by Geri Loizzo
Reflections on the Wise Compassion Spring Retreat “Inconceivable Liberation: The Non-Dual Wisdom and Art of Growing Altruistic Community”
On a brisk spring Friday afternoon, daffodils dotting the sidewalks of New York City, we began our three-day urban retreat at Tibet House US. Attendees were made up of students in the Contemplative Psychotherapy Program’s Wise Compassion Year and the general public, both in person and online. Our teachers for the weekend were author and professor Dr. Jasmine Syedullah and Nalanda Institute founder and Academic Director Dr. Joe Loizzo. The goal? To plant the seed of inconceivable liberation into our hearts and minds.
Surrounded by a myriad of floor-to-ceiling rows of Buddhas in the cocoon of the “Alchi: Visions of Enlightenment” exhibit in the gallery, Jasmine and Joe wove together a blend of ancient and new as they brought out the sacred relevance of the non-dual wisdom of Nagarjuna, the shape-shifting teachings of Vimalakirti, and the de-objectifying erotic power of Audre Lorde.
Throughout the weekend, participants both in the physical space and in the virtual room asked insightful questions, creating a sense of beloved community in our global age. Themes of fugitivity (embracing a way of being that breaks free from subjugation) and joyful rebellion arose as we explored healing inner and outer oppressive systems through Audre Lorde’s idea of kneading the wisdom kernel and Vimalakirti’s inconceivable vision.
We listened to Audre Lorde’s story, which recalls a memory from World War II of the tactile act of kneading a kernel of yellow dye into a plastic bag of colorless margarine, which magically transformed the whole into butter. Lorde urges us to similarly embody the totality of our everyday being with sensory awareness and love – to take in the full breadth of the experience of living. One of the passages we read in Vimalakirti’s text, tells the story of Shariputra asking why there were no chairs in the house in which there was to be a teaching. Vimalakirti’s response was to ask the question, “Did you come to hear the teaching, or to sit?” The magic of Manjushri then produced 3,200,000 of the finest thrones from a favorite pureland, and filled the house with them. The message of the teaching is that we can all be empowered to sit at the throne of the life we create. By the weekend’s end, the field had been seeded. We were watered and fed in the soil in which living mentors Jasmine and Joe planted us, which felt nutrient-rich and fertile.
May these seeds of wise compassion take root in our hearts!
Editor’s Note:
Nalanda Institute’s Contemplative Psychotherapy Program is a three-year journey through the transformative arts of Mindfulness, Insight and Care; Wise Compassion; and Embodied Wisdom. People enter the journey at any one of the years of study. A certificate is offered upon completion of each year of study.
Next year we will be offering the Mindfulness, Insight, and Care year of study in English, Spanish and Portuguese, and the Embodied Wisdom Year of study in English. Stay tuned for information on the opening of applications!