Toronto Meditation Guide

Phone: 514-488-7484
Email: info@truenorthinsight.org
Website: www.truenorthinsight.org
Address: 4137 Oxford Ave., Montreal, Quebec H4A 2Y5

True North Insight (TNI) is a non-profit, charitable organization presently organizing, promoting and managing insight meditation retreats. These retreats provide an opportunity for spiritual contemplation and transformation.

Meditation practices are dedicated to the cultivation of awareness, wisdom and compassion, giving rise to greater peace and happiness in the world. Our goal is to support the health and well being of all beings.

Background

Lineage

TNI is composed of a board of directors, guiding teachers and an organizing committee. The guiding teachers, who also lead TNI retreats, are Norman Feldman, Molly Swan, Daryl Lynn Ross and Matthew Flickstein. Some other teachers who lead TNI retreats are Michele McDonald, Leigh Brasington, Charles Genoud and Patricia Genoud-Feldman (in French), Pascal Auclair, and Ayya Medhanandi.

Activities

True North Insight Meditation Centre organizes meditation retreats in Ontario and Quebec. Seven residential retreats, ranging from 2 to 7 days, are being offered in 2008. TNI also offers non-residential retreats in Kingston, Ottawa and Montreal. In December 2008, TNI will host its first French retreat.

Our residential retreats are held at Galilee Centre, located near the centre of Arnprior, overlooking the Ottawa River and bordering on an old-growth forest. www.galileecentre.com

Insight meditation retreats are held in noble silence, with periods of sitting and walking meditation, daily Dharma talks and practice instructions. Meals are vegetarian and simple, and there is unscheduled time for walking and other practices such as yoga.

Biography

Norman Feldman
Norman Feldman attended his first meditation retreat in 1971, in India. Since then he has practiced and studied with teachers in the Theravada, Tibetan and Zen traditions, and has spent periods of time practicing in India, Thailand and Sri Lanka, as well as in the West. He has also lived in Buddhist communities in England and Canada. Norman began teaching in 1986, and since then he has regularly lead Insight Meditation retreats throughout Canada and the US, as well as at Gaia House retreat centre in England, in Bodh Gaya, India, and in Israel. He also leads sutta study classes and retreats that emphasize the integration of meditative awareness and inquiry into daily life, and guides small groups on pilgrimage to Buddhist sites of India and Nepal. Since 1998 he has been engaged full-time in offering Dharma support to others.

Matthew Flickstein
Matthew Flickstein was a practicing psychotherapist for twenty years, having earned his B.S. degree from the University of Maryland and his M.S. degree in Counseling and Psychotherapy from Loyola College. He completed his Ph.D. coursework at the Saybrook Institute.
Matthew has been a meditation teacher since 1978. At one time he was ordained as a monk in the Theravada Buddhist tradition. His primary teacher has been Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, a Buddhist monk for over sixty years. Matthew co-founded the Bhavana Society Monastery and Meditation Center in West Virginia with Bhante Gunaratana in 1982.
Matthew is the founder of The Forest Way, Inc., an organization that offers retreats, workshops, and mentoring programs for those who aspire to teach meditation. He has published two books through Wisdom Publications: Journey to the Center: A Meditation Workbook and Swallowing the River Ganges: A Comprehensive Practice Guide to the Path of Purification.

Daryl Lynn Ross
Daryl Lynn Ross has been engaged in meditation and other contemplative practices during most of her adult life. Buddhist teaching and meditation has been central to her spiritual life since the early 1970s. She has practiced with Tibetan, Zen and Vipassana teachers, emphasizing Insight practice in recent years. In 1980 the writings of Christian mystics led her to explore the Christian contemplative path, and she was later trained to offer guidance in this tradition. Daryl was a University Chaplain at Concordia University in Montreal from 1986 to 2008 and has offered meditation teachings and spiritual mentoring in that context and beyond. Since 2000 she has been leading insight meditation retreats in Montreal and most recently as a guiding teacher for True North Insight.

Molly Swan
Molly Swan has been engaging in spiritual inquiry and Dhamma (Sanskrit: Dharma) practice since 1985, both in Asia and the West, primarily with teachers in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, but also in the traditions of Korean Zen and Advaita Vedanta (the non-dual). A profound teaching for Molly has also been stretches of time living without a homebase, with its almost daily challenge of opening to not-knowing. Another part of Molly’s practice has been supporting others in accessing the precious gift of Dhamma. She was a manager at Gaia House Retreat Centre in England in 1987, and has organized and managed retreats for many years in India and Canada. Since 1997 Molly has been teaching Insight Meditation retreats internationally, as well as offering support to individuals and Dhamma groups in Ontario.

Comments

The long-term vision for TNI is to establish a residential retreat centre in Ontario, Canada that will provide a protected and quiet space to hold retreats and to support individuals in focusing on their inner experience in order to meet the world with wisdom and kindness.