On this Meditate.io week-long retreat, December 2 - 9th, 2017, we’ll be focusing on the development of wisdom through mindfulness practice and the cultivation of love through heartfulness practice. Together, these two styles of practice form The Heart of Insight.

An intensive retreat hosted by Buddhist Geeks. We will focus on concentration, inquiry, and awareness practices. 

In this mind hacking immersive retreat we’ll focus on upgrading the inner operating system–moving from a self-referential way of knowing ourselves and the world to a more centerless and open hearted way of knowing. Inspired by the Buddhist wisdom tradition we will offer techniques that train the attention, work to deconstruct fixed identity, & awaken the heart.

In this Life Retreat we’ll turn away from meditative techniques and toward the capacity of “choiceless awareness.” This choiceless aspect of awareness is operating no matter what you’re doing, whether you’re mindful or distracted, focus or confused, awake or asleep. Because of this it is–as Ajahn Sumedho points out–a true refuge.

One of the most powerful forms of contemplation is to work directly with a question or inquiry that has significant meaning to our lives. When we really open up to a question several things happen. One is that we drop the sense of already having the answer and knowing how things really are–this opens us to seeing and experiencing in new ways. Our minds also become bright, open, and curious–qualities which give our contemplative investigation a huge boost. Finally, as we become more comfortable with asking difficult questions, and pursuing our most important lines of inquiry, we start to become fearless in the face of not knowing–of never really having a final answer. We develop what Ajahn Chah called “the wisdom of uncertainty.”

Within the Buddhist contemplative path there are many gateways to experiencing the freedom of unqualifiable emptiness.  In this 6-week intensive Life Retreat we’ll explore several of these wisdom gateways in the context of formal meditation practice and our everyday lives.  We’ll explore some of the classic entry points to emptiness including: ceaseless change, existential struggle, and selflessness.  We’ll also look at the ways in which this (non)experience of emptiness is inseparable from our personal experience and the outer world.

Is meditation something you do while sitting quietly with your eyes closed, or it something that happens in every moment of your day and in every context of your life?  In this 6-week intensive Life Retreat we’ll be focusing on the process of integrating meditative practice into our daily lives so that there is no separation between life and practice. Part of this process will include developing and maintaining a regular, daily meditation practice. The other part involves bringing the momentum of that practice into new areas, so that mindful awareness permeates your life.