Dhamma: Deep, Pure, and Simple - (2021)

Dhamma: Pure, Deep, and Simple

An Online Meditation Retreat

with

Michele McDonald, Steven Smith, and Jesse Maceo Vega-Frey

assisted by Darine Monroy

November 26 - 30, 2021

Join us for a pure and powerful Dhamma teaching and engage in the practice that awakens deeply embodied wisdom and kindness.

Our minds all have the ability to pierce through the delusions that enshroud us and to abide in the truth of reality in ways that are tender, clear, strong, and wise. But it will not happen on its own or by wishing it to be so. It takes dedicated time, practice, and the protective conditions under which we can meaningfully explore the nature of mind and body - and of our resistance to it.

Join this committed group of teachers and fellow-yogis for an intensive period of self-retreat supported by a range of online offerings. While your daily schedule will be largely up to you to decide, the program will include:

~ Daily practice instructions - live and recorded

~ Daily Dhamma talks

~ Daily Q&A Sessions

~ Group chanting in the evenings

All content will all be offered live and will also be recorded and posted on our online platform so that yogis in various time zones can listen and watch at their convenience.

THIS IS OUR YEARLY "BIG TENT" OFFERING. We welcome the participation of all yogis regardless of their ability to join as full-time intensive yogis or part-time yogis - as your life allows. We encourage participants to commit to the basic parameters of silence and seclusion during this retreat - and not have significant obligations outside your responsibilities as a yogi. But we also welcome people who can only come for one or two sessions a day and may choose to simply watch the recordings over the following month. All recordings will remain available until January 2022.

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SCHEDULE

The daily schedule will look something like this:

(all Times Hawaii Standard - Pacific+3, Mounatin +4, Central +5, Eastern+6)

• 5am ~ Sitting Meditation
• 7am  ~ Walking Meditation
• 10am  ~ Sitting with Instructions
• 11:00am ~ Q&A
• 2pm  ~ Dhamma Talk
• 4pm  ~ Metta Chanting and Sit

Cost

The cost of this program is $195 - which helps Vipassana Hawaii cover the numerous administrative expenses of its operation. If you can contribute more than that, we ask that you make a donation at the end of the registration process to help support the ongoing work of Vipassana Hawaii and to help cover the expenses for those who cannot afford it.

A scholarship option is available to all who need it. The scholarship level is $20 - which covers only the per-person expense of our online retreat platform. If you choose this option, we ask that at the end of the registration process, you please donate any amount above that you can in order to support the expenses and ongoing work of the organization.

We are in continual exploration of how to make these teachings as widely available to as many people as possible - regardless of financial realities.

Teacher Dana

In accordance with tradition, all Vipassana Hawai’i teachers offer their teachings free of charge and are supported through the freely-offered generosity - Dana - from students and supporters. Costs associated with retreats cover the growing expenses associated with online services, online storage, broadcasting equipment, website administration, and a range of other organizational expenses - but do not support teacher time, training, effort, or energy. We believe that this commitment helps keep the purity of the teachings alive and thriving, as it has for millennia.

This allows us to keep our registration fees as low as possible, but also means that the livelihood of our teachers is precarious. As a result, we encourage giving back in any form - including monetarily - so that they may continue their endeavors and share their wisdom. Vipassana teachers must be supported in this way if we are to keep this tradition alive, healthy, and with integrity in the modern era. Dana, or generosity, can be offered online here,  or by mailing a check at the end of the retreat.

Cancellation Policy

If you cancel less than 7 days prior to the event, unfortunately we cannot afford to offer a refund. Last-minute cancellations are costly, difficult for us to manage staff-wise, and usually mean that others whom we have already turned away can no longer attend the retreat. Because the materials will be available online for over a month after the program, we are glad you will be able to make use of them on your own time.

Teachers

Michele McDonald co-founded Vipassana Hawai’i in 1984 with Steven Smith. She has taught Insight meditation for thirty eight years. Beyond her commitment to the Vipassana Hawai’i Sangha, she teaches extensively throughout the United States, in Canada, Burma, and various locations around the world. Michele has been a quiet pioneer having being the first woman to teach a formal retreat in Burma, side-by-side with a senior monastic figure, Sayadaw U Lakkhana, Abbot of Kyaswa Monastery. Having worked with a wide range of Asian and Western teachers, Michele is most inspired by her practice with Dipa Ma and Sayadaw U Pandita and more recently in Burma with the Mya Taung Sayadaw. She appreciates teaching at many levels of practice and has enjoyed teaching three-month retreats for experienced students as well as developing meditation retreats for youth. Her style of teaching emphasizes helping individuals find entry points into stillness that are natural for them. She encourages an understanding of the path of insight and a gentle strengthening of mindfulness and concentration so that, ultimately, people can access the peaceful depths of their experience in every moment. Michele is thrilled when students begin to love their practice as their own.

Steven V. Smith co-founded Vipassana Hawai’i in 1984 and in 1995 founded the MettaDana Project for educational and medical projects in Burma. Also in 1995 Steven helped establish the Kyaswa Valley Retreat Center in Burma, headed by Sayadaw U Lakkhana, Abbot of Kyaswa Monastery. This partnership helped usher in the beginnings of Vipassana Hawai’i’s Fusion Dhamma approach combining traditional and contemporary teaching styles in the same retreat. Anchored in the Theravadan Buddhist Burmese lineage of Mahasi Sayadaw since 1974, he was trained and sanctioned as a teacher by revered monk and meditation master Sayadaw U Pandita. Steven divides his time teaching Vipassana and the Divine Abodes (loving-kindness, compassion, joy, equanimity) meditation retreats around the world, and assisting Burmese refugee communities along the Thai-Burma border. His long term vision for preserving the Dhamma is culminating in the beginnings of the Hawai’i Insight Meditation Center (HIMC) on the Big Island of Hawai’i’s remote North Kohala coast.

Jesse Maceo Vega-Frey's teaching aims to inspire the skills, determination, and faith necessary to realize the deepest human freedom. He is a student of Michele McDonald and his approach is rooted in the tradition of Mahasi Sayadaw of Burma. As a teacher of Vipassana (insight) meditation within the broader context of Theravadan Buddhism his teaching encourages an exploration of the relationship between ethics, insight, and action. Perpetually intrigued by the dynamics between inner and outer change, Jesse is a writer of numerous essays and author of Insurgent Heart: A Vipassana Manual for the Guerrilla Yogi. Links to his writing can be found on his website: www.dolessforpeace.org as well as links to his weekly musical radio show, Mind to Mind: The Transmission. He is a spoon carver who loves to teach people about how to work with their hands and explore the relationship between labor, ownership, and kamma. He is the resident teacher for Vipassana Hawai’i and teaches around the world.

Darine Monroy has been a student of Michele McDonald and Steven Smith since 2011. She has taught for Mindful Schools, has completed the Hakomi Comprehensive Training, and is studying herbal medicine. Darine was born and raised in Mexico, and meditation retreats have been among the most meaningful experiences of her life.