Date: Saturday, May 5, 3:00pm – Saturday, May 12, 11:30am
Cost: Sliding Scale $1760 – $800, plus a donation to the teacher(s) and retreat staff. Code 352R18.

Retreat still has spaces available. If interested, call Retreat Managers at 415-488-0164 ext. 262

If you are interested and need financial assistance, we may have a work exchange available.

Prerequisite: Completion of one 5-night Buddhist silent meditation retreat or permission of the teacher.

The Buddha encouraged Maranasati practice to live an awakened life. This practice supports our appreciation of the preciousness of human birth and the development of equanimity with the difficulties of human existence. It helps us gain freedom from rigidity and clinging through a more expansive perspective of the inevitable and natural letting go. Maranasati matures our insight into impermanence and change, nourishing a skillful orientation to both life and death. In the retreat we will utilize the skills of loving awareness, compassion and investigation in our sitting practice, with some guided visualization and a period of contemplative inquiry each day.

Bhikkhu Analayo will make a live, guest teaching via videocast at the retreat. His newest book is Maranasati.

Teachings are appropriate for health care professionals as well as the general public. Health care professionals will be able to incorporate the tools and practices offered in this program when working with clients. Continuing Education (CE) credit available. See below for more information.

Learning Objectives for participating health care professionals-

Based on the content of this program, you will be able to:

• Incorporate practices with clients to normalize death as an integral part of life;
• Incorporate practices with clients to recognize the aliveness and life force present in this moment to cultivate embodied presence and appreciation for being alive;
• Examine relationship to “not knowing,” in ways that may be used with clients;
• Incorporate the meditation, with self and others, of “this breath could be my last,” to appreciate the immediacy and intimacy of life-and-death;
• Utilize ritual, e.g. by creating a community altar for deceased loved ones, to appreciate the common humanity of grief and loss;
• Compose own obituary to gain perspective, in ways that may be used and shared with clients;
• Incorporate practices with clients to meditate on both the inevitability and the uncertainty of death’s timing;
• Incorporate practices with clients to visualize body’s decay postmortem, to embrace death as nature’s ordinary process;
• Communicate, and examine with clients the entanglement of attachment, and the liberation in letting go;
• Utilize art, such as poetry or prose, as tools in embracing one’s own death, processing grief, and letting go, in ways that may be used and shared with clients;
• Incorporate visualization practices regarding own death to help inform life path, in ways that may be used and shared with clients;
• Utilize the practice of offering and asking for forgiveness internally, in ways that could be used and shared with clients;
• Describe the relationship between embracing death and arising of gratitude;
• Utilize practices to empathize with clients facing terminal illness.

Spirit Rock extends a special invitation to young adults (age 18-26) who wish to attend this retreat at a rate of $35 per night, on a first come, first serve basis. A limited number of special rates are available, please apply early.