09:00
19:30
16th Oct 2021
Saturday
One-day Online Meditation Retreat
$80 $40 $20 $1

Compassion Retreat

Using compassion to heal early attachment wounds and develop healthier relationships

One-day Online Meditation Retreat
  • Date: Saturday, 16th Oct 2021
  • Instructor: Cedric Reeves
  • Cost: Sliding scale
This event has ended

In this retreat, we'll clarify what compassion is, how to cultivate it, and its benefits. More specifically, we'll focus on how to use compassion meditation to help us heal our attachment conditioning and how compassion supports healthy relationships with others.

Moreover, in my view, developing compassion simply helps bring about adult emotional maturation process more quickly.

The technique that we'll use is Tong Len, a Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist Meditation. Compassion is a universal virtue. You don't have to be a Buddhist to do this practice.

Format

  • One-day Online Meditation Retreat: 10 hours, 30 mins total.
  • Live Online Sessions: The live sessions will be hosted on Zoom. An email with the zoom links will be sent to you after you have registered.
  • Q&A: There will be opportunity to ask questions during the Q&A section.

Attendance & Recordings

  • Partial attendance is fine - however you get best results if you attend all sessions.
  • Late Starts: You can join even after it has started.
  • View at your own pace: The event will be recorded and sent out to registered participants for viewing on your own schedule.

Event Date & Time

The retreat runs for 10 hours, 30 mins total. Partial attendance is perfectly fine.

Retreat Schedule

DurationActivity
20 mins Opening Notes & Chanting*
60 mins Instructions on Compassion and how it relates to healing with Q&A*
40 mins Guided Compassion Meditation
60 mins Gentle Guided Yoga*
40 mins Seated Meditation
20 mins Brief instruction on Walking Meditation
40 mins Brief Lecture on using Compassion to Heal Attachment Conditioning & Guided Mudita Meditation
20 mins Walking Meditation
60 mins Lunch Break
20 mins Walking Meditation
40 mins Seated Meditation
20 mins Walking Meditation
40 mins Seated Meditation
20 mins Walking Meditation
40 mins Seated Meditation
30 mins Walking Meditation or Break for a Light Dinner
30 mins Seated Meditation
30 mins Chanting & Friendly Discussion about the Day's Practice
Finish

Retreat Overview

This program is suitable for beginners to meditation and healing work.

Meditation Technique

Tong Len is said to all include four sublime emotions: Loving Kindness, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy, and Equanimity. It also is a training in the practice of generosity, ethics, tolerance, effort, concentration and wisdom, all at once.

Incorporation of the Schemas

More specifically, we’ll direct the compassion towards all those who (including ourselves) experience suffering around the five attachment Schemas described by Jeffrey Young (Schema Therapy).

They are:

  • Abandonment and Instability
  • Mistrust and Abuse
  • Emotional Deprivation
  • Defectiveness and Shame
  • Social Isolation and Alienation

Relating to the Schemas to our lives

We will use the sentence stems to help us understand how these schemas color our view of ourselves and the world and how we then go about responding to these skewed ways of viewing: 

  1. “When I am seeing the world from this schema I see myself like so……. (fill in the blank) and the world is like so…………(fill in the blank).” 
  2. Seeing myself and the world this way I must respond in the following way…….(fill in the blank)

We will use the compassion practice to bring about emotionally corrective experiences that will generate a new more positive view of self, other, and world thereby healing the negative schema.

Mentalization

In addition to healing these schemas, the guided meditations will help us do perspective taking, helping us understand cause and effect.  We’ll understand better how we fit in in the world and with others.  We’ll see how the negative conditioning that brought on these schemas are common, and how we are not to blame.

Resistance

Resistance is a normal part of the healing process.  We will learn to understand and value our own resistance, developing openness, and compassion towards it; not pushing it away.

Second Lecture and Guided Meditation

The second lecture will provide another opportunity for question and answer. Additionally we’ll discuss the motivation to heal in such away to be both personally happier and also to be of greater service to others. Moreover, we will discuss how and why compassion is a natural and necessary outcome of deep and proper spiritual practice.

The retreat is suitable for beginners

Tong Len is a safe practice for beginners. But, it can be kinda weird if you aren’t used to it. Metta (loving-kindness) or breath/concentration practice should be used if Tong Len starts to get more difficult.

Miscellaneous Notes

The schedule is similar to a Zen retreat schedule. We’ll chant the Metta Sutta.

There will be time for Q&A and spot coaching.

We will be doing deep work. For that reason please feel free to take a break at any point.

Walking Meditation / Breaks / Journalling

Most hours will consist of a 20 minute walking meditation session and a 40 minute seated guided meditation session. The walking meditation sessions will serve to help integrate the previous guided meditation session. Brief walking meditation instruction will be offered. Alternatively these 20 minute sessions can be used to journal or to just take a break. All three will help you integrate the previous guided meditation session.

Yoga (Optional)

Cedric will guide an hour long Yoga session. The Yoga routine will be made up of two sequences. The first is based on the “how to grow a lotus” sequence which is specifically designed to help with long meditation sitting. The second sequence is Tibetan Sun Moon Yoga. This Yoga routine is from the Mahamudra lineage. This was taught to me by a Mahamudra master. This practice supports deep meditative experience.

Who is this for?

This program is for those of us who...

  • are looking to improve their psychological health, especially those who have tried other healing modalities with disappointing results.
  • have problems with exploration and self development, relationships and emotional regulation
  • want to optimise their psychological health

Healing Together

Shared interest and social support can make meditation practice, study, and healing much easier. Make friends in the course on the slack channel and invite friends who you think could benefit to participate in the course.

Benefits

These are some of the benefits you will have by the end of the program

Theoretical Understanding

  • Greater understanding and compassion for psychological problems and vulnerabilities that affect you and others.
  • Understanding the importance of your personal explorations as a source for meaning in your life and more clarity on how to proceed in life towards those explorations and goals.

Psychological

  • Less identification with your psychological maladies and quirks (ego-dystonia with your maladaptive schemas).
  • A better ability to observe your mind with meta-cognitive awareness as a result of the mentalization exercises peppered through the guided meditations.
  • Better able to do emotional regulation on the spot in your daily life with ‘micro-hits’ of meditation.
  • Less blame of self or others.
  • More understanding and compassion towards your parts/modes and needs.

For your relationships

  • Better appreciation for the importance and value of interpersonal collaboration

Support Structure

  • Opportunities to find accountability partners to meditate with
  • A sense of camaraderie as a result of seeing how our psychological difficulties are rooted in common experiences that affect us all.
  • Slack group with which to discuss and share experiences and consolidate what you are learning

Frequently Asked Questions

About Participation

Are there any prerequisites to attend?

Is the course compatible with therapy/counselling/psychotherapy?

Technical Questions

How do I access the online event?

I’m having technical issues accessing the event

What is the refund policy?

My payment didn’t go through / I’m having payment issues

I don’t have Paypal / Card / are there alternative payment methods?

In what format are the recordings?

I have technical issues accessing the course or recording. What should I do?

Who should I contact if I have further questions?

Testimonials

This is what participants of prior Retreats have to say:

J.

Great retreat, thank you so much Cedric. There is something special about Tonglen and using it with the schemas feels so healing. I feel hopeful and inspired to keep working with Tonglen.

J.

Cedric I would just like to say thanks for your wisdom and knowledge of attachment issues and repair. The work you are doing really helps me and I have never come across anything as transformative for me as your meditations. Thank you so much.

M.

Thank you for this beautiful retreat. Feels like this is what I needed in the moment.

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Please note: This program is offered for educational purposes only and is not group-therapy, counselling or any kind of other psychotherapy, nor is it a substitute for the aforementioned. The instructor Cedric Reeves is a meditation teacher, not a psychotherapist, counsellor, or otherwise therapist.