Embracing the Invisible Forces: An Intro to Contemplative Psychology

This short weekend will center around the Mandala of the Five Buddha Families. Participants will explore and form relationships with the mandala’s energies through ritual and chanting. Although these energies are invisible, we are all familiar with and know about them already. This weekend is about befriending and exchanging with invisible energies directly and intentionally.

Each of the Five Buddha Families offers a contemplative method, which we will explore. The Buddha energy provides a relationship to space and has a natural link to the practice of meditation; Vajra energy provides a relationship to clarity and offers a natural link to vipashyana practice; Ratna energy offers a relationship to equanimity and resting in non-judgemental awareness, and Padma energy provides the practice of exchanging self with others and holding others in compassionate exchange; finally, Karma energy offers a natural connection to the practice of letting go.

As we move through the mandala, participants will be invited into experiential work around all the seen and unseen energies of the world and will become more skilled at responding to their experiences with kindness and compassion rather than reaction and judgment.