Teacher: Lama John Makransky
Event type: In-person weeklong retreat
Organization: Samye Hermitage, Cooperstown NY (Phakchok Rinpoche’s center in North America)
For information and registration, go to:
https://www.samyenewyork.org/programs/492/harmonizing-with-the-unconditional-love-and-wisdom-of-our-buddha-nature

From a Tibetan Buddhist perspective, our buddha nature (the source of our profound dignity) is the basic space of our being that is undivided from vast capacities of awareness, warmth, love, compassion and wisdom. These innate capacities are always available below our surface consciousness, but often hidden by our habits of thought and reaction. In this week-long program of study and retreat, we will learn three modes of practice drawn from Tibetan Buddhism that harmonize us with those innate capacities. The receptive mode generates a field of care that helps us find direct access to unconditional qualities of love and wisdom from the depth of our awareness (our buddha nature), making us into a profoundly healing environment for all parts of ourselves and others. In the deepening mode, we let those loving 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, and to include them in those unconditional qualities of openness and compassion. Those three modes of practice provide a foundation for meditations of compassion that convert our own painful experiences into compassion for others and that extend compassion in increasingly all-inclusive and unconditional ways (beyond “compassion fatigue”). This contemplative process also empowers deepening wisdom–the ability to discern the empty, constructed nature of all our reactions that impede compassion for others.

In this retreat, we adapt this pattern of practice from Tibetan Buddhism, with assistance from relevant areas of modern psychology, to make it accessible both for Buddhist practitioners and for people of all faiths and backgrounds who have previous contemplative experience and seek an accessible way to cultivate unconditional love and wisdom.

Sessions:

Daily 9am to 12noon, 2 to 5pm with a half hour break within each teaching-practice session.

Format:

Talks introducing guided meditations, silent meditation, large group Q&A, small group discussions.

Prerequisites:

Please read How Compassion Works:A Step by Step Guide (Shambhala, 2025) by John Makransky and Paul Condon before attending this retreat, or as much of it as possible. If you wish more background reading, read Awakening through Love (Wisdom 2007), also by John.