Gladdening the Heart: An Online Meditation Retreat about Meditative Joy

 If we cannot be happy in the midst of our difficulties, what good is our spiritual practice?

~ Maha Gosananda

In more ordinary times, joy is an essential inner aspect of the path of awakening to understand and cultivate. It is one of the Seven Factors of Awakening as well as one of the Brahmaviharas, the four beautiful qualities of heart, that can be accessed via training. Without joy, the path is dry and our understanding woefully incomplete.

This program will be held online via Zoom. All registrants will receive the link to join the program in their Order Confirmation email. Times are ET.

In more ordinary times, joy is an essential inner aspect of the path of awakening to understand and cultivate. It is one of the Seven Factors of Awakening as well as one of the Brahmaviharas, the four beautiful qualities of heart, that can be accessed via training. Without joy, the path is dry and our understanding woefully incomplete.

In these times of extreme stress in the world at large, joy can be neglected. It can seem calloused and insensitive to cultivate joy in the midst of such suffering. But meditative joy doesn’t dismiss or negate suffering. It is not superficial and does not involve efforts to pretend or to deny what is.

Meditative joy is a joy that includes the realities of life. As the great Cambodian meditation master Maha Gosananda points out, our spiritual practice can support happiness within all circumstances, the beautiful and the difficult.

This program is appropriate for both new and experienced meditators and will include guided sitting meditation, walking meditation, talks and discussion. Everyone is welcome.

Full and partial scholarships are available.

Narayan Helen Liebenson is a guiding teacher at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center where she has been teaching since it opened its doors in 1985. She is also one of the guiding teachers at IMS (the Insight Meditation Society) in Barre, Massachusetts. Narayan is the author of a small book entitled Life as Meditation, and The Magnanimous Heart; Compassion and Love, Loss and Grief, Joy and Liberation (Jan. 2019). Her training includes over 35 years in the Theravada tradition as well as ten years in the Chan tradition with the late Master Sheng-yen. She finds it a joy and a privilege to share the Buddha’s teachings with all who are interested.

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