

By "perfect" I mean simply maintaining awareness,

of our activities and also the thoughts that separate us

From our activities.

Awareness is our true self; it’s what we are.

So we don’t have to try to develop awareness;

we simply need to notice how we block awareness,

With our thoughts,

Our fantasies,

Our opinions and our judgements.

- CHARLOTE JOKO BECK