Authentic Inspiration: A Retreat for Writers
Karme Choling Shambhala Meditation Center
Barnet, VT June 29 – July 6
$675
Register

“I had not written anything in a long time. The Writers’ Retreat gave me the space, time, and inward focus to let creativity happen naturally. I hadn’t realized how much I had to say. The meditation aspect of the retreat provided a peaceful structure where writing could be a pleasure once again instead of work. Susan led each day with a purposeful blend of meditation practice and writing sessions and I appreciated the fruits that came from a firm but generous schedule.” –A.B., Boston

What do writers want more than anything in the world? Time to write. Yet even if such precious time could be found, it’s not always easy to settle into the writing groove.

Get away to Karme Choling, a beautiful Buddhist retreat center in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom and spend five full days on writing and your own unique voice.

In addition to plenty of personal writing time, quiet, and the supportive (but non-intrusive!) presence of other writers, the program will include daily meditation practice and simple creativity exercises. Although the focus will be on individual work, there will be opportunities for moderated discussion of each other’s writing.

Open to writers of fiction and non-fiction, published and unpublished. Bring your ideas, works-in-progress, or simply your wish to devote attention to your creativity.

No meditation experience required. Instruction will be offered.

Join me and yoga teacher extraordinaire, Dana Strong for a life-changing journey to Cambodia and Vietnam. Through the practices of meditation and yoga, the exoticism of the outward journey will be matched by a deep inner journey. We will travel to such sacred sites as Angkor Wat and the Perfume Pagoda, as well as to the center of our own hearts and minds.

Both Dana and I are students of Shambhala Buddhism and there will be an emphasis on serious fun. Serious. Fun.

The lovely and totally excellent Dana Strong

Dana has been teaching yoga nationally and internationally since 1998. She has studied extensively with Rodney Yee and in NY with Genny Kapuler and others. She was a senior teacher at Om Yoga Center. She has completed the Graduate Program of Buddhist Studies at the New York Shambala Center. Dana’s teaching draws on her current Iyengar studies as well as her practice of meditation. She combines the fluidity of breath with precision of alignment based on personal intuition and the experience of her students. Her classes are known to be challenging but playful. She teaches and practices yoga to bring ideas and action together, creating a relaxed body and a wakeful mind.

She is also a graduate student at Columbia University, where she is focusing on Buddhist-Christian dialogue.

Part Two of radio interview with Buddhist Geeks, Ryan Oelke & Vince Horn

Interview with Ryan Oelke and Vince Horn, the Buddhist Geeks. Thanks guys! Great talking with you. Love your show.

And thank you for this.

From the Gitanjali

LOTUS

On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying, and I knew it not. My basket was empty and the flower remained unheeded.

Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance in the south wind.

That vague sweetness made my heart ache with longing and it seemed to me that it was the eager breath of the summer seeking for its completion.

I knew not then that it was so near, that it was mine, and that this perfect sweetness had blossomed in the depth of my own heart.

New Article in the upcoming issue of the Shambhala Sun: “My Vows”

Please join me for a 5-day Meditation Retreat for Writers.

Which I happen to love, love, love teaching. And would love, love, love to see you there. Of course.

I had not written anything in a long time. the Writers Retreat gave me the space, time,and inward focus to let creativity happen naturally. I hadn’t realized how much I had to say. The meditation aspect of the retreat provided a peaceful structure where writing could be a pleasure once again instead of work.
Anne, Boston, Office Manager & Memoirist

If you’ve promised yourself to set aside time for writing but never seem to get around to it, this program is for you. It invites you to drop everything and tune into your own authentic voice. The moment you make this commitment–and give yourself the support of meditation and a non-intrusive community of fellow-writers–the words will flow. They truly will.

May 11-16 Kripalu, Lenox, MA

June 29-July 5 Karme Choling, Barnet, VT

This is what happens on the retreat:
Writer and teacher Susan Piver creates a warm but focused environment in which to reflect and create. The majority of time will be spent on personal writing projects.

Meditation, journaling, and lots of time for personal writing create a sense of flow and deep connection to your authentic voice.

Evenings are spent in group discussion. Each student will have a chance to read his or her work and receive feedback.

Meditation instruction will be offered; no prior experience needed.

Open to writers of fiction and non-fiction, published and unpublished.

You’ll leave the program inspired and relaxed, having written a lot.

Here are some nice things people have said about this retreat:
Susan Piver is very wise, intuitive, and insightful and has had great impact, with a very light touch.
Gil, St. Johnsbury, VT, Corporate Consultant & Business Writer

This course helped me integrate meditation skills such as serenity, focus, compassion, and insight into the areas of poetry and fiction. I am extremely grateful!
Brian, Ithaca, College Student & Poet

I cannot recommend this writing and meditation retreat enough! Susan’s carefully considered practice schedule offers precisely the right balance of meditation and space in which to write. Her teaching style allows for full creative expression to unfold because she neither interferes with the writing process, nor does she abandon the writer to his or her own devices. The result is a profound deepening of the work of writing and the practice of meditation. I left with a much more sophisticated understanding of how these two practices are not only complimentary, but how meditation is crucial to the life of the writer. This is a very rare opportunity for anyone, indeed.
Crystal, NYC, Novelist & Writing Teacher

I can’t imagine any way to improve this program because it was more than I could have asked for.
Kathy, Cleveland, Librarian & Memoirist

The growth I experienced in five days was life changing.
Britta, NYC, Graphic Designer & Memoirist

Susan is a caring, compassionate person whose presence, insights, and instructions made for a valuable week exploring meditation practice and writing.
Heather R, Albany, Travel Writer

Emotionally moving, spiritually a gift, cathartic beyond my wildest imagination.
Miriam, Cambridge, Waitress & Essayist

It’s really fun, I swear.

Dear Celia and Rich,

Thank you so much for your comments to my blog post, Buddhism & Relationships.

The issues you both point out are so monumental and confusing. It sounds to me like the questions you’re posing are along these lines: Which kind of love is the kind I should seek? Where does my heart belong? How far should I go for love? And when I lose it, how is it possible to ever get over it?

These are good questions, but they are not possible to answer. They imply that the locus of control lies within you, that you can choose a certain person or vision of love and then go after it, or even that you can somehow dispose of the pain of heartbreak. But love just happens and its outcome can’t be controlled, no matter how passionately you love. And trying to choose between what you had once and what you have now is simply not possible. What you had is gone. It can’t be gotten back. Even if that person came back on their knees, you still could not have what you once had. Trying to re-enter love is like trying to dip your foot in the same river twice. It’s always rushing forward. Each time you step into it, it’s different. Sometimes the current is rough and other times it’s still. All you can do is feel what it feels like now and now and now. I’m not trying to say that this is all great or anything. It’s just how it is.

The issue then is authenticity. How clearly and vividly and tenderly can you be yourself, feel what you feel? How truthfully can you express yourself, without hope or fear? How patiently and gently can you embrace yourself as you ride the waves of passion, remorse, boredom, longing? This is fearlessness. When your heart is broken, you enter the territory of the spiritual warrior. The warrior’s weapons are curiosity, open heartedness, and sadness.

So, much as we all might like (myself included, certainly) we can’t strategize about love. We can only welcome it when it appears, no matter what its form, and mourn its absence should it depart. And right now, you’re both engaged in the only battle that matters: to keep your heart tender, soft, and alive, no matter what. Accepting your experience with kindness is the best way you can support yourself right now and I truly hope you will both be kind toward yourselves and those you encounter.

Let me know what you think of what I’ve said. It may or may not be helpful.

I wish you both well. Please keep me posted.

I was at the gym this morning, on the treadmill. I was listening to my iPod and not the television in front of me, but every once in awhile I glanced up at it. I saw several images of Martin Luther King, commemorating, I imagine, the 40th anniversary of his death. There were shots of him orating. Walking with Coretta. Marching arm in arm with fellow protesters. And, finally, the heartbreaking photo of those who stood with him when he was assassinated, pointing up at the direction from which the shots came. I felt myself well up with tears. It was not hard to touch in immediately with the tragedy of hate and its grievous consequences. Just then the screen shifted to footage of Reverend Al Sharpton and others walking arm in arm in obvious homage to the spirit of Martin Luther King.

I don’t have anything against Rev Sharpton. But there was something about the staginess of the shot that made my heart sink. It just didn’t seem real. The series of thoughts that then cascaded in my mind had nothing to do with Sharpton, King, or racism. They were about how grossly deceived we are about the difference between authenticity and image. I imagined that Sharpton and his friends had, at least in part, staged their walk for the media and for the message it would send about their viewpoint. There’s nothing wrong with that. We live in a marketing-intensive culture. But somehow we’ve collectively forgotten to separate reality from its marketing campaign. The consequences are dire: Not knowing whether you love someone or the idea of them; not knowing how to choose a career that suits you beyond looking successful; not being able to make up your mind on the issues of the day because all you’ve been given to build on are facades and postures.

What I’m trying to say is that the inner connection to self, your very own, very unique inner landscape has been abandoned. Why, I can’t tell you. But I can see evidence of it everywhere: Kids who say that what they want to be when they grow up is famous. Not President. Not an astronaut. Not a doctor or a poet or a father or mother. Famous. For me, music is the most devastating example of the loss of authenticity. Everything I hear sounds posed. I’m not saying there aren’t countless talented, clever people making music today—there are. Pyrotechnics—yes. Technique—yes. Smart, interesting, inventive—yes. But soulful? No. No amount of overwrought emoting or derivative imaging can conjure the soulfulness of listening to a person who is also listening to themselves—as opposed to looking at themselves from the outside in. No matter how many unusual influences you blend together (Cambodian-surf for example), you will never create anything new. The only thing that is new is what arises on the spot.

Another example of this horrible illness that I call image-poisoning (when we believe that the image of a thing is the thing itself) is the idea of a “personal brand.” I actually feel sick to my stomach at when I hear this phrase. I’m not kidding. Actual nausea. But, again, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be super conscious and pragmatic about the image we project and the way people perceive us. But the idea that you would brand yourself like a carton of milk or a glossy magazine is just sick. It’s like saying to yourself, who do I want to pretend to be and how can I get others to see me that way? It’s bullshit. If you are yourself instead of trying to project yourself, you will find yourself in possession of personal magnetism and power. My friend Michael says we’re so busy trying to get somewhere that we have forgotten how to be somewhere. We have. We’re so busy trying to brand ourselves that we’ve forgotten how to be ourselves.

Do you know the difference between your image and yourself? Please ask yourself this question. Are you trying to seem like someone or be someone?

Please stop branding yourself, unless you’re very, very clear about the difference between your brand and yourself.

The TV piece on MLK closed with a shot of Obama giving a speech. Although I couldn’t hear it, it was easy to guess that the fact of Obama’s candidacy for President was being touted as an indication of just how far we’ve come. YAY. We have come a ways, although there is a tremendous distance still to go—but this isn’t what made me so sad as I watched the piece wind down. It was that we’re electing a President based not on character, not on values, not on statesmanship, but on the image of these things.

I gave this talk a few weeks ago for the Interdependence Project, a wonderful grassroots, community-oriented non-profit “dedicated to teaching the insights of meditation and applying the truth of interconnectedness to life in the 21st-century world. ”