Dear Common Ground Friends,
The Twin Cities Vipassana Collective (TCVC) has been supporting the local insight meditation community since 1986 by organizing residential retreats, usually one in February and another in June. A dedicated group of Dharma volunteers do all the planing, organizing, managing and coordinating, a beautiful model of Dharma service for so many years. Over the years, retreatants have had access to hearing the Dharma from nationally respected teachers such as Steve Armstrong, Kamala Masters, Rebecca Bradshaw, Chas DiCapua, and others, without having to travel out of the midwest. What a blessing! This year's TCVC retreat will be taught by Deborah Helzer and Wynn Fricke, June 7-14. You can read more and register here. We're grateful that Deborah is once again willing to stay over an extra night in order to give a talk on the evening of June 14th for the Common Ground community.
You might know that Wynn is midway through a 4 year extensive residential retreat teacher training offered jointly by Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Deborah is Wynn's primary mentor for the training. It is not only a great honor to be part of this training but a real blessing for Wynn to have Deborah's intimate guidance for the journey. We can imagine that Wynn is doing this for the benefit of us all. There's a snippet below from an article that Wynn authored in TCVC's latest newsletter. You can read Wynn's complete article here.
The Buddha stressed the importance of appamada or “heedfulness,” an attitude of giving oneself fully to something. It is a capacity of mind that is deeply connected to generosity. He compared this attitude to the footprint of the elephant. With its great size, it encompasses the footprints of all other beings. In the same way, appamada is the one quality of mind that encompasses and surpasses all others in its power to bring benefits now and in the future.
TCVC has been a deep good friend to Common Ground over the years. One expression of that is how TCVC initially seeded the donation fund for the now annual BIPOC retreat at Common Ground's retreat center with Tuere Sala and have contributed to it each year since. This has allowed the Common Ground community to offer Tuere a nice financial gift each year for her teaching at Common Ground. If you would like to be a part of our annual offering to Tuere this year, please feel welcome to donate here and designate your gift to Tuere Sala. Our collective contributions support Tuere's livelihood and make it possible for her to keep saying yes invitations.
With deep gratitude for all the causes and conditions that have supported the depth and breadth of Dharma in and around us including and especially the movement of goodness in each of us.
Warm Wishes,
Shelly Graf
Co-Guiding Teacher
P.S If you're looking for another opportunity to practice with Wynn, she and I are leading a weekend retreat at Common Ground's retreat center at the end of the month. Register here!