Home/On-Line Retreat
October 20-25, 2020
Guided by Santikaro

Cost: $130

Registration is now open!

The Middle Way is the Buddhist approach to spiritual practice.  It embodies core Buddhist teachings about dependent co-arising and emptiness. It teaches that all phenomena occur dependent on causes and conditions and have no independent essence.  This is also true of everything we believe to be “me.”  Thus, all phenomena, including our sense of a self, have no permanent existence and are empty of anything worth clinging to as "me" or "mine."  This understanding of empty-interdependent phenomena  guides us in the Middle Way and can provide the insight and wisdom needed to take in stride the vicissitudes of daily life.

Learning Intentions:  Guided by the original teachings of Buddhism, this retreat will explore how the Middle Way teachings guide the Middle Way of practice. We will reflect together on what these teachings mean for us today, in our actual lives. Guided practices and meditations will facilitate experiential understanding. Meditation teachings will support deepening contemplation.

We will be a virtual sangha of Dhamma Seekers through the technological tools of Zoom.

This retreat is suitable for meditators who already have a basic mindfulness practice and familiarity with teachings of the four noble truths (ennobling realities). Knowledge of the Pāli suttas is not required. Recommended for reading: Ajahn Buddhadāsa’s teaching on emptiness is found in Heartwood of the Bodhi Tree, while Under the Bodhi Tree presents his dependent co-arising teaching. Both are available from Wisdom Publications.

Santikaro is a teacher of Dhamma & meditation according to the middle way of the early sources.  He lived as a Buddhist monk for 19 years training under and translating for Ajahn Buddhadasa, a Thai Theravada master.  After retiring from the monkhood in 2004 he founded Kevala Retreat; a modern expression of Buddhist practice, study and social responsibility located in rural southwestern Wisconsin with his wife, Jo Marie Thompson. He is also a student and teacher of the Enneagram, the Dhamma of Social Justice and is interested in the healing of addiction & trauma within a Buddhist framework.  Diagnosed with lymphoma in 2010, he learned much through the process of treatment & recovery.  He is actively teaching throughout the USA and internationally.

Questions: Please contact the retreat registrar.