Online and On-Land Programs

6.1–6.29

5 Thursdays

Dāna / By Donation

All the Villains: Evil, Karma, and Buddhist Restorative Justice

SEAN FEIT OAKES | 1:00–3:00 PM

The Buddhist discourses reveal a powerful and nuanced approach to crime and justice that reinforces the core teaching that harmful action is born of ignorance, and can always be met with compassion and forgiveness. In the stories of Aṇgulimālā the serial killer, Ajatasattu the patricide, Devadatta the traitor, and a group of monks lost in toxic politics, we explore the workings of karma, and a vision of restorative justice where even the worst evil-doer can eventually be fully liberated.

6.3 Saturday

The Awakened Heart: An Invitation to Love

JACK KORNFIELD | 9:00 AM–12:30 PM

3 CE Credits. The awakened heart has immense capacities for tender compassion, profound love, and renewed joy. Come together to enhance skillful ways to hold our collective fears and losses, and build a sense of hope and beauty even amidst these difficult times. These gifts of the heart can be practiced, activated, developed, and opened. Join in this day of meditations, stories, and dialogue, illuminating your own inner gifts, held by teachings on love, gratitude, forgiveness, and the true nature of the heart.

6.10–6.11

Dāna / By Donation

Vesak: Celebrating the Buddha’s Life and Liberation

SEAN FEIT OAKES & LOUIJE KIM | 6:00–8:00 PM

The Buddhist holiday of Vesak celebrates the birth, liberation, and death of the Buddha. We gather to express our gratitude for the gifts this tradition has brought to our lives. We will chant, hear stories of the Buddha’s life, practice meditations to connect with our love for this path and the teacher who brought it into the world, and explore how to practice the Buddhist holidays in the context of Insight Meditation and global Dharma culture.

Embodying Joy through Qigong and Meditation

DEBRA CHAMBERLIN-TAYLOR & MINGTONG GU | 10:00 AM–4:00 PM

5 CE Credits. Joy shines naturally within each person, like the sun, but life and world conditions can be like clouds that obscure the inherent radiance of being. Meditation and Qigong help us clear the clouds and return to joy and wholeness. Master Mingtong Gu will guide us in simple movements and the practice of Sound Healing, and Debra Chamberlin Taylor will offer Dharma practice and guided meditation to help us open the heart of joy and wonder.

Self-compassion: Learning to Be a Good Friend to Ourselves

KRISTIN NEFF | 10:00 AM–1:00 PM

6 CE Credits. Self-compassion involves treating ourselves kindly, like we would a good friend we care about. During this weekend retreat, you will practice simple tools for responding compassionately in daily life, learn about research demonstrating the benefits of selfcompassion, and gain practical skills so that you can stop being so hard on yourself, handle difficult emotions with greater ease, and motivate yourself with kindness rather than criticism. Practices will also be introduced to help ease stress for caregivers.

6.17 Saturday

The Enlightenment Life Stories of Naropa and Milarepa

JAN WILLIS | 10:00 AM–1:00 PM

Explore the meaning and functioning of “liberation life stories”

(rNam thar) in the Tibetan Tantric tradition by focusing on the stories of two well-known siddhas, practitioners who gained enlightenment in one lifetime, Naropa and Milarepa. What are rNam thar, and how do they work? How should we read them? Can we discern common patterns in the lives of those who attained enlightenment in one lifetime? What do these two rNam thar, read in tandem, teach us about the Buddhist Path?

6.24

Saturday

Dāna / By Donation

The Power of Loving: Celebrating LGBTQIA+ Community

JD DOYLE | 10:30 AM–12:30 PM

Open to our LGBTQIA+ Community. Join us to celebrate LGBTQIA+ Pride month with a day of practice in community. We will explore the power of love: loving ourselves and loving each other. With our meditation practice, we learn to bring all of who we are more fully into our lives. Grounded in lovingkindness, we will nurture a world that is founded in inclusivity and freedom for all. Our day together will include talks, meditations, guided movement, chants and interactive sessions.

The Embrace of Heaven and Earth

ADYASHANTI | 10:00 AM–4:30 PM

A Benefit for Open Gate Sangha and Spirit Rock. Our psyche is composed of both “heaven” and “earth.” Heaven represents the psyche’s transcendent expression, the pre-egocentric worldview of timelessness and transcendent identity. Earth represents the psyche’s dualistic, sensual, and conditioned aspects. Only when they come together in a single embrace do we experience a wholeness of being that is not held captive by either position. In this day with venerable teacher Adyashanti we will share meditation, teachings, and discussion that illuminates the embrace of heaven and earth.

6.25

Sunday

Un Día de Meditación en Español

TERE ABDALA-ROMANO | 10:00 AM–4:00 PM

Exploraremos maneras en que podemos alejarnos del ruido exterior, calmar el cuerpo, aquietar la mente, y desarrollar la atención plena. Al alentar a nuestros cuerpos a descansar, descubriremos cómo podemos conectarnos mejor con la verdad de nuestra experiencia interna. En este proceso, iremos despertando nuestras fuentes de sabiduría interna y el amor genuino, ambos innatos en todos nosotros. Alternaremos entre pláticas cortas, meditaciones guiadas, tiempo para reflexionar, hacer preguntas y apoyarnos en comunidad.

7.8–7.9

Sat–Sun

Write Your Way Home: Creative Writing and Meditation

ANNE CUSHMAN | 10:00 AM–4:00 PM

Inspire your imagination and unleash your stories in an immersive weekend of creative writing, meditation, mindful movement, and embodied energy practices. We’ll use embodied meditation practices to settle our minds and open our hearts so we write from a deeper place. Mindful movement will cultivate inner listening and unclog creative energy. Writing prompts will awaken the river of memory and imagination. Through sharing our stories without judgement, we will connect with ourselves, each other, and the heart of life.

Learn more at calendar.spiritrock.org

7.15

Saturday

Home is Here: Healing Harm for BIPOCs

REV LIÊN SHUTT | 10:00 AM–3:00 PM

Open to our BIPOC Community. Do the Buddha’s “The Four Noble Truths” just seem like another list to memorize? Join us and explore how the reframed “Engaged Four Noble Truths” can reflect our contemporary, multi-dimensional, lived experiences as BIPOCs. Meditative, reflective, and interactive exercises will be used throughout the day to support us to see how these seemingly passive “truths” can be more active and meaningful. This daylong retreat will expand traditional framing to see how the Four Noble Truths also support an engaged practice, enlivening us with agency.

7.20–7.24

Thurs–Mon

July Insight Online

JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN, KAMALA MASTERS, ROXANNE DAULT, TARA MULAY, & VANCE PRYOR

The emphasis during this retreat will be on the continuity of awareness in all activities, which stabilizes and balances the mind. Relaxed acceptance of our moment-to-moment experience becomes the platform for investigation and wisdom. Particular attention will be paid to the attitudes in the mind that condition our understanding. This retreat is suitable for both beginners and experienced meditators. We welcome people from all life experiences, backgrounds and diverse communities.

On-Land

Feeding Your Demons and Finding Your Allies

LAMA TSULTRIM ALLIONE | 10:00 AM–4:00 PM

Lama Tsultrim Allione brought an 11th-century Tibetan woman’s practice to the West with Feeding Your Demons®, an accessible and effective five-step approach for dealing with negative emotions, depression, anxiety, addiction, fears, illness, and any self-defeating patterns that block us. In the process the energy tied up in our demons transforms into an accessible ally. This practice has benefited thousands worldwide, and can be a meaningful tool for anybody, regardless of religious affiliation or personal philosophy.

Sahaja: Spontaneous Wisdom

LAMA TSULTRIM ALLIONE | 10:00 AM–5:00 PM

On-Land

7.22 Saturday 7.23 Sunday 7.29 Saturday

Join Lama Tsultrim Allione to savor the precious, profound teachings of sahaja, which means spontaneous, innate, or co-emergent depending on context. Lama Tsultrim will share the liberation songs of eighth century yogis and yoginis such as Saraha, Sahajayoginicinta, and the Mahasiddhas. Through meditation and dialogue we will open to these non-dual nature of mind teachings, which have the ability to wake us up spontaneously to our true nature.

A single word of truth which calms the mind is better to hear than a thousand irrelevant words.

– DHAMMAPADA 100

Freedom of Heart: Mindfulness Practices for Healing Addiction

KEVIN GRIFFIN & VIMALASARA | 9:00 AM–2:00 PM

5 CE Credits. While we all long for safety and freedom in our lives, many of us struggle with compulsive and addictive thoughts and behaviors that undermine our happiness. Through meditation, interactive exercises, Dharma talks, and Q&A we will explore ways to release ourselves from these painful habits and find more freedom and joy throughout our lives.

7.30

Saturday

Opening to Vitality

DANA DEPALMA | 10:00 AM–3:00 PM

This experiential daylong retreat is an invitation to rediscover your sense of aliveness. We will explore different facets of the direct experience of vitality, or life energy, including within the body, the mental/ emotional, the subtle as experienced in spacious awareness, and the natural world. This day of practice will include a progression of detailed guided meditations, as well as talks, and time for movement/walking meditation. Open to all experience and vitality levels.

8.3–8.6

Thurs–Sun (On-Land)

Liberating Insight and Luminous Awareness: The Heart of Insight Meditation

DONALD ROTHBERG | 9:00 AM–5:00 PM

Throughout this retreat, we will focus on the three main areas of practice for developing liberating insight. When we focus our meditation practice on cultivating this “seeing that frees,” as Rob Burbea calls it, we learn to notice more fully the impermanent flow of experience (aniccā). We also learn to observe the arising of reactivity (dukkha) and increasingly track when there is a “thick” sense of self (anattā) in order to tune in to a more open and luminous awareness.

8.12

Saturday

Tending to Our Heart: Emotional Resilience and Stress Reduction

PAWAN BAREJA | 10:00 AM–5:00 PM

6 CE Credits. Our deepest desire is to touch into the wonders of life and be happy. Though we have moved past a phenomenal event with the COVID lockdown, we may still experience unexplained worries and stresses of daily life. Science backed embodied mindfulness practices of heart-mind can help transmute our difficult emotions such as worry, anxiety, and anger. Benefits of embodied mindfulness may include a more joyful heart, improved sleep, improved digestion, happier relationships, and deeper meditations.

8.13

Sunday

Loving the House that Ego Built

HOWARD COHN | 9:30 AM–1:30 PM

4 CE Credits. During this retreat we will explore the nature of ego and the enormous stress that comes with trying to be “someone.” With Insight Meditation, we can make peace with our various self views. In sitting and walking meditation, supported by instructions and Dharma talks, we will cultivate embodied presence. We will use the healing tools of mindfulness and lovingkindness to meet the activity of self with balance and openness, perhaps even “loving the house that ego built.”

Rolling Forth the Wheel of Dhamma

At one time the Buddha was staying near Benares, in the deer park at Isipatana. There the Buddha addressed the group of five mendicants:

“Mendicants, these two extremes should not be cultivated by one who has gone forth. What two? Indulgence in sensual pleasures, which is low, crude, ordinary, ignoble, and pointless. And indulgence in selfmortification, which is painful, ignoble, and pointless. Avoiding these two extremes, the Realized One woke up by understanding the middle way of practice, which gives vision and knowledge, and leads to peace, direct knowledge, awakening, and extinguishment.

And what is that middle way of practice? It is simply this noble eightfold path, that is: right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right immersion. This is that middle way of practice, which gives vision and knowledge, and leads to peace, direct knowledge, awakening, and extinguishment.

Now this is the noble truth of suffering. Rebirth is suffering; old age is suffering; illness is suffering; death is suffering; association with the disliked is suffering; separation from the liked is suffering; not getting what you wish for is suffering. In brief, the five grasping aggregates are suffering.

Now this is the noble truth of the origin of suffering. It’s the craving that leads to future lives, mixed up with relishing and greed, chasing pleasure in various realms. That is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving to continue existence, and craving to end existence.

Now this is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering. It’s the fading away and cessation of that very same craving with nothing left over; giving it away, letting it go, releasing it, and not adhering to it.

Now this is the noble truth of the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering. It is simply this noble eightfold path, that is: right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right immersion.”

Explore the Four Noble Truths with Phillip Moffitt and Dana DePalma in our new online course, Dancing With Life (May 18–21), and in daylong retreats with Rev. Liên Shutt (July 15) and Ajahn Pasanno (Aug 20).

Generosity for the Benefit of All Beings

All of our Dharma offerings are made possible by the generosity of our donors. Please consider making a gift to our scholarship fund today. Your expression of dāna (generosity) will help people who are experiencing financial hardship to begin, deepen, or reignite their practice and study. To make a donation, please visit: spiritrock.org/donate

8.19

Saturday

Meditation as an Antidote to the Perils of the Legal Mind

GULLU SINGH | 10:00 AM–4:00 PM

1 MCLE Credit. The practice of law can be exceptionally stressful. In this daylong meditation retreat we’ll practice meditation as an antidote to stress and burnout, and explore the perils of the “legal mind.” This retreat is open to all legal professionals and law students whether you are new to meditation or a seasoned practitioner.

8.20 Sunday

Dāna / By Donation Happiness on the Buddhist Path

AJAHN PASANNO | 9:00 AM–5:00 PM

The Buddha’s Four Noble Truths describe the truth of suffering (dukkha), the cause, the path to transformation, and the release from dukkha. Though it can seem like the emphasis is on the suffering rather than the potential for release, happiness is experienced at every stage of practice. In our day together, we will contemplate the happiness of this path that is known as “beautiful in the beginning, beautiful in the middle, and beautiful in the end.”

8.26 Saturday

Poetry that Opens the Dharma Heart to Compassion and Insight

PHILLIP MOFFITT | 9:30 AM–4:30 PM

During this daylong retreat, our sitting and walking practices will be informed by periods of reading poetry to each other. Each poem is carefully selected by Phillip Moffitt with an eye toward selections that point us to Dharma insights. Poems of this nature comfort us and inspire us to take our meditation understandings into our daily life such that we see the world through Dharma eyes and respond from the Dharma heart.

8.27 Sunday

Introduction to Insight Meditation: Practices for Mindfulness

TUERE SALA | 10:00 AM–3:00 PM

4 CE Credits. Insight meditation (vipassana) is the simple and direct practice of mindfulness. Through relaxed awareness, we can experience for ourselves the nature of stillness and movement in the flow of the mind-body process. This awareness leads us to accept more fully the pleasure and pain, fear and joy, sadness and happiness that life inevitably brings. As insight deepens, we develop greater equanimity and peace in the face of change, and wisdom and compassion increasingly become the guiding principles of our lives.

We are excited to introduce a major new initiative for our community and practitioners worldwide: the Spirit Rock Dharma Institute.

The Dharma Institute offers in-depth study of the teachings and practices of the Buddha and the Insight Meditation lineage, professional trainings, and continuing education, both online and on land at the Spirit Rock campus. It brings together existing class series, multi-day intensives, training programs, and our new library of on-demand online courses as well as an evolving curriculum of new study and practice programs.

Our immersive programs are designed with a fluency in psychology and socially-engaged values, with a foundation in our well-rooted Buddhist lineage. The depth of these programs, and the connections you’ll make in them, can sustain you over the life of your practice.

At the heart of the Institute are three tracks that we call Paths of Practice, designed to give dedicated practitioners clear direction and support on their path: Buddhist Study, Practice in the World, and Dharma Leadership. They represent an acknowledgment of the gradual unfolding nature of the Dharma, and the variety of methods, interests, and areas of focus needed and pursued by different practitioners.

Buddhist Study Immerse yourself in Dharma practice and insight

Our cornerstone study courses support you to bring the power of the Buddha’s teachings into both daily life and retreat practice. With courses for passionate beginners through lifelong practitioners, this series of trainings and study classes will transform your practice and understanding of the Dharma.

Practice in the World Applied mindfulness, psychology, & professional development

Mindfulness and lovingkindness support wellbeing in every aspect of our lives, including work, relationships, community, and the broader culture. These courses build on a foundation of self-care and meditation to bring the skills and wisdom of the Dharma to everyday life. Some programs also offer Continuing Education Credits for healthcare professionals.

Dharma Leadership

Turning the Wheel of Dharma for a new generation

The teaching of meditation and Dharma is considered a spiritual discipline in itself. Our Dharma Leadership programs train Community Dharma Leaders and Mindful Yoga teachers to guide meditation, bring mindfulness into their existing teaching, and share the teachings of the Insight Meditation tradition in their communities worldwide.