The course is taught by Lama Karma Wall, spiritual director of the Milarepa Retreat Center, who completed two three-year retreats under Lama Norlha Rinpoche and extensive periods of dark retreat. Guest Andrew Holecek is an author and interdisciplinary scholar-practitioner in Tibetan Buddhism and nondual wisdom traditions, specializing in lucid dreaming, dream yoga, and the art of dying. Dr. David Germano will also join as a guest. David is a renowned scholar and translator, particularly of the Dzogchen Tradition, with a deep personal interest in the practices of darkness.
This course examines the relationship between embodied experience and dark retreat, the practice of prolonged immersion in total darkness. In the tantric view, the inner body is a space of wisdom that offers direct access to primordial knowing, or gnosis. From the perspective of somatic meditation, the body is also the space where our felt experience of self-grasping, suffering, and release takes place.
Darkness serves as the incubating space for this work, a womb of wisdom and compassion that facilitates both a gradual unfolding of personal psychological processes and an opportunity to directly experience timeless embodiment at every instant. As the great Indian yogi Tilopa sang, "Here in this body are the sacred rivers: here are the sun and moon as well as all the pilgrimage places… I have not encountered another temple as blissful as my own body."
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Human Practices
Being human is the only requirement to practice meditation with The Field. Outdated cultural and sectarian distortions sometimes deter people from meditation practice. We aspire to encourage the simple practice of honoring embodiment and stillness
What Do We Offer
We provide modern methods that promote awareness, kindness, and mindful living. We tailor the practice to your specific needs. There are a range of methods that promote stress reduction, enhanced sleeping patterns, and the reduction of healthcare costs.
Who Are We?
We are veteran meditation practitioners committed to propagating mind-training methods that ease unnecessary suffering. Our focus is to provide instruction and support for meditation practitioners that are balancing the dizzying array of work and family commitments that modern life demands.
Heart-Centered Practice
Meditation honors our connection to the natural world as well as our connection to the human community. Practicing with other humans provides a rich and dynamic experience.