Online
We are happy to offer an online deep rest meditation retreat with Jaya Ashmore teaching! It is possible to join either for the weekend (Friday evening to Sunday evening) or for the whole duration (Friday evening to Tuesday evening).
Jaya (jayaashmore.org) has led meditation retreats since 1999 to encourage people from around the world to live an awakened life. She draws on her decades of experience in Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhism, as well as in non-dual Advaita, yoga, deep ecology, and modern somatic disciplines. Other influences on her teaching are her youth in a Christian family, long-time friendship with her spiritual friends in India, and twenty years of practicing Permaculture and Jin Shin Jyutsu, a Japanese art of harmony. She has lived most of her adult life in India, and now lives in Catalonia in northeastern Spain.
Jaya’s focus on discovering right effort and liberating insight has led her to encourage meditation through deep rest. Just as literal rest allows the body and mind to renew themselves, so deep rest also drops us into direct and non-conceptual awareness. This contact with aliveness feeds a natural opening to deep meditation, where old habit-energies are resolved without the intense drama that occurs when we are forcing things. Life beyond ideas leaves room for spacious joy and powerful shifts that make a real difference in our lives.
Jaya gives excellent meditation instructions in mindfulness, lovingkindness, and other techniques, but she emphasizes that each person can discover the feel of her or his own unfolding path.
What happens on the retreat?
Due to the current covid19 situation, the retreat is held online, using Zoom as a platform. You can join from your own home or some other suitable place. Current covid19 recommendations allowing and at your own risk, it is also fine to gather 2–3 participants together to join from the same location.
The retreat follows a daily schedule, with meditation times, instructions and times for walking meditation, Dharma talk and meditative movement. There will also be opportunity for one-to-one meetings with Jaya. All the teaching will be in English. Participants are encouraged to try lying down for meditation, but sitting is also fine. We ask everyone to join fully in what is offered, to dedicate these days for the retreat. However, if you are joining from a different time zone, it is fine to attend only during your daytime; we will make recordings available to you if you miss part of the program. If at all possible, you could choose to stay in silence for the whole retreat, also during breaks.
The retreat is appropriate for people at all experience levels or with no meditation experience.
Schedule
The retreat begins on Friday, November 6th, at 18:00 Finnish time (UTC+2, CET+1). On the final day (either Sunday, Nov 8th, or Tuesday, Nov 10th) the retreat ends by 17:00 Finnish time.
The daily schedule during full retreat days is the following (times Finnish time):
7:00 meditative movement 7:45 meditation 8:30–10:00 breakfast break 10:00 meditation with instructions and Q&A 11:00 walking 11:45 meditation 12:30–15:00 lunch break 15:00 meditation with instructions 15:45 mindless gathering or walking 16:45 meditation 17:30–19:00 supper break 19:00 Dharma talk 20:15 meditation 21:00 end of schedule
Price and registration
The standard price of the retreat is 20 €, but it is also possible to pay more or less than this (please contact retriitit@syvalepo.fi). This price only covers the practical expenses of the retreat. The price is the same whether you join Friday–Sunday or Friday–Tuesday.
The teacher offers her teachings and services freely. She receives nothing from the retreat fees, and lives on donations from participants of this kind of events. At the end of the retreat, there will be an opportunity to offer donations, which allow the teacher to continue serving in this way. The gifts of others in the past make it possible for her to offer this retreat. And the flow goes on. At the end of the retreat there will also be a possibility to offer donations to the retreat managers, who likewise offer their time and efforts freely.
You can apply for the retreat by filling in the application form and paying the retreat price. Please do this as soon as you know you want to participate, but by November 4th at the latest. We will confirm your place on the retreat after we have received the form and the payment. If you pay from an account which is not with your own name, please include your name in the message field when you make the payment. Make the payment to:
Account owner: Syvan levon meditaatio ry
IBAN: FI43 7997 7999 7540 67
Swift code: HOLVFIHH
In case of cancellation, please inform us as soon as possible. Unfortunately we cannot refund the retreat fee.
Finally
Please ask, if you have any further questions. You can contact us through retriitit@syvalepo.fi, or by phone. We deeply wish this will be a fruitful retreat to everyone, and warmly welcome all!
Anna Backholm (+358 40 5362 946)
Havu Pellikka (+358 50 499 1131)
Ulla Sillanpää (+358 40 536 4181, application and payment)
From participants of previous retreats with Jaya:
”My own practice has been deeply insprired by the deep rest meditation approach. For me this has offered a deep way of opening body, heart and mind; an escape from extensive doing and trying to achieve in meditation; encouragement in finding my own path; and trust in a more intuitive way of guiding my practice and my life, and in letting processes unfold by themselves.”
– Anna Backholm, Finland
”I don’t even know what happened to me during only 5 days – was it the meditation, silence, the deep rest, Jaya’s teachings, chanting, food, nature, the community or everything that happened to me before that lead me to that place? I know, separation is illusion – it was everything, it was life. But something opened inside of me and made me feel like I arrived home, so happy, light, relaxed and sometimes heavy, drowsy, anxious, emotional and processing things, sometimes ecstatic, always full of gratitude. I can say the retreat changed my life and was one of greatest things I’ve experienced. I was relieved of so much pain, some of it something I carried with me since childhood. … It’s like I was a piano that was out of tune and now someone came and tuned me.”
– Lari Miikkulainen, Finland