Rainbow Sangha Retreat

“Holding Ourselves and the World in Kindness: A Queer Meditation Retreat on the Four Immeasurables”  

About the Retreat:

What are the Four Immeasurables in Buddhism?  

Loving Kindness, Compassion, Joy, and Equanimity – these four attitudes are immeasurable.

The Four Immeasurables constitute a core Buddhist practice that is helpful for establishing attentional balance, transforming our relationships with others, and building healthy intentional communities for bringing change to the world. This retreat is being offered by the Jamyang Rainbow Sangha for all who identify as LGBTQ+ and are interested in Buddhism and meditation practice.

How to deepen equanimity, love, compassion, and joy?  

The methods for cultivating these attitudes are a contemplative technology of their own — a highly refined system of practice that brilliantly illustrates all the basic principles of Buddhist meditation and provides the practitioners with immediate benefits, affecting the overall quality of life and strengthening multiple habits related to inner wellbeing.

This retreat will be suitable for beginners as well as more experienced practitioners. We will draw upon traditional texts as well as some modern-day research on the benefits of loving-kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. In addition to that, we will touch upon the topic of mental states that underlie these attitudes: empathy, caring, and mental stability.

Is this for me? 

This retreat will be suitable for beginners as well as more experienced practitioners. We will draw upon traditional texts as well as some modern-day research on the benefits of loving-kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. In addition to that, we will touch upon the topic of mental states that underlie these attitudes: empathy, caring, and mental stability.  

Retreat Schedule  

This retreat will be held in-person at Jamyang, hosted by Buddhist translator and meditation instructor Michael Lobsang Tenpa. It will consist of five, hour long sessions and include two meditations, paired with a journaling prompt or a discussion exercise.  

We will explore the four quintessential aspects of kindness, along with the two underlying qualities necessary for their cultivation: attentional balance, established through a certain amount of concentration practice, and the quality of tsewa, or tender affection that serves as a stem cell for the immeasurable mental states. You can also find further resources on the Four Immeasurables for this retreat here.  

About the retreat facilitator: Michael Lobsang Tenpa 

Michael Lobsang Tenpa is a Tibetan Buddhist translator, meditation instructor, Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB) teacher and student of EcoDharma. Born in Siberia, he earned BA and MA degrees in South Asian studies, worked in social media and eventually received ordination in Nepal, spending nine years as a Tibetan Buddhist monastic before switching to the path of a lay teacher/practitioner. In addition to years of Buddhist studies and translator work (including translating and interpreting for His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lama Zopa Rinpoche and other masters), he also trained as a secular ethics and mindfulness instructor in the Netherlands, the UK and the US. You can find more info about Lobsang Tenpa and his work on his website.

How to join?  

You can register for the retreat here.

Registration includes lunch, as well as tea and coffee during the breaks.