[lineage connection moment]
It’s a real honor to be here with you, Lama Liz, and with all of you here in the hall and all over the world.
Acknowledge lineage: my parents Bob and Jean. Doctors who saved my life at least three times. Coaches and teachers. Friends who helped me get through some very difficult times. Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche and the lineages of the Kagyu and Nyingma. Lama Willa and especially Lama Liz. Most of all, the natural world - the mountains, lakes, forests and snow covered hills. Animals and plants.
Introduce myself:
- Live in Cambridge MA, three kids
- Work in startups - first as founder and CEO, now as investor
- First encountered this material in 1991 at the Naropa Institute
- Maitri Rooms
- Worked with it ever since
About “Vajrayana”
Vajrayana practices build on the mindfulness and awareness practices that we’ve been doing. Vajrayana meditations are not separate from them. In fact, it’s universally acknowledged that Vajrayana doesn’t work unless the meditator has a thorough grounding in mindfulness, has an open and compassionate heart, and has some experience working with emotions and other people in a skillful way.
The main attitude or approach that distinguishes Vajrayana meditation practices from other types of Buddhist meditation is that everything is included. Every part of life, every emotion, every doubt, every shadow, can be fuel to travel on the path.
Sometimes when we are practicing mindfulness, we can shun difficult topics because they disturb our peacefulness. Sometimes when we are practicing compassion practices, we avoid or ignore feelings of anger, resentment, jealousy, etc because we don’t think they are appropriate.
Vajrayana uses all of that. Everything.
We are going to focus on five broad types of emotions in this retreat. We are going to look at the confused aspects of them and the wisdom aspects of them. And of course we have an in-built, evolutionarily selected for preference for the pleasant sides of the coin.
But for me a core message of the Vajrayana is that these sides of the coin are not fundamentally different…
About Retreat
Retreat practice is the thing that has kept me connected to the Buddhist teachings after I left the meditation center and got a “real” job.
A chance to deepen
An opportunity to get to know yourself
Suggestions for remote retreats
Noble Silence
anything else to add on Noble Silence Lama Liz?
Many of you traveled to get here. I’ve been traveling a lot too, mostly to meet friends and ski this winter, but also for work, family and meditation.
When we travel we encounter so many people we don’t know personally. We get outside our comfortable little world and encounter other humans. It’s hard to ignore the feeling that we each are just tiny little bubbles of consciousness, of aliveness, in a huge glass of sparkling water. Or soda. Or champagne. Choose your drink to visualize.
Or we are each unique snowflakes… different from everyone else when you look closely, but the same from a distance.
The strangers I sat next to on the plane, the ladies at the ticket counter, the people loading my bags in the plane, the pilot, everyone I encounter has a complete, rich, inner experience as deep, varied, confused and wise as I do. So much of what I touch, see, use, interact with, is made by a lineage of countless humans, fed by innumerable plants and animals, all supported by this tiny beautiful planet in the vast darkness of the solar system, the galaxy, the universe.
Everything, from the space between the oxygen molecules in my bloodstream to the stranger next to me in the airplane seat to the dust circling a distant star, is awake and connected. Everything has the mark of awake. Awake is stamped on every feeling, every thought, every interaction. Whether it’s suffering, joy, boredom. Whether it’s mundane or spiritual, there is a fundamental quality of awake permeating everything.
This retreat is an introduction to the Vajrayana, so I’ll tell you what that word means to me now.
Vajrayana means that there is a path, a process, a series of activities we can undertake to realize the truth of our connectedness, our awakeness and our sanity. Of course it’s not the only path, but it’s a time tested, two-plus thousand year process of experiencing the innate connectedness, wisdom, love and awakeness of the world.
Vajrayana is simultaneously a path and a realization. It’s a slipping back and a moving forward. Nothing is left out, nothing is excluded. There is room for every part of your experience in the Vajrayana. Everything we encounter in our travels can wake us up. Can connect us. Can open our hearts.
We are going to focus on five broad types of emotions in this retreat. We are going to look at the confused aspects of them and the wisdom aspects of them. And of course we have an in-built, evolutionarily selected for preference for the pleasant sides of the coin.
But for me a core message of the Vajrayana is that these sides of the coin are not fundamentally different. “The ten thousand things are one” as the Taoists say.
I’m so excited to explore this with you all, to learn from you, to share and reflect, and to sit quietly for a small slice of time and experience more fully what it means to be alive.
[I first encountered teachings on the Buddha Families in 1991 at Naropa University where I was working on a degree in Buddhist Comparative Psychology… Maitri space awareness practice, six week retreat…]
[role of retreat in my life… with a job, married, kids, etc.]