In these challenging times it is important to ask ourselves, how might our practice support us to navigate stress and uncertainty, while also enable us to create new possibilities for our world?

 

In this daylong program, we will explore the foundations of the profound view and vast action of the Mahayana teachings, as well as their relevance and application in our everyday lives. Through discussion, talks, and contemplations, we will discuss and explore absolute and relative bodhicitta, the awakened heart and emptiness, and practices that offer sanity and kindness to our world.

The core teachings of Mahayana Buddhism are the teachings on bodhicitta, or awakened heart. These teachings point us to our inherent nature, who we really are. While we are often drawn to practice by our personal experience of suffering, over time, through practice, we uncover the nature of suffering, the cause, and the remedy – egolessness. We begin to make friends with ourselves. This experience invites us into a deeper and wider perspective of wisdom and compassion, the emptiness of space and the form of skillful action.

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Jude Robison has been a student in the Shambhala tradition since 1980. In addition to her activity as a meditation instructor and teacher, she serves on the Central Governance Circle of the Shambhala Center. She was a co-director of Karmê Chöling Meditation Center in Vermont from 1991-1996 and received an MFA in Book Arts from the University of the Arts in 2003. In addition to traditional dharma, she enjoys exploring the dharma of making books, dancing and walking in the woods.

 

Marilia Marien has been practicing meditation for over 20 years. She has been studying and practicing within the Shambhala community since 2008 where she is a teacher and meditation instructor.  Marilia’s passion for helping others learn and apply meditation and mindfulness to their everyday lives developed out of her personal interest and experiences with meditation and other contemplative practices.  Marilia is a certified teacher of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT).  She specializes in training and coaching mental health and allied healthcare professionals who want to learn mindfulness to enhance their well-being and/or integrate it into their professional work.