From a Tibetan Buddhist perspective, our Buddha nature is the basic space of our being undivided from vast capacities of awareness, warmth, unconditional love, compassion, and wisdom. These awakened qualities are always available below our surface consciousness, in the ground of our experience, but hidden by our habits of self-clinging thought and reaction. In this retreat, we will explore several ways derived from Tibetan Buddhism to become increasingly receptive and transparent to qualities of our Buddha nature—through sense experience, through relational fields of loving connection, and by settling directly into the intrinsic openness, luminosity, and unconditional warmth of our pre-conceptual awareness. These qualities help us start to unify with their source in the ground of our experience, our buddha nature. From that depth, we can learn to sense others in their depth, and to hold them in the same unconditional, loving qualities. This contemplative process also empowers our ability to discern the empty, constructed nature of our thoughts and reactions, freeing the mind for further access to innate awakening capacities that are prior to such constructions.
In this weekend retreat, we will adapt this pattern of practice from Tibetan Buddhism, with some assistance from modern psychology, to make it accessible both for Buddhist practitioners and for people of all backgrounds and faiths who have previous contemplative experience and seek an accessible way to cultivate unconditional love and wisdom.
Program Format: The weekend will include guided meditations, Q&A, and discussion.
Reading Preparation: Before this retreat, please read How Compassion Works: A Step by Step Guide by Makransky and Condon (Shambhala 2025) or Awakening Through Love by Makransky (Wisdom 2007).
