Dhamma Dena Meditation Center: Online Queer Self-Retreat with Arinna Weisman, November 2021 (Week 2)

Arinna Weisman gives morning instructions followed by a guided meditation:

"these teachings are so clear, that the capacity to discern what's most helpful in healing for us, is by staying in the present moment and connecting with what's happening"

Dhamma Dena Meditation Center: Online Queer Self-Retreat with Arinna Weisman, November 2021 (Week 2)

Guided equanimity meditation led by Arinna Weisman:

"I wanted to offer the practice of equanimity, which is that capacity that we all have — and can cultivate — to hold through the changing circumstances of our lives"

Dhamma Dena Meditation Center: Online Queer Self-Retreat with Arinna Weisman, November 2021 (Week 2)

Dharma talk by Arinna Weisman on liberatory speech, part of the Noble Eight Fold Path:

"I want to explore with you tonight [liberatory] speech because it's so important. Really, it's like one of the most powerful tools that we have available to affect transformation within and without ourselves"

Dhamma Dena Meditation Center: Online Queer Self-Retreat with Arinna Weisman, November 2021 (Week 2)

Morning instructions on bare attention and general comprehension by Arinna Weisman, followed by a short guided meditation:

"in that process of noticing the bare experience [...], that is held in the larger context of general comprehension — the aspect of mindfulness that understands that my intention for healing and for liberation rests on the three refuges — rests on my faith that in any moment I am connecting to this understanding that I have the capacity to do this. Taking refuge in the Buddha, that in any moment, it's not just this one sensation that I'm interested in, but the whole context of the path, the practice of the Dharma."

Dhamma Dena Meditation Center: Online Queer Self-Retreat with Arinna Weisman, November 2021 (Week 2)

Guided compassion meditation led by Arinna Weisman

Dhamma Dena Meditation Center: Online Queer Self-Retreat with Arinna Weisman, November 2021 (Week 2)

Dharma talk by Arinna Weisman on the value of contemplating death as an antidote to ownership in our relationships:

"when we move into habitual relationships with our bodies, or our thoughts, or our feelings, or pleasant and unpleasant, any aspect of our life — when it's habitual, we have moved into the relationship of enclosing, of owning [...] and in that ownership — automatically because there's no respect and love — there's a harming done, there's suffering done."

Dhamma Dena Meditation Center: Online Queer Self-Retreat with Arinna Weisman, November 2021 (Week 2)

Morning instructions on The Three Characteristics (anicca, dukkha, anatta) by Arinna Weisman, followed by a short guided meditation:

"knowing these three characteristics and laws of life become the grounds of our liberation and freedom."

Dhamma Dena Meditation Center: Online Queer Self-Retreat with Arinna Weisman, November 2021 (Week 2)

Arinna leads a guided metta meditation

Dhamma Dena Meditation Center: Online Queer Self-Retreat with Arinna Weisman, November 2021 (Week 2)

Arinna dances to a music video (Grateful by Nimo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2o98Zpzg8), then gives a dharma talk on cultivating joy:

"It is impossible to hold our sorrow without cultivating our joy"

Dhamma Dena Meditation Center: Online Queer Self-Retreat with Arinna Weisman, November 2021 (Week 2)

Morning instructions by Arinna Weisman, followed by a short guided meditation:

"The mind has that capacity to direct itself towards whatever the experience is. And so that is born in us. And we are building another quality very close to that, which is the mental quality of sustaining that connection."