Events

The CLS Mindfulness Program is delighted to invite you to our annual retreat this year at the Garrison Institute in Garrison, New York, from the evening of Friday, November 15, through midday on Sunday, November 17.  Students, staff, faculty, and alums are all welcome to attend. 

This mindfulness retreat will be an opportunity for CLS students, faculty, staff, and alums to explore the benefits of intentional deep mindfulness practice in the beautiful setting of the Garrison Institute, overlooking magnificent vistas of the Hudson River in the late fall.  A good part of the retreat will be conducted in silence, a unique chance to put aside the usual distractions of technology and even interpersonal interaction.  It will be an invitation to pause and to welcome silence as we journey inward, using a beginner's mind, to explore our thoughts, feelings, and sensations, and, with a lot of guidance by experienced teachers, process them in a constructive way that will hopefully allow us to access peace, clarity, and awareness.  

All students, faculty, staff, alums, and teachers are invited to participate, whether or not they are new to mindfulness practice.  Those who have previously attended Mindfulness Program sessions will likely recognize most of the practices: sitting meditation, walking meditation, mindful movement, mindful eating, loving-kindness, all guided, along with group teaching and opportunities to ask questions and discuss.  Participants who, for any reason, need to come out of silence during silent periods will be free to do so, and to seek support from staff members.

Participants in mindfulness retreats often report benefits of reduced stress and anxiety, improved attentional and relationship skills, and increased emotional resilience and coping behaviors, weeks and months after the retreat.

Please apply here to come join us and experience this adventure together! Please note that there are a limited number of spaces available, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible, but no later than October 30, 2024.

We are also delighted to share that Dr. Patricia Bloom and Kim Thai will be our guiding teachers during the retreat and Magi Pierce will be teaching yoga. See teacher descriptions below. 

Dr. Patricia Bloom is a physician who has been involved in academic internal medicine and geriatric medicine in New York City for the past 45 years. She is currently a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Geriatrics at Mount Sinai Medical Center, where she served as both the Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs for the Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, and the Director of Integrative Health Programs for the Martha Stewart Center for Living. She is a Certified Teacher of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and has been teaching Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and mindfulness workshops to people with a wide range of medical, psychological, and social stress since 2006.

Kim Thai (she/her) is a writer, mindfulness teacher, community organizer, and Emmy-award-winning storyteller. She is a certified yoga and meditation teacher and is currently a student in Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh’s Plum Village Buddhist tradition. She founded Joyful Liberation Collective, a grassroots community organization that provides space and ways to find liberation within the oppressive systems we live in. She is currently working on a memoir/mindfulness book on reclaiming our power and freedom in the world, through her perspective as a Queer Asian woman and proud kid of Vietnamese refugees.  Her personal essays on identity and healing have been published in New York Magazine’s The Cut, Newsweek, Buzzfeed and more. You can follow her work and practice by subscribing to her mindfulness newsletter Just One Breath. 

Magi Pierce has been teaching yoga and meditation for over a decade.  Inspired by her longtime study of asana (posture), meditation, philosophy, and anatomy, she is fascinated by the intersection and overlap of the physical, mental, and breath bodies.  She continually aspires to teach an inquiry of subtle alignment in a lighthearted way that is both accessible and relevant.  For more on Magi, her website is magipierce.com.

If you have questions about this event or upcoming events, or if any disability accommodations would help you to participate fully in these events, please contact Nicole Lavacchia ([email protected]).  Columbia University makes every effort to accommodate individuals with disabilities, so please let us know if any changes, for instance to the format of the sound system, would be helpful.