A Beautiful Relationship to Our Mind
With Beth Upton
A donation-based 6-day meditation retreat for participants ages 18-35
Charles Town, West Virginia ~ April 3 - 9, 2023
Our relationship with our object of meditation serves as a mirror for our quality of mind. A forced or overly controlled relationship with our practice can leave us frustrated, not wanting to meditate, or “stuck” in our practice. On this retreat, Beth will guide us in cultivating a relaxed, beautiful relationship with our object of meditation, with the breath as a default object. Through creating a beautiful relationship with meditation, we can train ourselves in wholesome qualities of the mind which translate into all of our relationships with ourselves, with other beings, and with the world.
In this practice, we can also find tastes of the deeper states availability through meditation - that of deep serenity, clarity (“Samadhi”), and in long-term training, liberation from suffering. This week will offer participants an open schedule, 1:1 guidance with Beth, time for Q&A, and time to deeply develop and sink into one’s relationship with the practice of mindfulness of breathing.
The schedule for this retreat may be different than other retreats you’ve been on. Everything on the schedule will be optional with the exception of: the morning sutta reading (7:00 am), the meditation period after lunch, and 1:1 interviews with Beth. Other sessions will include periods of silent sitting meditation, Q&A, group interviews. Practitioners will receive instruction in maintaining continuous practice through all parts of the day.
About Beth Upton:
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Beth was born in 1982 in London. She graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in Economics, then in 2008 ordained as a Buddhist nun at Pa Auk Meditation Centre in Myanmar. She spent five years training diligently in meditation in the Theravada tradition under the guidance of Pa Auk Sayadaw, then a further five years training in other meditation methods and doing long solo retreats. In 2014 Beth founded Sanditthika Meditation Community in the caves of Almeria, Spain. In 2018, after ten years of monastic life, Beth decided to disrobe in order to integrate some of the challenges of western life into her Dhamma practice. Beth has been teaching meditation since 2014 both in Almeria and in meditation retreats around the world.