Weekend Retreat: Navigating Dependent Origination with Wisdom

Dates: Saturday and Sunday March 28 and 29
Times: 10am - 3:30pm
REGISTRATION REQUIRED
TO JOIN VIA ZOOM

The Buddha’s teaching on the 12 links of dependent origination offers us a detailed roadmap of how our own confusion about the nature of reality unfolds into the various forms of dissatisfaction we experience. This teaching reveals how the subtle interplay of our impulses, connected to the world around us through our actions, gradually cascades into the complex emotional patterns that often shape our lives.

By tracing this sequence, we can begin to see that our sense of ourselves and the world is ultimately the result of a series of interdependent mental events, which, when seen through the lens of wisdom, can lead us to develop new ways of thinking and acting that serve to reduce our suffering.

In this retreat, we will examine the mechanics of this experience, understanding these twelve stages as the engine that drives our daily habits. By seeing how one moment of experience conditions the next, we can gain the clarity necessary to have more control over that process.

During this retreat, we will learn ways to:

• Cultivate the ability to observe the transition from an initial sensation to a mental judgment before an emotional reaction takes hold.
• Examine the impulses of craving and grasping in a personal way, in order to see how fleeting thoughts become patterns.
• Recognize the points in this causal chain where insight can prevent future suffering.

Together, we will explore methods for understanding dependent origination and discover tools for recognizing and interrupting these reactive patterns in daily life. Our goal will be to understand how these conditioned processes function, and how wisdom can gradually loosen their grip.