Wild Open Heart

Every January the San Francisco Buddhist Center offers a special Rainy Season retreat for Order Members, Mitras and people who have a strong commitment to practice with our Sangha. We pause our usual program so we can come together for a sustained period of practice, companionship, and shared spiritual friendship.

We live in challenging times, within a society that seems ever more divided, while serious political and environmental issues demand that we find a way to act, to take up positions. This often results in further fragmentation of ‘them’ vs ‘us’. Is there something in our Buddhist practice that can give us the strength, resilience and clarity to find a way through?

In the midst of that, we will consider our heart, our mind. Do we see the heart as a garden that needs careful trimming, cultivation and keeping in check? Or is it more like an open space with room for everything and everyone – more like a wilderness, unpredictable, fresh and full of discoveries? 

To have an open heart is a beautiful idea – but is it naïve? Can we keep our heart open, in this world that so often seems to be hard, rough, or full of pain?

With the practice of the Metta Bhavana – of loving kindness – we engage with all we meet in the world with an ever-expanding openness. This is not some sort of denial of the real difficulties that entails, it does not involve rose-tinted spectacles. The practice invites us to shed the covers of our habitual identities, and to be present and alive to the world as we meet it, in joy and in pain.

Do we dare enter the thrilling wilderness that is our own heart?

Easy physical improvisational exercises will help us to become more present, and open to more light and joy. This will enrich our attention within and outside of meditation with the spirit of discovery. In meditation and in movement improvisation we enter the unknown, a dance with ever new experience. Joining this dance, we can discover where stillness and engagement meet.

Engaging within a spirit of support, play and appreciation makes the retreat very suitable for people who want to discover a fresh approach to the Metta Bhavana, whether it is your favourite practice, or something you struggle with. The methods used from the playbook of ‘The Play of Now’ (https://www.playofnow.com) help us to learn how to be present and engaged in this moment, leaving the next one to come freely, without being weighed down by our plans or assumptions.

Everyone will be encouraged to share of their own experience of meditation or interactive exercises. All participants will be able to deepen their own research of the interrelatedness of movement and stillness.

Please see more here.