This program will be held online via Zoom. All registrants will receive the link to join the program in their Order Confirmation email. This program will not be recorded. Times are ET.
“The potential of mindfulness to be liberating appears to have been a central discovery of the Buddha. It is by learning to remain aware and watch, recognize and acknowledge that our wisdom deepens and gradually leads us to ever increasing levels of freedom.” –Bikkhu Analyo
What distinguishes mindful awareness from more ordinary types of attention? How do you know when you are falling into old, attentional habits while practicing? Would you like to clarify and revitalize your approach to mindfulness, bringing out more of its breadth and depth?
In this Practice Group participants will strengthen their understanding and practice of meditation by developing the specific qualities contained in the acronym RAIN:
Recognition
Allowance
Interest (also Investigation, Intimacy)
Non-personalization (also Non-identification)
Coined by vipassana teacher Michele McDonald 40 years ago, RAIN highlights and clarifies “the qualities of attention that make up a complete moment of mindfulness.” It provides useful tools for bringing out the full breadth, depth, and flavor of mindfulness. RAIN empowers practitioners to fine-tune awareness in any given moment, on and off the cushion. It is designed to enrich one’s experience of practice.
While the tool of RAIN has become familiar to many over the years, fewer practitioners have learned the more recent steps of RAIN-DROP. Developed over the past 20 years, the skills contained in DROP provide extra support during the inevitable times when, despite best efforts, our attention is anything but well-tuned. DROP highlights and addresses the primary hindrances to mindful awareness that are familiar to all of us, and were well-known and taught by the Buddha:
Delusion
Resistance
Obliviousness
Personalization
The beauty of practicing the steps and tools of RAIN-DROP is in their clarity and effectiveness. Beginning and experienced meditators will learn specific and applicable RAIN-DROP skills through guided meditations, talks, and small group discussions. Weekly homework assignments are designed for use in formal practice and daily life to help deepen familiarity with the qualities represented in RAIN and with methods for applying the RAIN model. Additionally, homework assignments will often be the basis for small group discussions in class.
This practice group is appropriate for all levels of experience. All are warmly welcomed.
Full and partial scholarships are available. Please submit your requests to office@cambridgeinsight.org at least 72 hours prior to the start of the program.
Reya Stevens has been practicing meditation since 1984 and teaching occasionally since 1997. She leads CIMC’s Disability & Chronic Illness Sangha which she first convened in 2021. Reya has lived with pain due to illness since she was a teenager.
Closed Captions (CC) for CIMC Programs are generated through Zoom.