Two Day-Long Retreats (non-residential) with Donald Rothberg

July 21 (Saturday): Lovingkindness: Cultivating the Open and Wise Heart: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Lovingkindness, or metta, is the practice of cultivating a warm, open heart toward ourselves and others, as a basic way of being in the world. It is also a path to wisdom (and we will emphasize the connections between lovingkindness, mindfulness, and wisdom in this daylong). We cultivate metta as a meditation practice in order for it to manifest in an ongoing way in our daily lives. We grow in self-acceptance and compassion, work through our harsh judgments of self and others, and become better able to act from our awakened hearts in daily life. In this daylong retreat, we will work with the full instructions for the formal practice of metta, as well as for the companion practices of compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude, in ways suitable for beginners and for experienced practitioners wanting to refine their practice and ask questions of technique. All of these practices strengthen self-confidence, self-acceptance, and steadiness of mind and heart, revealing our fundamental kindness. The daylong will be held in the context of silence, with periods of sitting meditation alternating with periods of walking meditation. Full instructions will be offered, along with dharma talks, question and answer periods, and short optional sessions of guided movement. Donald has been co-teaching the January Metta Retreat at Spirit Rock for the last eight years.

July 22 (Sunday): Self and Not-Self: 9 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. In this daylong retreat, we will explore, both through teachings and through sustained meditation, the often confusing and paradoxical teaching of “not-self” (anatta), along with related teachings of the Five Skandhas, or “aggregates” of experience, and of the links between a sense of self, suffering, and impermanence. We will examine several different ways in which self and self-image appear, and practices to help us be mindful of, and eventually deconstruct, fixed and limiting senses of self. We will also explore how to open experientially to ways of being, in which the limited and constricted senses of self are less present or even absent, as awareness, compassion, and responsiveness deepen.

Donald Rothberg, Ph.D., a member of the Teachers Council at Spirit Rock, has practiced Insight Meditation since 1976, and has also received training in Tibetan Dzogchen and Mahamudra practice and the Hakomi approach to body-based psychotherapy. Formerly on the faculties of the University of Kentucky, Kenyon College, and Saybrook Graduate School, he currently writes and teaches classes, groups, and retreats on meditation, daily life practice, spirituality and psychology, and socially engaged Buddhism. An organizer, teacher, and former board member for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, he has helped to guide three six-month to two-year training programs in socially engaged spirituality, including programs through Buddhist Peace Fellowship (the BASE Program) and Spirit Rock (the Path of Engagement Program). He is the author of The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World, and the co-editor of Ken Wilber in Dialogue: Conversations with Leading Transpersonal Thinkers.