This short weekend will center around the Mandala of the Five Buddha Families. Participants will explore and form relationships with the mandala’s energies through ritual and chanting. Although these energies are invisible, we are all familiar with and know about them already. This weekend is about befriending and exchanging with invisible energies directly and intentionally.
Each of the Five Buddha Families offers a contemplative method, which we will explore. The Buddha energy provides a relationship to space and has a natural link to the practice of meditation; Vajra energy provides a relationship to clarity and offers a natural link to vipashyana practice; Ratna energy offers a relationship to equanimity and resting in non-judgemental awareness, and Padma energy provides the practice of exchanging self with others and holding others in compassionate exchange; finally, Karma energy offers a natural connection to the practice of letting go.
As we move through the mandala, participants will be invited into experiential work around all the seen and unseen energies of the world and will become more skilled at responding to their experiences with kindness and compassion rather than reaction and judgment.
Check in Instructions:
Registration takes place from 2 PM – 5 PM on March 14th.
At check-in, please be prepared to provide photo proof of a negative COVID-19 test with identification from within the last 24 hours.
All participants and volunteer staff must check in at our Guest Services house. Please plan for travel time in order to arrive before 5 PM to check-in and settle into your accommodations.
Guest Services closes at 5 PM, after which an after hours check-in envelope marked with your name will be placed in a basket next to the front door of Guest Services. All relevant lodging and program information will be inside the envelope, including instructions for electronically submitting proof of a negative COVID test.
Your program begins with an orientation, followed by dinner.
Retreat Faculty
Melissa Moore, Ph.D, has been a Lead faculty member and Karuna Training North America Executive Director since 2014. She co-founded Karuna Training in Germany in 1996. She has a Master's in Contemplative Psychotherapy from Naropa University and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Integral Studies in Psychological Anthropology. Melissa has trained and certified students in Contemplative Psychology for over thirty-five years in nine Countries. She has been a Buddhist practitioner for over 40 years and the author of The Diamonds Within Us: Uncovering Brilliant Sanity Through Contemplative Psychology.