#026 Silence is Golden - Insights from a 9 Day Silent Retreat with Karen Maloney

This week I'm sharing some insights and nuggets from a recent 9 day Silent Retreat that I did. It was a Vipassana (Insight) and Metta (Lovingkindness) Buddhist retreat. It was certainly a real challenge at times but it was also an incredible experience. I love to experiment and try out these things! The essential teachings of the Buddha (Dhamma) are all about learning to cultivate, purify, tame, develop and train our mind to more wholesome thoughts V's unwholesome thoughts. That's not to say 'put on rose tinted glasses' and pretend everything is great or deny situations that may arise (as another essential teaching of the Buddha is that 'life is suffering') but it's learning to navigate these times in better ways. The idea of impermanence is another aspect of the teachings - everything is always rising and passing away! I found it fascinating and I loved learning more on the teachings of the Buddha as I've never studied them before. However, I'm not saying we all need to book in 9 days for a silent retreat, the magic is finding these moments of silence throughout our every day lives. And the easiest way to do this, is by connecting to our breath and dropping into the present moment! We can do this at a moment's notice and begin to build from there. Our point of power is always in the now! www.karenmaloneywellbeing.com