This year we invited you to offer direct financial support to our teachers by contributing to the room, board, and program costs of their annual retreat. Our goal was to raise $7,640 by April 30th, 2015. This, in addition to Metta Programs’ commitment, would allow ALL members to attend without having to pay out-of-pocket for retreat fees.
The community has offered support ABOVE & BEYOND our goal and the campaign has raised $9,030! Additional funds collected exceeding the goal amount are being put toward the teacher training scholarship fund, to offer further direct support to the teachers.
We are deeply grateful for the generosity that has been offered to support Metta’s Teacher Community and that will help insure the future viability of the teachings.
To send dana to a specific teacher or Metta Programs please visit our Giving page.
Meet the smiles of our Teachers, Trainees, and Teacher-Aspirants. Photo from the 2014 Teacher Training Retreat.
Members of our teaching community travel around the globe leading retreats, talks, online programs, and ongoing practice communities. They offer the teachings freely and are sustained by the generosity of the individuals and communities they serve. Beyond their time spent teaching, planning, studying, and traveling for these offerings, they come together once a year to nourish their own development, study, and practice within a community of peers.
This year we invite you to offer direct financial support to our teaching community by contributing to the room, board, and program costs of their annual retreat. Our goal is to raise $7,640. This, in addition to Metta Programs’ commitment, will allow ALL members to attend without having to pay out-of-pocket for retreat fees. To ensure sufficient planning time for the teachers, we intend to raise these funds by April 30th, 2015.
To join us, please go to http://metta.secure.retreat.guru/donate/ to pledge your support and contribution.
Please feel welcome to contact us for further details by emailing sarah@metta.secure.retreat.guru.
These are rich days for Metta’s teaching community. We are growing and changing, and we have multiple transitions to acknowledge and celebrate.
It is with great joy that we announce the matriculation of three Insight Dialogue teachers to the role of Full Teacher. After engaging in a discernment process with the Teachers Council, there is unanimous recognition that Bhikkhu Sukhacitto, Bart Van Melik, and Janet Surrey are able and willing to embody the role of Full Teacher. This transition reflects a level of maturity and facility in offering Insight Dialogue practice within our community and the world. We are grateful for their diligent and generous engagement with Metta over the years and celebrate their capacity and willingness to offer relational dhamma with a depth and range that will benefit all.
Since he began his teacher training with Metta in 2010, Bhikkhu Sukhacitto has become a prolific teacher of Insight Dialogue and Dharma Contemplation worldwide. He has taught or co-taught over 30 retreats and workshops throughout the United States and Europe, and even in Thailand and Israel.
Left to right: Bhikkhu Sukhacitto, Bart van Melik, and Janet Surrey.
While engaged in the teacher training process, Bart van Melik has nurtured the development of Insight Dialogue communities of practice through offerings in Metta’s online programs and in his local community. He offers practice to at least 17 different groups in New York, including the New York Insight Meditation Center and has taught long Insight Dialogue Retreats in Holland.
Janet Surrey has explored Relational Dhamma as a meditation teacher and in her professional role as a clinical psychologist. She has taught as a faculty member of Metta’s Relational Insight Meditation Program, offering Insight Dialogue to mental health professionals. Janet has facilitated a long-term practice group in the Boston area and has co-taught multiple retreats and the Introduction to Online Insight Dialogue.
In addition, Yowon Choi of Switzerland, and Jill Shepard, and Elizabeth Faria, both of Australia, are transitioning from their guest roles to full participation in Metta Programs’ teacher training practice community. We are happy to join them in their committed engagement in our community and in teaching relational dhamma.
Finally, with tremendous gratitude, we are celebrating Sharon Beckman-Brindley. During the past few years Sharon has been transitioning from leadership in Metta Programs and the Teachers Council, to retirement from her various active roles. Although she will continue to teach Insight Dialogue, she will no longer engage as a program leader and advising teacher. Over the last decade she has played a vital role in forming our teachers community, helping to develop our programs, and directing the Relational Insight Meditation Program. Although we will miss her skillful engagement and wise leadership in our community, we know we will continue to receive countless benefits from her many years of contributions and we rejoice in ongoing spiritual friendship.
For a more complete biography on an individual teacher you can click on their name above, or visit the website via this link for a list of all Metta teachers: http://metta.secure.retreat.guru/about-us/teachers-bios/.
It is with mixed emotions that we announce the departure of Rachel Hien, Metta Programs’ Operations Manager who shared her last day with the organization on September 26th. Rachel has moved on to a new position at PATH, a Seattle-based international non-profit organization dedicated to global health where she will be engaging partners in Africa to expand innovations that benefit women’s reproductive health.
When Rachel came to Metta Programs in 2011, we almost did not exist as an organization. With her skill, hard work and patience, the organization grew to having a budget, a sophisticated website, operating procedures, and clearer relationships with our partners. The list of her accomplishments is huge. Thanks to Rachel, our teachers’ community is able to grow and the organization has been pulled towards firm ground to support our programs, our relationships, and our aspirations. Rachel’s strength, clear directedness and nurturance toward cohesion have prepared the groundwork for the emergence of the wider leadership role taken by the Guiding Sangha and have made possible further steps to fulfill our mission in creating a home for the teachings of Relational Dhamma.
In addition to the valuable work Rachel has contributed to Metta Programs over the past three and a half years, we have benefited even more from her kind heart, care and friendship. We offer our deep gratitude to Rachel for all she has given to the Metta community. We are excited for her to be moving into a job that can fully engage her many skills, deep compassion and commitment to do good in the world. We feel joy for all the people in the world, including ourselves, who will no doubt benefit from the work Rachel embarks upon.
At a Skype celebration held for Rachel on September 25th, community members had a chance to gather and express to Rachel our appreciation of her and her professional contributions to the organization, to celebrate her new opportunity and to wish her well. On behalf of the Metta Programs community, we presented Rachel with a pashmina shawl given from a Metta community member’s shop and we invite members of the Metta community who feel moved to join us in honoring Rachel with a tribute gift to her new work efforts in global health at PATH Tribute gift. (Write Rachel Hien for the honoree’s name and they have been given her address to notify her.)
Austerity, Relationship, and Purification
by Gregory Kramer
Deep Change and Renewal: Meeting Metta’s Guiding Sangha and Teachers Council
by Gregory Kramer
Reflections from the 4th Annual Cascadia Retreat
by Nic Redfern and Devon Christie
Sidebar
– Bringing Retreat Experience into Life
– Thai Translations Now Available
– Audio Review Contemplation Sangha
– Upcoming Events & Save the Dates
– Audio Teaching: Clinging and the Vicissitudes
– Contemplation Space
– Call for Contributions & Acknowledgments
To enjoy this edition of our e-newsletter, please Click Here.
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Right Action on Climate Change
– Introduction by Gregory Kramer
– The Earth as Witness: International Dharma Teachers’ Statement on Climate Change
Stories from My Days in Robes – Part 2
Carbon Footprint of a Barefoot Monastic by Gregory Kramer
Sharing Dhamma Through Audio Recordings
– Recently Uploaded
– Become an Audio Reviewer
– Audio Review Contemplations Sangha
Sidebar
– Online Community Support
– Introducing Lou Nelson van Melik
– Upcoming Events
– Save the Dates
– Contemplation Space
– Call for Contributions
– Acknowledgments
To enjoy this edition of our e-newsletter, please Click Here.
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The Metta community sends our warm wishes to our Guiding Teacher, Gregory Kramer, as he travels in November to Sri Lanka where he will temporarily ordain as a Theravadan Buddhist monk in Minuwangoda at the Sudarsana Meditation Center. While still in robes, Greg will teach a week long Insight Dialogue retreat at the monastery. He will leave Sri Lanka to return to lay life in the United States before the end of the year. Here, Greg is pictured with his teacher, Achan Sobin Namto.
A summary of what’s happening is now available here, with links to a featured retreat, autumn online program, and retreat dates through 2015. We hope you will join us.
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