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 registration@nyimc.org 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 registration@nyimc.org.
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.
Teacher(s)
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.
W | LeslieBooker.com
IG | TheRealBookerProject
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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.