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| Creating An Expansive Heart: A Retreat on Lovingkindness and the Four Immeasurables |
Creating An Expansive Heart: A Retreat on Lovingkindness and the Four Immeasurables
led by Gen-la Chokyi Dhakpa
July 27-29, 2007
Location: (various local communities)
Start time: Friday, 3:30pm
End time: Sunday, approx 1pm
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Full Retreat Cost: $150
Work-Study Donation: $40
(Please pay at signup, non-refundable)
Cost includes a FREE set of the retreat on CD to each attendee!
Please call Dave or Tracy at 303-665-2393,
Or email retreats@summitdharmacenter.org
Or use signup sheets at local classes to sign up!
You can also signup ONLINE using PayPal for donation. Click on the desired 'Donate' button below to continue signup
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In Buddhism, four emotions have the same transformative quality as mercy: equanimity, loving-kindness, compassion, and joy. They are called the four immeasurables because there is no limitation to their depth or scope. Unlike reactive emotions, the four immeasurables do not function in the service of any habituated pattern, sense of self, or personal agenda. While they are impersonal in that they are not based on personal agendas, in their expression and experience, they are intensely intimate. Their power comes from their ability to open up a moment of presence. As long as our actions and feelings operate in the service of personal agendas, we will not be capable of such presence. The four immeasurables operate at a higher level of attention, a level that opens the door to profound, natural emotional responses to the exigencies.
Equanimity dismantles our reactive judgments and prejudices about other people so that we understand and appreciate them as they are. Loving-kindness is a radiant warmth, independent of personal like or dislikes, that stops us from shutting down to others. Compassion counteracts discomfort, withdrawl, or contraction in the face of others' pain so that we are truly present with them. And joy - unapologetic joy in being and passion for life - eliminates any envy or criticism of other people's success or happiness.
The four immeasurables also serve as an important bridge to the practice of insight, in which we see directly into the nature of experience and penetrate the three deepest habituated patterns: subject-object pereption, taking subjective experience as reality, and the fear that makes us turn away from open, direct awareness.
In addition to the penetrative meditations on equanimity, loving-kindness, compassion and joy meditations this weekend's retreat will also include teachings and meditations on their application to the following topics:
- Reorganization - bringing awareness to habits that create uncertainty; mechanistic habits that are based on criticism
- Bringing awareness to our critical attitude
- Exposing our feelings of not being enough
- Bringing attention to our sense of deficiency
- Taking joy in other people's successes
- Finding joy in just being aware
- Working with habitual reactions in relationship and trauma
- Cutting Obsessions with the External World
- Cutting Obsessions with Reactive Emotions
- Cutting Obsessions with Power and Pleasure
- Cutting Obsessions with Self
- Rejecting Others
- Repairing corruption and decay
in our 4 Immeasurables Practice
- Addressing childhood struggles to survive and adolescent strivings for a place in the world
- Adult styles of Interaction to Solidify and Identity and Worldview
- Spiritual Longings and Transformation
I hope that you are able to attend this remarkable, life-changing and transformative retreat.
With Love and Palms Together,
Chokyi Dhakpa
This retreat will be done using our satellite center broadcast technology, so local groups will be hosting this retreat in various locations around the world. Please contact Dave Rodenbaugh to find out more about a community near you, or how to host your own retreat gathering!
Tentative Schedule (subject to change before and DURING the retreat):
| Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
| Time | Activity | Time | Activity | Time | Activity |
| 3:30pm | Retreat Begins | 7:00am | Breakfast | 7:00am | Breakfast |
| 4-6pm | First Session/Meditation | 8-10am | First Session/Meditation | 8-10am | First Session/Meditation |
| 6-7pm | Dinner | 10-11am | Tea Break | 10-11am | Tea Break |
| 7-9pm | Second Session/Meditation | 11a-1p | Second Session/Meditation | 11a-1p | Second Session/Meditation |
| | | 1-2pm | Lunch | 1pm | Retreat Ends |
| | | 2-4pm | Break | | |
| | | 4-6pm | Third Session/Meditation | | |
| | | 6-7pm | Dinner | | |
| | | 7-9pm | Fourth Session/Meditation | | |
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Signup ONLINE NOW using PayPal for donation. Click on the desired 'Donate' button below to continue signup
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