A Soulmaking Dharma

Foundations of a Soulmaking Dharma:
Re-evaluating Emptiness, Imagination, Sacredness and Desire

An online study and practice course guided by Catherine McGee
Assisted by Yahel Avigur

September 12 - December 12, 2021

13 weeks of practice and focused study of Soulmaking Dharma

Applications are closed for Fall 2021

Online Course Overview

	Application time frame	Applications open June 7th - August 1, 2021
	Course dates	September 12 - December 12, 2021
	Duration	13 Weeks (with 3 digestion weeks: Oct 9th 30th & Nov 27th)
	Time commitment	10 hours per week
	Participation expectation	Intensive
	Prerequisite	Multiple prerequisites include: retreat practice, desire for more sacredness, resonance with key ideas. For list of pre-requisites click here
	Self-Paced components	• Video presentations • Guided meditations • Self-reflection exercises • A short weekly assignment
	Interactive components	• Weekly 90 minute small group practice meeting with facilitation: Small Group Times • 5 whole community practice gatherings-Sundays 12:30 US ET-Sept. 12, Oct. 3rd, and 24th, Nov. 14th and Dec. 12th • Small group written forum for sharing assignments • Optional Affinity Group Meetings

This online course is a contemplative and thoughtful look into the Soulmaking Dharma teachings.

What is Soulmaking Dharma?

Rooted in the Buddha's teaching of emptiness, ethics and meditative training, Soulmaking Dharma is a rich and resonant contemporary flowering of the Dharma.

Our Buddhist practice reveals to us that perception is empty and shapeable. We see that we inevitably participate in making the world through the ways we sense and see. Understanding this, the soulmaking practitioner learns to open and tune their heart, body, imagination, desire and intellect to form an instrument for soulful perception: sensing and seeing self, others, and world in ways that bring more beauty, dimensionality, and meaningfulness, and that restore, open, and expand senses of sacredness.

Here, the depths and subtleties of meditative practice, the particularities of the individual and their personal journeys, and the gifts, complexities, and sufferings of our time can all find their specific place in a responsive, intelligent, and soulful Dharma.

Soulmaking Dharma teachings rest upon practices of samatha, metta, emptiness, and the emotional/energy body. The Soulmaking teachings are laid out in several hundred hours of Dharma talks by Rob Burbea and Catherine McGee on Dharmaseed.org.

Two Paths to choose from

Online Course Only

Online and Residential

Completion of this online course is a prerequisite for the Soulmaking Dharma residential program at BCBS scheduled for January 10th-16th 2022. Participants who wish to attend the residential course must complete the online course in 2021 (or have taken the 2019 or 2020 course).
It is not necessary to attend the residential course if a student wishes to only participate in the online course.
Registration for the residential program will open in August.

Testimonials from Soulmaking practitioners:

“I love how soulmaking dharma takes the Buddha’s teachings on emptiness not just as an endpoint in itself but as a basis for exploring how existence can be sensed with more blessedness and sacredness. I enjoy the experimental nature of the teachings and very much appreciate how body, heart, mind, intellect, imagination, suffering, desire, self and world are all welcome and serve as both organs of and raw material for soulmaking. The soulmaking paradigm establishes my feet even more firmly on this earth while simultaneously giving me wings.”

"I had the pleasure of going on 2 soulmaking retreats with Catherine McGee and had opportunities to work with her one on one as well as in small groups. She is an amazing teacher. What she brings to this extraordinary practice is her passion, her wisdom, her integrity, her deep compassion and care as well as all of her previous years of mindfulness experience. I hope to have more opportunities to work with her again."

Guiding Teachers

Catherine McGee has been teaching Insight Meditation retreats internationally since 1999, and since 2014 has been collaborating with Rob Burbea in shaping and teaching Soulmaking Dharma. She is a member of the Gaia House teacher council, teaches yearly at IMS, and is a guiding teacher for One Earth Sangha.

Yahel Avigur is a devoted meditator and Dharma teacher. In 2013, After practicing in Theravada and Insight Meditation traditions, he met the Dharma teacher Rob Burbea and became his student. He was encouraged by Rob to teach the path of Emptiness to its depth; his unique approach to the Jhana practice; and to train in teaching Soulmaking Dharma. Yahel is also trained in Hakomi approach of assisted self study.

Course Participation

This is an intensive, rigorous and demanding course and requires considerable commitment from participants. We require attendance at weekly online meetings, as well as completion of writing prompts and course assignments throughout the program. The required time commitment is roughly 10 hours per week. Each week includes:

- - 50 minutes of video presentation by Catherine McGee introducing the theme of the week
  - 45 minutes of daily practice with guided meditations or instructions
  - Completion of a self-reflection exercise
  - Weekly assignment to contribute to your small group sharing board
  - A 90 minute live practice meeting in home small groups -with guided peer inquiry exercises and activities, discussion and Q& A around the Soulmaking foundation of the week.
  - Five whole group meeting during the course to meet together and dive deeper into the themes.
  - Optional affinity group spaces will be offered to participants of the course at the end of each digestion week:
    Saturdays 1pm USEDT: October 9th, October 30th and November 27th

A spirit of playfulness and enjoyment will be invited in all of the practices, both alone and together, and an atmosphere care for, and discernment of your particular learning styles will be supported.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The Barre Center for Buddhist Studies acknowledges that many people face barriers to participating in our work due to biases and social structures based on race, class, gender identity, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, ability, religion and other factors. Thus, in accord with Buddhist teachings as we understand them, BCBS takes a proactive approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and is engaged in ongoing initiatives to promote these three values throughout our work.

A Diversity of Souls

The Curriculum

The Soulmaking curriculum includes a thoughtful and contemplative exploration of the following themes:

Tuning the Body Awareness for Soulful Perception

different modes of mindfulness of the body
“sensitive to the whole body” – some of the ways in which this can be experienced
‘energy/emotional body’ – the what, how and why of attending to the body in this way
body as an instrument for soulful perception
restoration of ways of knowing and your access to these possible ways of knowing: imaginative; emotional; conceptual; aesthetic; ethical; somatic; intuitive; instinct for soul

The Place of Imagination

defining terms for a Soulmaking Dharma: ‘image’, ‘psyche’ and ‘imagination’
suspicions of and restrictions on the use of imagination
discerning what allows imagination to become a contemplative faculty
recognizing how ‘image’ is already operating when you are devoted to something
the necessity of imagination for soulmaking
imaginal perception, including: sense of ‘dimensionality', 'unfathomable beyonds', ‘eternality’, ‘irreducibility to a single meaning', ‘meaningfulness’

Emptiness ‘ways of looking’ - the implications for Soulfulness

conceiving of practice as the development of flexibility and skill with a range of 'ways of looking'
different understandings/realizations of emptiness within the Buddhist tradition, and their implications for the possibilities of soulmaking
Kaccayanagotta sutta (SN 12.15) and the middle way between the assertion of ‘real’ and ‘not real’
The 'spectrum of fabrication of perception' – papanca, bare attention, practices that significantly lessen fabricating, and skillful fabricating
‘less fabrication than one’s habitual center of gravity’

Relationality and the Necessity of Twoness

roots in the Four Divine Abidings (the Brahmaviharas)
the necessity of ‘twoness’ ‘differentiation’, ‘balance of attention’
‘loving and being loved’
‘seeing and being seen’
‘autonomy of self and other’
"humility’, ‘trust’, ‘reverence’, ‘grace’, ‘beauty’

Opening the Dharma of Desire

the path of unbinding craving and clinging
views and assumptions about desire in Dharma practice
recognizing and working with views of self, and the energetic and emotional patternings that arise with desire, e.g. lack, fear, frustration, expectation, entitlement, despair, confusion, etc.
skills with the arising of desire – including 'opening to the current of desire’
the necessity of ‘eros’ for soulmaking
discriminating and uncoupling ‘eros’ from craving and clinging

The Necessity of Ideas

acknowledging the power of ideas, and recognizing that concepts and conceptual frameworks are inevitably operating in the forming of any perception and in the shaping of our sense of self, other and world in any moment
recognizing how concepts operate in meditation practice; artful use of concepts in meditation
recognizing and loosening attachment to ideas to which we unconsciously default
knowing the issues that arise for you when working with ideas and intellect

Working with Images

inquiring into the kinds of ideas and conceptual frameworks that can support soulful perception in meditation and in sensing the world with soul
logos
discerning which of the 28 elements of 'sensing with soul' you can access and which are less available
working with images
discriminating along the spectra of: soulless - soulful, universal - personal, less fabricated – more fabricated

A Soulful Relationship with Dukkha

ideas about dukkha on the path of practice
narratives of healing
ensouling dukkha
developing the range of skills for working with dukkha
approaching emotions via the ‘energy body’
agency and surrender, doing and not doing, ‘create/discover’

Ensouling the world

reflection on the gifts, sensibilities, perspectives, and dukkhas of all your lineages, human and more than human
What calls you? ‘duty’, ‘fullness of intention’
Between Eden and the Abyss- ensouling the full spectrum
‘beauty’, ‘ justice’, ‘truth’
soulful activism

Caring for the vessel

what do you need to develop to become an instrument for soulful perception?
reflecting, recapping, consolidating, celebrating, and exploring what is next for your practice

Application Process

There are eight prerequisites for this online course, including: four week-long silent Insight meditation led retreats; confidence working with whole body awareness for emotional navigation, for loosening clinging, and for metta practice; and an understanding of emptiness and dependent origination.

Please contact us at contact@buddhistinquiry.org or 978-355-2347 ex. 10 to share any feedback regarding ways that we could make the application process or participation in the course more accessible for you or others.

Ethical Commitment

This online course will follow the Buddha's principle of ethics as the foundation for Soulmaking practice. Participation in this course is supported by group commitment to respect and non-harming, applying to both communication with others and also to one's personal relationship with the practice.

Program Fee, Teacher Dāna and Scholarships

The course fee is $450. This does not include financial support for Catherine or Yahel. As is customary at BCBS, there will be an opportunity to offer dāna at the end of the program.

We are committed to making this program accessible to all.
Financial assistance is available to help supplement the course fee.
Requests for financial assistance may be made in the registration process. If accepted into the course, a 30%, 40% or 50% scholarship can be selected on the registration page, and it will be applied directly. If the financial assistance need is over 50% of the course fee, there is a space to indicate what amount of the course fee would be affordable, and we will offer what we can to accommodate the request.
We generally only offer financial assistance one time per person per year so as to make this support available to as many students as possible.

Timeline

Applications open: June 7th
Applications close: August 1
Initial acceptance notified by: August 15
Orientation and Enrollment: August 16- September 1
Course Opening: September 12