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Early Buddhist Meditation Path Program

Online Program
Dates: Aug 18, 2023 - Jul 14, 2024

Instructor(s): Dawn Scott, Rhonda Magee, Bhikkhuni Dhammadinna, and Bhikkhu Analayo

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Program Description:
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Information on the full path program can be found here.

The Early Buddhist Meditation Path program is an in-depth study of meditation as it emerges in the early Buddhist discourses, extant in Pāli and compared with their parallels in Chinese and other languages. These are the sources that bring us as close as possible to the teachings of the historical Buddha. The program takes place over eleven months, from late August 2023 to mid-July 2024. Participants will join the teachers for three online retreats and optional meetings between the retreats. This live teaching will be supplemented with guided meditations, readings, and written meditation instructions available on Canvas for two months prior to each retreat. 

This program is intended for experienced practitioners of meditation who wish to deepen their understanding of the canonical Buddhist source material. Participants are expected to commit to all three retreats, which build on each other as one continuous program. In order to register, you will need to have completed a residential or online meditation program with Bhikkhu Anālayo. 

Participation in this program requires a commitment that is similar to in-person retreat practice. In case you do not meet the Path program prerequisites, or if it will be difficult to make adequate space in your life for an intensive online retreat, we recommend that you consider taking Bhikkhu Anālayo’s 9-week Satipaṭṭhāna Meditation or Mindfulness of Breathing program, which each meet just once per week and are easier to integrate into your work and family life.

Each retreat will be preceded by two months of guided audio meditations, readings available in pdf format for personal use, and written meditation instructions, with new ones released each week. The retreats will combine live question and answer sessions with Bhikkhu Anālayo, recorded teachings, guided meditation instructions, and 24h access to a virtual meditation hall. The retreats will also include small group discussions via Zoom and an online written forum, both supported by Dawn Scott, Rhonda Magee, and Bhikkhunī Dhammadinnā. 

Retreat Dates

October 20 – 29, 2023

April 5 – 14, 2024

July 5 – 14, 2024


Prerequisites:

To participate, you need to have already participated in a residential or online meditation program with Bhikkhu Anālayo (including, for example, the two-month programs offered through BCBS that focus on Bhikkhu Anālayo's approach to meditation. Shorter weekend retreats or practicing independently with Bhikkhu Anālayo’s teachings do not satisfy the prerequisite. If you are unsure if you meet the prerequisite please reach out to us via email at contact@buddhistinquiry.org.

    About the Instructor(s):
  • Dawn Scott sat her first Young Adult retreat in the summer of 2008, and it meant a great deal to her to meet other young people who also valued turning inward, silence, connection, authenticity, and asking the big questions of life.  Since then, she served as the Family Program Coordinator for eight years at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and continues to teach teen retreats through Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (iBme).  She is a graduate of the Insight Meditation Society’s 2017 – 2021 teacher training program, a co-principal teacher of Marin Sangha, and is a core teacher of Spirit Rock’s Liberation, Emptiness, and Awareness Practices (LEAP) Program and the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and Insight Meditation's joint program, Exploring the Heart of Freedom.  Dawn has a deep love of long retreat practice, the Buddha's liberative teachings, and working with young people.

  • Rhonda V. Magee, M.A., J.D., is a Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco and has spent more than twenty years integrating anti-racist education, social justice, and contemplative practices. She is an internationally-recognized innovator, storyteller, and thought and practice leader on integrating mindfulness into society. She is a Fellow of the Mind and Life Institute and the author of The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness (TarcherPerigee: 2019).

  • Bhikkhunī Dhammadinnā is a scholar-monastic and practitioner, born in Italy in 1980. She is the director of the Āgama Research Group and her main research interests are the early Buddhist discourses and Vinaya texts, as well as the development of the theories, practices and ideologies of Buddhist meditative traditions (for her publications, see here). Bhikkhunī Dhammadinnā has been practicing meditation since 1996 and has been studying and collaborating with Bhikkhu Anālayo since 2007.

  • Bhikkhu Anālayo is a scholar-monk and the author of numerous books on meditation and early Buddhism, such as Satipatthāna: The Direct Path to RealizationPerspectives on Satipatthāna, and Satipatthāna Meditation: A Practice Guide. He is a Faculty Member at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, having retired from being a professor at the Numata Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of Hamburg. His main area of academic research is early Buddhism, with a special interest in the topics of meditation and women in Buddhism. At the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies he regularly teaches residential study & practice courses, participates in online programs and undertakes research into meditation-related themes.  For a full list of Bhikkhu Anālayo’s publications, please click here.