Teacher: Lama John Makransky
Event type: In-person and on-line weekend retreat
Organization: Gomde USA (Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche’s center in North America)
For information and registration, go to:
https://gomdeca.org/program-description/1214/opening-to-the-unconditional-love-and-wisdom-of-our-budda-naturewith-lama-john-makransky-2026/

From a Tibetan Buddhist perspective, our buddha nature is the basic space of our being that is 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 conditioned habits of thought and reaction. In this retreat, we will learn three modes of practice derived from Tibetan Buddhism that empower each other as they harmonize us with those innate capacities.

The receptive mode generates a field of care that helps us find immediate access to unconditional qualities of love and wisdom from the depth of our awareness (our buddha nature). In the deepening mode, we let those qualities help the mind settle into their source—the non-conceptual openness, simplicity, clarity, and compassionate warmth of our buddha nature. In the inclusive mode, we come from that depth of being to recognize others in their depth, including them in those unconditional qualities of openness and compassion.This contemplative process also empowers our ability to discern the empty, constructed nature of all reactions to others that impede our compassion, freeing the mind for further access to its innate awakening capacities.

In this weekend retreat, we 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 faiths who have contemplative practice experience and seek not just an intellectual dialogue with Buddhism but a deep experiential encounter with it that might freshly illumine analogous depths of their own tradition.

Format:

Teachings that introduce the meditations, guided meditations, silent meditation, Q&A, discussion.

Prerequisites:

At least two previous years of regular contemplative practice (meditation, ritual or prayer). Before the retreat, please read John’s book Awakening through Love (Wisdom, 2007) or How Compassion Works (co-authored with Condon, Shambhala, 2025), or as much of it as possible.

Session times:

Fri, May 8 – Registration 3–5 pm; first session 7–8:30 pm
Sat, May 9– 9 am–12 pm PT; 2–5 pm PT; 7–8:30 pm PT
Sun, May 10 – 9 am–12 pm PT; 1:30–3:30 pm PT

Each teaching-practice session includes a break halfway through.