Long term Vipassana retreat teacher Steven Smith is in Bangkok and will give a public talk for us on Thursday 31st March 2011, at Ariyasom Villa:
‘The Four Foundations’
Dharma Talk
with Insight Meditation teacher Steven Smith
Thursday 31st March, 2011
at Ariyasom Villa Boutique Hotel, Bangkok
Sukhumvit Soi One
We’re glad to welcome as a guest speaker for our Little Bangkok Sangha long term Vipassana (Insight) Meditation teacher Steven Smith for a dharma talk.
Steven has been teaching insight meditation for a long time, and is well known for his compassionate and pragmatic teachings. In 1984 he co-founded the thriving Vipassana Hawaii community project, which now runs long and short retreats year round.
6-6:45 pm gather and refresh at Ariyasom
7-8 Dhamma Talk
8-8:15 ish questions
Official bio runs as follows:
Steven Smith
Steven co-founded Vipassana Hawai’i in 1984 and in 1995 founded the MettaDana Project for educational and medical projects in Burma. Also in 1995 Steven helped establish the Kyaswa Valley Retreat Center in Burma, headed by Sayadaw U Lakkhana, Abbot of Kyaswa Monastery. This partnership helped usher in the beginnings of Vipassana Hawai’i’s Fusion Dhamma approach combining traditional and contemporary teaching styles in the same retreat. Anchored in the Theravadan Buddhist Burmese lineage of Mahasi Sayadaw since 1974, he was trained and sanctioned as a teacher by revered monk and meditation master Sayadaw U Pandita. Steven divides his time teaching Vipassana and the Divine Abodes (loving-kindness, compassion, joy, equanimity) meditation retreats around the world, and assisting Burmese refugee communities along the Thai-Burma border. His long term vision for preserving the Dhamma is culminating in the beginnings of the Hawai’i Insight Meditation Center (HIMC) on the Big Island of Hawai’i’s remote North Kohala coast.
Topic: Four Foundations of Mindfulness
This is a ‘back to basics’ talk in so far as this particular teaching is central to all Buddhism. It is the primary text on meditation that we find in the original teachings of the Buddha, and thus is something that all yogis should know about. For those who are more experienced meditators, it is a topic that can never be contemplated too much. Steven has been teaching full retreats on these Four Foundations for decades! Usually one will take a 10 day course to cover them one by one… but here we’ll try to put the outline into one evening.
Directions for this event:
Could not be easier – go down Sukhumvit Soi One, right to the end, and Ariyasom is on the left.
Click the map for an even larger view (note that this map is proportional to actual distance, and has North at the top. It is less than a 10 minute walk from Ploen Chit BTS Station on Sukhumvit One
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Jungle Yoga retreat, Thailand, where Steven just taught – there will be more retreats at this centre in the future
Exquisite Dhamma service and gift to locals