Karma is often understood simply as cause and effect, but Buddhist teachings offer a much more intimate understanding of how karma operates in our lives. Our intentions, perceptions, emotions, habits, and actions continually create causes and conditions for what comes next. In this week-long meditation retreat, we will explore karma not as fate or punishment, but as a dynamic process that unfolds moment by moment. Growing awareness is the key to transforming our lives and working more effectively with our inputs.

A central focus will be the kleshas, the habitual mental afflictions that cloud awareness and propel us into karmic patterns. Traditionally these include craving and attachment, aversion and anger, ignorance and confusion, pride, jealousy, and other forms of grasping. Rather than trying to suppress difficult emotions or regard them as problems to eliminate, Buddhist practice teaches us to meet them with awareness, curiosity, compassion, and insight. Through meditation and contemplation, we will explore how an emotion arises, what conditions support it, how we habitually respond to it, and what becomes possible when we create space around it. Drawing from Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana Buddhist approaches, the retreat will move from recognizing our conditioning toward transforming it. This allows us to discover the freedom that becomes possible when we no longer have to act out every thought, feeling, or impulse.