Memorial Day Weekend Family Retreat: 3rd- 7th Graders and Parents with Gil Fronsdal, Rebekkah LaDyne, Liz Powell

Memorial Day Weekend Family Retreat: 3rd- 7th Graders and Parents with Gil Fronsdal, Rebekkah LaDyne, Liz Powell

Saturday May 28- Monday May 30, 2011

This retreat is now full. If you wish to be put on a waiting list, contact Liz Powell on the Application link below.

Jikoji Retreat Center, Los Gatos.

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Practice together as a family during a relaxed weekend that will alternate structured retreat practice with hiking and sharing circles.  We will help to create the retreat together, from cooking to simple work projects, camping or sharing dorm rooms.  Families will be invited to bring music and stories of dharma in daily family life to share.

Gil has practiced Zen and Vipassana since 1975 and has a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from Stanford. He has trained in both the Japanese Soto Zen tradition and the Insight Meditation lineage of Theravada Buddhism of Southeast Asia. Gil was trained as a Vipassana teacher by Jack Kornfield and is part of the Vipassana teachers’ collective at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. He was ordained as a Soto Zen priest at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1982, and in 1995 he received Dharma Transmission from Mel Weitsman, the abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center. He has been the primary teacher for the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California since 1990. He is a husband and father of two boys.

Liz Powell is IMC Dharma Sprouts and Dharma Rocks family programs leader. She has been practicing Vipassana meditation since 2004.  She emphasizes mindfulness in daily life in her work as a Marriage Family Therapist, and enjoys retreat practice as well.  Since 1996, Liz has worked with children, teens, and adults, first as a court-appointed special advocate for children, then as Director of Youth and Family Services for Kara, a non-profit peer support agency providing services for people and organizations dealing with a terminal illness or death. She currently serves as an IMC board member.

Rebekkah is  the Family Program Teacher at Spirit Rock where she teachesparents, family events, and teens. She began practicing meditation and yoga in her late teens. She has studied and practiced Vipassana meditation in the U.S., India and Thailand.  Meditation, Yoga and Dharma have helped her to live more honestly and more fully in each part of her life. Rebekkah has been sharing Dharma through Yoga and Dharma classes, workshops and retreats since 1998. She completed the Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leaders’ training program (CDL3) and is a member of Diamond Heart 8. She continues to study and incorporate Dharma wisdom into family life with her husband and two young daughters.