From a Tibetan Buddhist perspective, our Buddha nature is the basic space of our being undivided from vast capacities of awareness, warmth, love, compassion and wisdom. These capacities are always available below our surface consciousness, but often hidden by our habits of self-clinging thought and reaction. One way that Tibetan practitioners start to access them is by bringing to mind the Buddha as an enlightened field of refuge, and experiencing themselves and their whole world as held in the Buddha’s unconditional love, compassion, and wisdom. Other contemplative traditions follow an analogous pattern: being held in the love, compassion, and wisdom of God, saints, prophets or spiritual ancestors. This evokes the practitioners’ own corresponding qualities of warmth, love, compassion and openness. In Tibetan Buddhism, all such qualities are then drawn on in meditation to help the mind settle into the source of those qualities—the basic space, pure awareness, and vast capacity of our Buddha nature, from which to recognize others in their deep nature and hold them in warmth and compassion.

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. 

Please note that Lama John Makransky will not be onsite for this program. Instead, he will hold the sessions via Zoom. This registration is for those who wish to join the program online via Zoom. 

Prerequisite: at least two years regular practice of contemplation (meditation or prayer).  And please read John’s book, Awakening through Love (Wisdom, 2007), or as much of it as possible, before the retreat. You can purchase the book here

Session times: 

Sat May 4:  9am-12 PT, 1:30-5:30 PT

For more information please contact us at coordinator@gomdeca.org