Refuge and the Power of Holding a Sacred Name with Kittisaro & Thanissara
Key Info
This offering will be on Saturday 8 Nov from 9:30 - 4:00 p.m. PT
This is a daylong at home retreat for folks of all levels of practice and will be facilitated over Zoom.
Registration for this event will close on Friday, November 7th
This offering is shared shared on a tired based contribution scale to support some compensation to teachers and SMS' operational costs. There will be an opportunity to give dana and additional support to the teachers at the end of the offering.
This offering will be recorded and recordings will be shared with registered participants.
Offering Description
Right after the Buddha’s awakening, while pondering how to share his realization with others, the Buddha recognized “Refuge” as a trustworthy source of inspiration, guidance, and protection. A refuge is a safe place, a protected dwelling, an auspicious home where one can find rest, recuperation, strength, and a blessed opportunity to grow and fulfill one’s potential.
In this daylong retreat we will be cultivating refuge as a continual return to the essential principles embodied in the Buddha Dharma Sangha – the Triple Jewel.
Essentially, going for refuge as an awareness (Buddha) that receives, contemplates,and inquires into “the way things are” (Dharma) in this moment. The essence of Sangha is to practice, inwardly individually and outwardly as community, befriending and reorienting, again and again within this centering process. The repetition of a sacred word or mantra – like Buddho, Kuan Yin, or a sacred word or phrase you find supportive – helps steady the proliferating mind so it can stay connected, remember, and trust the deep listening of awareness ever at the heart of every experience.
In this practice day we will collectively explore refuge as an embodied presence that can permeate all our daily activities with patience, ease, joy, and serenity.
There will be Dharma talks, chanting, sitting and walking meditation, discussion, Qigong, breaks and time away from the screen. All are warmly welcome, for whatever time you are able to join.
Facilitators
Kittisaro (he/him) is originally from Chattanooga, Tennessee. He graduated from Princeton as a Rhodes Scholar and went on to Oxford before going to Thailand to ordain with Ajahn Chah in 1976. He helped found Chithurst Monastery and Devon Vihara in the UK, before disrobing in 1991. He is a co-founder of Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat and Sacred Mountain Sangha. He has studied and practiced Chan and Pure Land for 40 years, informed by the Chinese school of Master Hua, and has completed two year-long silent self-retreats. Kittisaro has an MA in Buddhist Classics from Dharma Realm Buddhist University, California. Kittisaro co-authored, with Thanissara, Listening to the Heart, A Contemplative Journey to Engaged Buddhism.
Thanissara (she/her) is Anglo-Irish and is originally from London. She began her Buddhist practice in the Burmese U Ba Khin lineage. Inspired by meeting Ajahn Chah in Thailand and the UK, she took robes as a Buddhist monastic for 12 years in the Thai Forest Tradition. She was a founding member of Chithurst Monastery and Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in the UK. Thanissara has facilitated meditation retreats internationally for over 30 years and holds an MA in Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy Practice from Middlesex University and the Karuna Institute in the UK. With Kittisaro, she co-founded Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat and helped initiate and support several rural development projects in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. She is an author and poet, co-writing Listening to the Heart with Kittisaro. She was commissioned to write “Time to Stand Up: An Engaged Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth” for the North Atlantic Books series on Sacred Activism