Loving Awareness: Opening the Heart Through Practice (Hybrid)
Join us at Wonderwell Mountain Refuge for Natural Dharma Fellowship’s core summer retreat, Loving Awareness. In this week-long silent meditation retreat, we will focus 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.
This Hybrid retreat is offered in person at Wonderwell (Residential option) and Live via Zoom (Online option). For more information, please choose one of the options in the YELLOW panel.
Typical Retreat Schedule
(All times are Eastern time zone)
First Day — Opening session begins around 7:00 pm.
Full-Day Schedule — Morning meditation 7:00 am; Breakfast break 8:30-10:00 am; Lunch break 12:00-2:00 pm; Dinner break 5:30-7:00 pm.
Last Day — The closing session typically ends by 12:00 pm.
These times are just for reference. An expanded schedule will be provided in pre-retreat information emailed during the week prior to the event.
