Out of Control and Into Life: A Valentine's Day Retreat on Surrender

Luciano and I are so excited to share this in person and online daylong with you on Valentine's Day at the Buddhist temple. Surrendering as a practice is near and dear to our hearts. For Luciano, surrendering was one of the most fundamental practices for his awakening, and continues to be. For me, at a time when all my strategies were failing me on a 5-month meditation retreat, I broke down. Completely. There was just nothing left for me to do, but turn everything back into offerings to the universe. I reached an end when there was nothing left to do but surrender “my” path and become “the” path. I simply let go into the ever flowing presence of reality. To honor the momentous shift inside me, I bowed to the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, not just externally, but internally to Awakening Nature Within, to Awakening Nature Without and to Awakening Nature Together. That shift in perspective was powerful. My practice took off from that point on. Surrendering can be an accelerator.

Only later did I learn that the Buddha praised taking refuge as an accelerator in his Dhammapada. The tradition even spread to Advaita Vedanta and is called sharanagati, which is the same word we use for going for refuge. Now I would align it with the teachings of letting go and as my practice matured it became a core practice taught by the Buddha in the Anatalakkhana Sutta (Not Self Sutra) to recognize our core suffering is in our desire to control and manage just about everything, including awakening itself! We are using the word surrender, which belongs more to a Christian vocabulary, because it unlocks something more powerful and universal than the act of taking refuge, which can be expressed in so many practices and ways.We want our journey together on Valentine's Day to be a journey about loving more deeply. Surrendering is powerful because it integrates wisdom and heart traditions so beautifully.

Together, we will practice meditation techniques to allow our hearts and minds to unfold and release. May our practice together be for the benefit of all beings, especially those whose suffering requires patient endurance. Please bring a vegetarian dish to share with all of us. I will offer yoga at 8:30 am, as an option with a hard start for everyone at 9 am. We will end at 5 pm, and we encourage people to commit to the whole day.

Donation: This is an event that is donation based. Please feel free to donate or come freely.

Online Option: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7692241013 (Password: metta)