A “Full Awareness of Breathing” Meditation Retreat
with Doug McGill
June 24-26, 2022
Fee: $125 (11 online sessions)
Our ordinary breath—what a wonder!
Full of aliveness, nourishment and healing, our breath is part body and part spirit; an emptiness that fills us and fuels us; a super-intelligent energy that enlivens and awakens, and soothes and calms.
On this very special weekend retreat we will let this miracle of our breath work its deeply healing—and especially its loving—powers.
We may not normally equate the breath with love.
But this misses the truth of meditation as taught by the Buddha, according to Thich Nhat Hanh, the revered Vietnamese monk whose teachings on the “Full Awareness of Breathing” will be our guide on this retreat.
“The first act of love is to breathe,” Thich Nhat Hanh said: “The breath brings us home to our body. ‘Hello, Body, I am home! I will take care of you.’ This is an act of love.”
On this retreat we will learn and practice four specific steps in the Buddha’s breath meditation, or “anapanasati.” The Buddha taught and practiced anapanasati every day of his life, and it was the meditation he was practicing on the evening of his enlightenment.
May this be our good luck, too!
The four special steps of anapanasati we will practice together—“acts of love” as Thich Nhat Hanh calls them—are:
1 Generating joy in the mind
2 Generating ease in the body
3 Observing suffering
4 Dissolving suffering
These simple, powerful tools of awareness comprise the very heart of meditation in so many ways. They will become yours to practice thereafter, not only during formal meditation sessions but also throughout daily life.
I hope you see why I’m excited for this retreat!
It is not only to hone these four liberation skills.
Even more so, I hope that on this retreat we may broaden, deepen and clarify our understanding of what love, in its essence, truly is.
May we use these four “acts of love” to clearly see, and more importantly to feel the ultimate unity of all being, which is love itself.
Is anything more needed in the world today?
We practice the “breath of love” initially to defuse the suffering we feel within ourselves. But it leads us eventually to understanding love in this greater way, which ends suffering forever, by encompassing all.
In Thich Nhat Hanh’s words:
Breathe and you know that you are alive;
Breathe and you know that all is helping you.
Breathe and you know that you are the world;
Breathe for yourself and you breathe for the world.
I hope you will join us on this very special retreat weekend!
With much love 🙏❤️
Doug
P.S. If you still have questions, feel free to email me at dougmcgill@gmail.com, I’ll be happy to reply.
The Retreats will have these Special Features:
Daily Life Meditation
Between our formal meeting times we will go about our daily lives, activities and relationships completely as usual. “If we want to have real understanding, we have to practice in real situations,” as my teacher, Sayadaw U Tejaniya, says. So, between the online sessions we are free to do errands, answer emails, chat with friends, cook a meal, or go for a walk.
Talks, Meditations and Check-Ins
The retreat will run from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon and will consist of a guided meditation, dharma talks and Q&A on Friday and Saturday evening; and alternating practice sessions, free time, and check-ins throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday.
Spiritual Friendship
On this retreat we will develop a sangha of spiritual friends. “Spiritual friendship is 100 percent of the spiritual life,” the Buddha said. In this way, we will enjoy spiritual friendship and our group will model the reality of spiritual love.
The Retreat Schedule (Central Standard Time)
Friday
7 to 9:30 PM: Welcome to the Retreat!—A dharma talk and meditation on on “The First Act of Love is to Breathe.”
Saturday
9 AM: “Generating Joy in the Mind”
11:30 AM: Check-In
1:30 PM: Check-In
3:30 PM: “Generating Ease in the Body”
7 PM: A Guided Meditation and Dharma Talk on “The Breath of Love in Daily Life”
Sunday
9 AM: “Observing Suffering With Love”
11:30 AM: Check-In
1:30 PM: “Dissolving Suffering With Love”
3:30 PM: Staying With the Breath of Love—Guided Meditation
4:30 to 5:30 PM: Group Sit and Closing Circle
Doug McGill founded and for 16 years was the Guiding Teacher of the Rochester Meditation Center in Rochester, MN. In 2019, he edited “Relax and Be Aware: Mindfulness Meditations for Clarity, Confidence and Wisdom,” by Sayadaw U Tejaniya. Since 2013 he has published “The Daily Tejaniya,” a daily email practice reminder from Sayadaw. Since 2013 he has taught a six-week “Introduction to Awareness Meditation” class several times a year. He learned insight meditation from Steve Armstrong, Kamala Masters and S.N. Goenka; and non-dual self enquiry from Rupert Spira. From 1979 to 1999 he was a reporter at The New York Times and a bureau chief for Bloomberg News based in Tokyo, London and Hong Kong.
Doug’s website is dougmcgill.com
Read testimonials from Doug’s meditation classes over the years.
Scholarships are available to support this retreat, to apply click here.
Recommended readings (optional):
“Breathe! You Are Alive! Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing,” by Thich Nhat Hanh
“Mindfulness with Breathing: A Manual for Serious Beginners” by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu.
