Loving Awareness: Opening the Heart Through Practice, Natural Dharma Fellowship’s week-long core summer retreat at Wonderwell Mountain Refuge, focuses on coming home to our deepest sense of being–that which lies beneath all of our self-conceptions and judgments.

When we connect to this deepest sense of being, a greater kind of love becomes possible, including compassion for the more challenging parts of ourselves and others.

This retreat takes us through four ways to know ourselves more deeply: “The Way of Allowing,” “The Way of Metaphor,” “The Way of Recognition” and “The Way of Love.” We will discover these ways of being through daily sitting meditation, movement, meditation journaling, small group inquiry, and Dharma reflection.

Practicing the four ways helps us to see beyond the thinking mind, to the one who witnesses. We will come to understand that this witness is not a “self” in a conventional sense; it is an innate awareness. It is a vivid receptivity. It is a loving gaze on all of experience, capable of melting a sense of separation into a sense of oneness.