Jay Michaelson led a retreat at the Garrison Institute entitled “Jhana Meditation,” on November 12 – 17, 2016. The diversity of our emotional lives—especially difficult emotions like sadness, concern, and even anger—is both the context and the content of liberation. On the one hand, life as it is, not as we might wish it to be, is the place where we…
In the video above, filmed during her recent Garrison Institute retreat, Joanna Macy discusses the poetry and spirituality of Rainer Maria Rilke. She talks about how the young poet found the sacred in ordinary life, how he had an incredible sense of what the 20th century had in store, and how he tells readers to “let everything happen to you, both the…
Poets Robert Polito and Gregory Pardlo co-led a retreat at the Garrison Institute entitled “Imagining Your Voice on the Page” on December 16 – 18, 2016. The essay below was originally delivered by Polito during the panel Genre-Crossing and Poetic Truth: Lyric Nonfictions, Reported Poems at AWP 2016 in Los Angeles. This is a short talk with a long list inside it,…
Leading up to Joanna Macy’s 2016 retreat “Rainer Maria Rilke and the Force of the Storm,” exploring the work of Rainer Maria Rilke in the context of her well-know experiential seminar called “The Work That Reconnects,” journalist Andrew Revkin spoke with Macy about what Rilke has to offer those working on behalf of the planet and the increasing need to…
I have a little theory about enlightenment. If you were all alone in an alternate universe (population: you), you could get enlightened quickly, if you set your intention. Your life would be greatly simplified. There would be no border disputes, no angry divorces, no revenge narratives starring Clint Eastwood. Facebook would be extremely boring, with a total of 0 friends…
Join Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows at “Rainer Maria Rilke and the Force of the Storm,” on September 19-23. Click here for info and to register. For almost fifty years, since the winter’s day I found it on a table in a Munich bookstore, Rainer Maria Rilke’s Book of Hours has been a cherished companion. My book is the original…
As practitioners of the buddhadharma—whether we are new or experienced—we practice because we’re unhappy with the miserable state of samsara. In the Vajrayana tradition, we vow to bring temporary comfort and ultimate liberation to each and every sentient being mired in profound suffering, and at times it can be quite difficult to understand how we might possibly achieve such a…
Join Josh Korda, Karen Maezen Miller, and Anyen Rinpoche at “Finding Freedom from Painful Emotions,” this year’s Lion’s Roar retreat at the Garrison Institute, July 29-31. Click here for info and to register. A little over a decade ago I spent my first retreat with a wonderful British Theravada monk—Ajahn Sucitto—and found myself arriving to the meditation center with an…