Upcoming Retreats 2024-2025
August 14-18, 2024
Howard Cohn, Victoria Cary & Genevieve Tregor
Nov 2024
Information
Coming Soon
Jan 15-19, 2025
Howard Cohn,
Devin Berry &
Genevieve Tregor
The Experience of Embodied Awareness
with Howard Cohn, Victoria Cary & Genevieve Tregor
Discover the four foundations of mindfulness as a gateway to presence. The idea of 'being present' is often referenced as a special way of being. It's understood as a secret and esoteric key to freedom, the recipe for happiness and well-being, a way to find balance and joy. But what does this mean?
What is it that someone must actually do to achieve 'presence'?
In reality, being present is merely an activity of attention.
Mindful Awareness directed toward the body is presence.
We can practice embodied awareness through mindfulness meditation.
The four foundations of mindfulness are the essential practices of true embodied awareness, the key to the present moment.
August 14 - 18, 2024
Howard Cohn
Howard Cohn, MA, is one of the founding teachers of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and has led the Mission Dharma sitting group in San Francisco for over 30 years. He has practiced meditation since 1972, and has led Vipassana retreats since 1985. He is known by his students for his kindheartedness and warm sense of humor. Howard has a MA in Counseling Psychology and has a private counseling/mentoring practice. He is the author of, Invitation to Meditation: How to Find Peace Wherever You Are.
Victoria Cary
Victoria Cary (She/Her) has been practicing and studying Insight meditation for nearly two decades. Victoria’s approach to teaching seeks to investigate the complexity of our human experience while holding plenty of space for kindness. She co-founded the San Francisco Black Indigenous People of Color Insight Sangha (SFIPOCIS), and is a Guiding Teacher with SF Insight Dharma Center. Victoria teaches retreats at Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and Insight Meditation Society.
Genevieve Tregor
Genevieve Tregor, MS, is the founding teacher of Insight Meditation Scottsdale, in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Solution Mindfulness. She serves on the faculty of Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach's Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program. She is trained in Peter Levine's three year Trauma- Informed Somatic Experiencing method of healing trauma, and serves as adjunct faculty the Maricopa Community Colleges.
Opening to Wisdom and Love
with Howard Cohn & Genevieve Tregor
Wisdom and love do not exist outside of us.
However, through the vicissitudes of our lives we often find ourselves closed down and confused, and seeking solace outside of ourselves in ways that only provide temporary and unreliable relief, and ultimately, that can cause us even greater suffering. Looking for relief in temporary distractions is a subtle form of addiction. When we don't recognize this, we can become our own worst enemy in pursuit of happiness!
The Buddha understood how this kind of confusion leads us astray. But, white the Buddha understood this cause of suffering, he also discovered a path to freedom from suffering: the path of Wisdom and Love that is not reliant on changing circumstances, but on our own, ever-available capacity, on the resources available to us inherently.
Developing the practices of Wisdom and Love through systematic development of Mindfulness and Loving Kindness leads us to true relief; greater confidence, stability and ease.
December 14 - 18, 2024
Howard Cohn
Howard Cohn, MA, is one of the founding teachers of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and has led the Mission Dharma sitting group in San Francisco for over 30 years. He has practiced meditation since 1972, and has led Vipassana retreats since 1985. He is known by his students for his kindheartedness and warm sense of humor. Howard has a MA in Counseling Psychology and has a private counseling/mentoring practice. He is the author of, Invitation to Meditation: How to Find Peace Wherever You Are.
Genevieve Tregor
Genevieve Tregor, MS, is the founding teacher of Insight Meditation Scottsdale, in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Solution Mindfulness. She serves on the faculty of Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach's Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program. She is trained in Peter Levine's three year Trauma- Informed Somatic Experiencing method of healing trauma, and serves as adjunct faculty the Maricopa Community Colleges.
Freeing the Heart From Contraction with Loving Presence
with Howard Cohn, Devin Berry & Genevieve Tregor
When our situation and experience feels threatening or chaotic , the heart naturally contracts. During times we feel safe the heart opens. However, when we rely on external circumstances to dictate whether our heart is open or closed, we do not experience true freedom.
With the cultivation of mindfulness and loving kindness practices we can develop a truly free heart. Mindfulness practice allows us to recognize, tend and find refuge in our ever-present direct experience of body and mind, regardless of circumstances. The cultivation of loving kindness supports our capacity for an open and balanced heart, regardless of circumstances. Both practices function as protection and resource, together they support our freedom.
It is not necessary to be perfect to be free; it is only necessary to embrace our own humanity with compassion and wisdom.
January 15 - 19, 2025
Howard Cohn
Howard Cohn, MA, is one of the founding teachers of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and has led the Mission Dharma sitting group in San Francisco for over 30 years. He has practiced meditation since 1972, and has led Vipassana retreats since 1985. He is known by his students for his kindheartedness and warm sense of humor. Howard has a MA in Counseling Psychology and has a private counseling/mentoring practice. He is the author of, Invitation to Meditation: How to Find Peace Wherever You Are.
Genevieve Tregor
Genevieve Tregor, MS, is the founding teacher of Insight Meditation Scottsdale, in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Solution Mindfulness. She serves on the faculty of Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach's Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program. She is trained in Peter Levine's three year Trauma- Informed Somatic Experiencing method of healing trauma, and serves as adjunct faculty the Maricopa Community Colleges.
Devin Berry
Devin Berry is an Insight Meditation Society Core Guiding Teacher. He co-founded the Teen Sangha and the Men of Color Deep Refuge Group at East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, CA. In addition, he began one of the first mindfulness programs in San Francisco Bay Area Schools. He has worked for over 25 years as a frontline advocate for marginalized youth, as well as co-creating Deep Time Liberation, an ancestral healing journey exploring the impact of intergenerational trauma on Black Americans.