Renowned Buddhist Teacher Sylvia Boorstein to Offer Online Retreat on Lovingkindness
As some of the West's earliest teachers of Buddhist wisdom and practice look toward retirement, they are discovering they don't need to stop teaching the thousands of people who have sought them out over the years. Some have started to offer retreats online.
Sylvia Boorstein, 73, one of the world's most esteemed Buddhist teachers and a founding member of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Northern California, is one of them. In 2009, Boorstein decided to reduce her grueling schedule, which for almost 30 years has taken her to retreat centers nationwide. When SpiritualityandPractice.com asked if she would do a month-long online retreat on lovingkindness, she welcomed the opportunity.
She and SpiritualityandPractice.com chose the lovingkindness practice for Boorstein's first online program because of its universal appeal. "Although lovingkindness is considered a classical Buddhist practice, it is a universal practice whose goal is a peaceful mind and a benevolent heart," Boorstein says. "Everyone wants peace."
Offering this program online fulfills her wish to reach as many people as possible and from any religious tradition. "A big thing that interests me about an online retreat is the chance to not only reconnect with students I've taught over the years, but also to reach people I might not have reached in my entire life, including people of other traditions who might never go to a Buddhist retreat," Boorstein explains. "I want people all over the world to benefit from Buddhism's profound and relevant teachings, and offering a course online seems like the perfect opportunity to do this."
"Lovingkindness with Sylvia Boorstein" will run March 15–April 9, 2010. Boorstein regards this online offering as a summation of her years of lovingkindness. In Pali, the language the Buddha used some 2,500 years ago, lovingkindness is called "metta," a derivative of the word for "friend." Boorstein likes to think of it as "a friendliness practice, the cultivation of a mind that is so saturated with good will that it responds uniformly to all situations with benevolence."
Boorstein has imparted much of her wisdom through popular books, including Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life; Pay Attention, for Goodness' Sake: The Buddhist Path of Kindness; Don't Just Do Something, Sit There: A Mindfulness Retreat; and It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness. The hallmark of all her books has been their ability to make ancient Buddhist teachings contemporary and relevant in the modern world, and accessible to anyone.
Now she is tapping into the online world, which gives her new ways to interact with the hundreds of participants expected to enroll in the course, creating a learning experience books don't offer. Through a series of emailed lessons, short audio meditations, three teleconferences, and an online Practice Circle or "virtual sangha," Boorstein will teach people how to have an abiding good will toward friends, family members, colleagues, people we see on the street and in stores, and even difficult people. Full details on the course content are available at the sign-up page at SpiritualityandPractice.com.
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, co-directors of Spirituality & Practice, are longtime fans of Boorstein's books and include her in the website's Living Spiritual Teachers Project. "We are delighted to be able to give Sylvia an online teaching venue and to give our visitors access to such a wonderful teacher," says Mary Ann. "We are offering this retreat during Lent, Passover, and Easter because it is a perfect way to integrate the wisdom of a profound Buddhist practice into these holy days in the Christian and Jewish traditions, offering people a well-rounded and expansive view of a universal human desire to love and to love well."
SpiritualityandPractice.com is a multifaith website on ways to practice spirituality in everyday life. It is the leading source of spirituality e-courses, with more than 40 programs available on-demand and new courses offered regularly. "Lovingkindness with Sylvia Boorstein" joins a series of retreats on classic practices of the world's religions, including Lectio Divina, Forgiveness, Living the Hours, and InterSpiritual Wisdom.
Contact: Mary Ann Brussat
Brussat@SpiritualityandPractice.com
212-691-5240
Published on: 2010-02-26
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