Helping professionals serve on the front lines of suffering, tending to others' physical or emotional pain. This retreat is a time to strengthen our own health and well-being with the tools of meditation. Meditation, in its many forms, can support our resilience, and it moves us from talking and teaching into applying and embodying our knowledge and wisdom.

 

Those who work in healthcare settings are facing acute challenges due to the Covid-19 pandemic. These helping professionals have been described as front-line soldiers, and this metaphor is apt. But like combat soldiers, they often face the profound and unrecognized wounds of moral injury and post-traumatic stress. This retreat provides an opportunity for those of us working in healthcare to stop and reflect on how we have been impacted emotionally and spiritually by this crisis.

 

During this multiple-day retreat many forms of meditation are introduced and practiced, rooted in the understanding that meditation and our daily life are not two separate things. There will be sitting meditation, walking meditation, eating meditation, working meditation, writing meditation, and deep listening/mindful speech. Much of our time together will be spent in silence, which supports the process of healing and transformation.

 

The retreat is led by Claude AnShin Thomas, Zen teacher, combat veteran, and author of At Hell's Gate: A Soldier's Journey from War to Peace.