There’s a lot coming in the next few weeks at Springwater Center!  There are many ways to participate in the offerings and you are invited to join in. See the Calendar for a full list of retreats and offerings. 

Please note there’s been a change to the June/July retreat with Richard Witteman.

Unfortunately, due to an oversight, the July four day retreat with Wayne Coger was omitted from the Springwater website calendar. For more information about Richard’s and Wayne’s retreats please see below. 

Toni Packer Talk and Dialogue

Everyone is invited online this Saturday, May 25th for a 25 minute quiet sitting followed by a recorded talk by Center founder, Toni Packer and a one-hour group dialogue. The sitting begins at 1:30 pm EDT and the whole event concludes around 4:00 pm.

Toni Packer’s talk is from Day 4 of the June 1994 retreat in Springwater. In this talk Toni questions, What is Reality? Pointing to the different realities that each person carries within: experiences, education, etc., and invites exploring further, asking what is truly real? The need to have a clear intellect, not putting it down! In the simplicity of being here the intellect is flexible, open and unobstructed.

Join the program online this coming Saturday, May 25 and experience this for yourself!

All 2024 Saturday Programs are freely offered, though donations in appreciation are always gratefully received. Use the Donate button below and choose the “Online Sittings/Programs” option.

Join this Zoom Meeting using: 

DIRECT LINK
 or
Zoom.us Meeting ID: 289 037 6188
Passcode: 7179
or
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdsftvqRwr

This day of quiet meditation will have timed sittings, a talk, and a group dialogue. In person attendees also receive a vegetarian lunch and post-event refreshments and social time.

Sandra worked with Toni Packer for many years and has a deep commitment to meditative work. She has been teaching at the Center for many years, currently chairs the teaching committee and is serving on the board of trustees. 

In an article by Sandra titled “Facilitator-Participant Relationship in Meditative Inquiry Work” she writes:

It is acknowledging that in truth there is no other, but just human beings with a shared essence as well as a shared human conditioned mind. In this openness, in this listening that has no listener there is no hierarchy, there is no knower but rather we all are students of life and this understanding that has come to us through insight is not ours, it is universal, and has no owner, really. This allows a sense of humility to be felt.

Space is available for online and in person attendees. Use one of the green buttons below to register.

Come for the All-Day and stay for the weekend (or longer). Guest stay space is available in the main house or the Guest Cabin. Email for more information.

Members, please contact the Center at info@springwatercenter.org if you have not yet received the agenda, proxy ballot and Zoom link information that was sent by mail in April. The meeting will be held in person and via Zoom, and will begin at 10 a.m. EDT.

If you will attend in person, contact the receptionist so that staff can plan for seating. Please bring a dish to pass for the potluck lunch and convivial social time that will follow the meeting.  Information about membership. 

Stephan will facilitate this retreat in person and online. There is ample space to attend online, but please apply soon if you wish to attend in person. 

Stephan has been doing meditation work and and holding retreats in both German and English since 2003.

He will return to Springwater in person from his home near Hamburg, Germany. Stephan engaged in meditative work with Toni Packer and was asked by her to meet with people and later, to hold retreats in Germany and Poland. Since 2010 he has been holding retreats at Springwater Center.

Stephan has recently written a book available on Amazon titled “Seven Days in Silence: How to find oneself in quiet meditation,” translated from the original German by long-time Center member Robert Watson, and with a foreword by Dagmar Apel, a colleague of Toni Packer. 

Stephan writes:

A small group of perhaps 10 or 30 people come together to spend some days in silent meditation. It is not important which gender, ethnicity or religion they might identify with; all are welcome. Old age or physical disability is not a hindrance. This meditation is open for everyone. Sitting silently in a hall, breathing, sensing the body, seeing the light reflected from the floor, being in touch with the people around. Who or what are we to be? Nobody special? Can it be enough to flow with the stream of aliveness, which is here in utter simplicity, no separation, no wanting, no missing? When no separating thoughts or feelings appear, everything is complete as it is.

For more information about Stephan, including talks and articles, visit his teacher page on the website.

An OMD is an Open Meditative Dialogue with a guest speaker invited by the Teaching Committee. The previous two OMD Online programs have been well attended with much interest to look and listen together with new voices about the work of meditative inquiry. 

The guest speaker at this June’s OMD will be Judith Von Radetzky. Judith lives in Germany and worked with Toni Packer from the time Toni began to teach in the 1970’s. 

The schedule for the online OMD is as follows (in EDT):

1:30 – 2:00 pm – 25 minute timed sitting followed by short break

2:00 – 2:20 pm – Guest Speaker

2:30 – 3:45 pm – Open Meditative Dialogue

Speaking and dialoguing is different from a lecture or a discussion group where we share what we already know. The spirit of Meditative Inquiry infuses Talks and Group Dialogue at Springwater Center with a sense of exploration and discovery, of being open to the freshness of not knowing. Join the program online this coming Saturday, May 4 and experience this for yourself!

All 2024 Open Meditative Dialogues are freely offered, though donations in appreciation are always gratefully received.

Join this Zoom Meeting using 

DIRECT LINK
 or
Zoom.us Meeting ID: 289 037 6188
Passcode: 7179

Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kd

Because of family needs, Richard will not be able to travel to Springwater this year to facilitate the retreat in person. The Center will run the in-person retreat as usual, and Richard will be joining the retreat over Zoom, offering talks, private meetings, and participating in group dialogue. Wayne Coger and Sandra Gonzalez will also be available as teachers/facilitators on site.  

This retreat is offered online as well. 

Richard has been leading retreats at Springwater since 2003. He began meditative work in 1971, and was a student of Roshi Philip Kapleau at the Rochester Zen Center for ten years. In 1982 he began working with Toni Packer, and has been part of Springwater Center since its inception.

Richard writes in an article titled, “Spirit of Inquiry“

Recently, someone asked me what I have learned from years of experiencing this meditative way of being, and this answer spontaneously came, “I’ve become interested in what is here.”

How many days and weeks have been spent being interested in what was, in what might be, in what should be… in what was lost, in what I might get, in what I might lose… in what I want, in what I definitely don’t want? So many impulses to pursue the fleeting promises of safety and love, fulfillment and security, of finding happiness. Discovering, time and again that these promises lead only to labyrinths – where each turn leads deeper into an unsatisfying maze, into a deepening dream of separation.

Considering this now, I feel this is the heart of meditation: Simply being interested in what is here – being more interested in what is… than in what was, what will be, or what should be.

As mentioned above, this short summer retreat with Wayne was inadvertently omitted from the calendar. The retreat will be held both in person and online. More information about Wayne and the retreat will appear in the next news update, but applications are being processed now.   

www.springwatercenter.org   info@springwatercenter.org