Spiritual Party with Buddhist Monks 5/26

Join us for a Day of Mindfulness at The Blue Cliff Monastery in Pinebush NY.  Whether you are working on your 11th step, or just want to learn more about staying in the present and being mindful, please join us!  

We will listen to a mindfulness lesson given by a Buddhist teacher, take a silent, walking meditation with the monks in the woods, and enjoy a large vegan meal prepared by the monks for us. 

RSVP IS REQUIRED: The monastery needs to know how much food to prepare for our SoberFun group's lunch.  

When: May 26th (rain or shine).  Arrive by 9am, and leave for home around 2pm. 

Where: Blue Cliff Monastery, 3 Mindfulness Rd, Pine Bush, NY 12566. 

Driving: You can meet us at the monastery, or carpool with others. If you wish to carpool, meet us at 8am outside Panera Bread, located at 1300 RT 17 N in Ramsey (Kohls shopping center). The drive is just under an hour from Ramsey. 

What to expect: 

Arrive by 9am. 

Parking is alongside the largest building, which will be on your right side of the road.  The bathrooms are located in the small building next to the parking lot. There are no bathrooms inside the large building. 

At 9:15ish, go inside the monastery, take off your shoes, and go inside the main room, and find an empty cushion or chair.  At 9:30am the Dharma Talk will begin, and lasts about an hour. The monastery has high ceilings and runs cold, so consider bringing a sweatshirt or dressing in layers. 

10:30-11am: Free time.  You can go across the street to Plum Village and enjoy a cup of tea with the monks, (enter on the right side of the A-frame building to get tea) while we wait for the walking meditation to begin. 

11:00am:  Just before 11am, you will see visitors and monks gathering outside of the A-frame building. They will sing songs until 11am, when one of the monks will slowly (and I mean slowly) walk behind the building up a road, and eventually veer off onto a trail in the woods.  Its a silent meditation,  so no one talks. They stop now and again, but otherwise its about 30-45 mins of just being present with others in nature while being silent.  

12pm: Dharma Sharing.  We will break into smaller groups and a monk will lead each group in a sharing session that really is very similar to an AA meeting. These smaller groups will be told what building to meet in. If we have a big group from SoberFun, they will split us in two, otherwise, we could all fit in one room. 

1pm: Eating meditation with the monks! Vegan and delicious. You are supposed to remain silent until a GONG goes off about 15 mins into the meal. 

1:30-2pm: Free time, go upstairs to their store and go shopping! Lots of cool stuff. 

2pm: Leave for home, or if you have your own car... hang a while!

Learn more: https://www.bluecliffmonastery.org/