Arrival & Registration
18:00 Dinner
19:30 Opening the retreat
20:30 Walking
21:00 Sitting
21:30 Closing for the day or further practice
Meet your teacher
Bob Stahl
MBCT trained Teacher
register here
Mindfulness Meditation Retreat:
Cultivating Wisdom and Compassion
It is our great joy to invite you to join this event, an opportunity to spend time with oneself, to reconnect to one’s inner resources, in a safe and welcoming group, guided by a very experienced facilitator, who is also a teacher and well-known author in this field.
This traditional insight mindfulness meditation retreat will offer silent periods of sitting and walking meditation as well as times for practice discussions.
Each day there will be a talk and systematic meditation instructions on the four foundations of mindfulness that are embedded with lovingkindness. These teachings and practices will emphasize quieting the mind, opening the heart, and developing clarity, wisdom, and compassion; and foster the depth of practice.
Who can join?
This retreat is suitable for anyone wishing to deepen their practice and cultivate further understanding of mindfulness meditation. It may also be of interest to those teaching or aspiring to teach mindfulness in healthcare, psychology, education, science, government, or in the business and corporate sectors.
Please note: This retreat fulfills part of the retreat requirements at Brown University Mindfulness Center for MBSR teacher training.
Venue
The retreat will take place within the premises of the Order of Discalced Carmelites Monastery in Snagov, DJ101B 54, Ciofliceni 077166 https://carmelitanisnagov.ro/manastire/
The venue is accessible by car only. If you are traveling from abroad, you can take a taxi from the airport (15 km, approximately 15 minutes drive).
Accommodation and meals
Accommodation is available at the venue in single or double rooms with en-suite bathrooms.
All meals are included in the fees and are vegetarian or vegan. The kitchen will do their best to accommodate special dietary requirements but there may be cases where this may not be possible. We will inform participants individually upon registration.
Fee and Dana
The fixed early bird fee (valid until 31 July 2024) for this retreat is 550 Euro/person in a single room and 500 Euro/person in a double room. After 31 July the fee will be 600 Euro/ person in a single room and 550/person in a double room.
Apart from this, we also encourage participants to offer donations to Bob Stahl directly in the spirit of dana. Dana is a Pali word that means “generosity”, “giving” or “gift”, a voluntary expression of appreciation and gratitude.
Schedule
Please note that this may be intensive and attend only if you are prepared to engage in the entire experience.
7:15 Sitting
8:00 Breakfast
9:30 Sitting (with instructions)
10:30 Walking
11:15 Sitting
12:00 Walking
12:45 Sitting
13:00 Lunch
15:00 Sitting
15:30 Walking
16:15 Sitting
17:00 Walking
17:45 Sitting
18:30 Dinner
20:00 Dhamma talk
21:00 Mindful Stretch or Walking
21:15 Sitting
21:30 Closing for the day or further practice
7:15 Sitting
8:00 Breakfast
9:30 Sitting (Q & A)
10:30 Walking
11:00 Sitting
11:30 Talk/Breaking silence (Self-Care, Resources, Q&A)
12:00 Small Group Discussion
12:20 Large Group Closing Circle
13:00 Fare-thee-well
Facilitator:
Bob Stahl – PhD, has founded eight Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programs in medical centers in the SF Bay Area and is currently offering programs at El Camino Hospital in Mt. View, Ca.
He serves as an Assistant Professor of the Practice in the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences in the School of Public Health at Brown University Mindfulness Center and formerly at the Oasis Institute for Mindfulness-Based Professional Education and Training at the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
Bob teaches MBSR Teacher Trainings and Insight Mindfulness Meditation retreats worldwide and is the former guiding teacher at Insight Santa Cruz and a visiting teacher at Spirit Rock and Insight Meditation Society. He is coauthor of 5 books: A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook (1st & 2nd editions), Living With Your Heart Wide Open, Calming the Rush of Panic, A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook for Anxiety, and MBSR Everyday.
Organizers
Simona Chesăraicu – is Clinical Psychologist, Psychotherapist and Qualified MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) Teacher by UMass Medical School since 2018 and MBCT (Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy) Trained Teacher at Oxford Mindfulness Centre, Oxford University since 2021.
After working 18 years in multinational companies, mainly in the human resources field, Simona decided to move to private practice, and since 2016 she works as Clinical Psychologist and Psychotherapist in her private office.
In the last six years, Simona added to her work a practice she found so precious for herself – mindfulness meditation. She is now trained and qualified to teach mindfulness based interventions and she is convinced that what supports her to stay in balance and to find inner strength can be of help for anyone looking to have a healthy life.
Valérie Cioloș-Villemin is coach and Mindfulness Trainer. She qualified as a Mindfulness MBSR Trainer with the University of Massachusetts (UMASS Medical School), the institution where this method was founded and recognized worldwide and used successfully in medicine, education or business. She achieved in 2022 the second and highest level of training and is Certified MBSR Teacher by Brown University.
With a triple university degree in natural sciences, socio-economic development and economic sciences, and a doctorate in restructuring economies in transition, Valérie worked first as a researcher and then as a practitioner in systems evolution and the adaptation of the economic actors to a changing business environment. She was concerned not only with the process of change at the societal level, but also with change and resilience at the individual level.
Valérie has been regularly using the techniques she teaches in her personal life for over 20 years, both for reasons of mental hygiene and for her duty as a trainer to the participants in her workshops.
Daniela Pavlovici – works as a coach and mindfulness teacher, trained by Oxford Mindfulness Foundation (formerly Oxford Mindfulness Centre at University of Oxford) in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Finding Peace in a Frantic World.
As a coach, she is trained in solution focused coaching and uses this in all her work. Her approach in coaching is gentle and has at the core an intention of supporting clients to reconnect to their resources. As a facilitator, she has been working with many interactive methods especially from the u.lab and Art of Hosting sets of instruments. Daniela also trains managers in coaching skills and new coaches as part of the Solutionsurfers Romania team.
Before making a career change in 2017, she worked for over 18 years in communication, marketing, consulting and training, in multinationals, international and third sector organisations in Romania and abroad. Some of the organisations she worked for include: PwC (where she worked for over 8 years and during the last three and a half led the Marketing, Communication and Business Development team in Romania and South East Europe), Romanian Red Cross, UNDP.
On a personal level, Daniela is a strong believer in freedom and making the best of the opportunities that life offers. This is what guides her to create space for her clients to focus on what they really want their lives to be about, to live fully, with presence and compassion towards oneself and others.
Mihai Popa-Radu – discovered mindfulness in 2008 and since then he has been integrating a range of mindfulness-based practices both in his personal and professional lives. Over the years he traveled the world to deepen his practice and attended retreats under the guidance of various Tibetan, Zen and Theravada Buddhist masters, having the opportunity to familiarize with the relevant aspects of mindfulness in their original Buddhist context.
In 2009 he founded the Seeds for Happiness center for human development where he has been organizing various mindfulness-based events, and in 2014 he created the Mindfulness Institute, through which he promotes the benefits of mindfulness-based interventions in organizations.
Mihai is also an experienced Executive Coach and promoter of Mindful Leadership in the corporate world. Through his leadership consultancy Seeds for Success, he has designed and facilitated a series of leadership development programs aimed at offering his top-executive clients practical tools to deal with the challenges of the constantly-changing business environment of the 21st century.
A passionate reader, he translated into Romanian two volumes by Alan Watts, supervised the publication of the Romanian edition of the New York Times bestseller Mindful Work by David Gelles and the seminal leadership book Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux.