If we want to help those around us find safety and well-being in their lives, we need to come from a profound place of safety and well-being in ourselves. In this retreat, we will draw from a Tibetan meditation tradition (Dzogchen) that emphasizes the innate wholeness of the human being, asserting that innate capacities of warmth, presence, inner peace, unconditional love, and wisdom are always available in the ground of our experience, within our basic awareness (our buddha nature), but have been obstructed by our incessant habits of thought and reaction. We will explore ways to access those underlying capacities through meditations that tap the innate potential in the ground of our being as a basis both for our own inner healing and to become a more unconditionally healing presence to others. 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 capacities of compassion and wisdom 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.
Format: The weekend will include talks that introduce guided meditations, Q&A, silence, and discussion. A meditation handout will be provided.
Reading Preparation: Before this retreat, please read the book How Compassion Works by John Makransky and Paul Condon (Shambhala 2025), or as much of it as possible. Alternatively, you could read Awakening through Love by Makransky (Wisdom 2007). Also recommended: The Healing Power of Mind by Tulku Thondup.