Saturday, September 13 - 10am-4pm
Karma is perhaps the most widely misunderstood idea on the Buddhist path. The word has woven itself into popular culture—good karma, bad karma, instant karma, karma police, and so on. From a Western perspective, karma is often mistaken for a kind of cosmic reward-and-punishment system, as if some unseen judge were keeping score.
In the Buddhist, non-theistic view, however, karma is more like physics—the simple but relentless momentum of confusion. It’s the ceaseless and often unconscious cycle of action, reaction, and result, which leads straight into the next impulsive action. A not-so-merry-go-round that spins on and on.
As meditators, learning how to interrupt this reactive chain is of vital importance. It is not just about being “good” so that we might get to a better place. In practice, we begin to see how our patterns shape the way we experience life—and how those patterns ripple out into a shared world of confusion.
If, on the cushion, we can recognize our impulses of thought and emotion clearly and meet them with gentleness, we may create a moment of space—a gap. In that space lies freedom: the freedom not to be pushed forward blindly from one moment to the next.
And from that freedom, skillful means can arise—our capacity to genuinely help others.
Besides teachings and meditation practice, the retreat will include contemplation, journaling and personal reflection, and a guided experience of direct perception - all activities which can help to cut the chain of karmic reactivity.
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