Karma: The Cause and Effect Connection with Venerable Robina Courtin
We spend our lives being seduced by the outside world, believing utterly that happiness and suffering come from "out there." Even more fundamental than that, we assume that we are the handiwork of someone else, either a superior being or our parents. The experiential implications of this view are blame, anger, and guilt, bringing ever-deepening levels of suffering and hopelessness.
According to Buddha’s view of reality, we come into this life at the first moment of conception in our mother’s womb fully programmed with our own tendencies and the seeds of our experiences in this life. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama says, the view of karma is one of “self-creation.” We are, literally, the creators of our lives, our happiness, and our suffering. We are the boss.
With this view we realize that everything we experience is our own "karmic appearance,” as Lama Zopa Rinpoche puts it. Everything is made by our own minds, in the past and in the present. The experiential implication of this view being empowerment, accountability, and the courage to change. Combining it with an understanding of the Buddha’s model of the mind, we gradually loosen the grip of ego-grasping and the other neuroses, thus developing our marvelous potential for clarity, self-confidence, empathy and the other qualities that Buddha says are at the core of our being.
Venerable Robina will lead us in a weekend retreat of teachings, discussions, and meditations to help us better understand the role karma plays in our own lives and how we can control our own future.
Schedule (schedule is subject to change)
*Silence will be observed from after the last session until lunchtime, daily.
6:00 a.m.: Water Bowl Practice
7:15: Meditation
8:00: Breakfast
9:00-12:00 p.m.: Teachings with a tea break
(Silence is lifted at the beginning of lunch)
12:00-1:30: Lunch
1:30-2:30: Discussion Groups
2:30 - 3:30: Break
2:30-6:00: Teachings with a tea break
6:00-7:30: Dinner
7:30-9:00: Teachings and Meditation
(Silence is observed after the last session until lunch daily)
9:00 p.m.: Take Down Water Bowls
$300 includes meals and accommodations.
*Please contact us if you are a FRIEND Of Milarepa Center and need your discount code.
We never charge for the Dharma. However, we need to be practical. Milarepa Center is a 501c3 non-profit. We operate on donations and have expenses that need to be covered. Thank you for understanding. If you need financial assistance, please contact us to learn about work-exchange options for retreats. They are on an as-need basis and a first come first serve basis.
Coming in from out of town? We can pick you up! Contact us for prices of airports and train stations. We ask that you please check on times and dates before creating a booking to make sure that we can accommodate you.
Milarepa Center's Cancellation Policy:
Should you need to cancel or cut short your stay, our refund policy is:
7 days prior to arrival: No Refund
8 – 14 days prior to arrival: 50% cancellation service; 50% Milarepa Center credit
15- 30 days prior to arrival: 25% cancellation service; 75% refunded
31 days prior to arrival: 15% cancellation service; 85% refunded
About Venerable Robina:
A Buddhist nun since the late 1970s, Robina Courtin has worked since then for Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche's Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, a worldwide network of Tibetan Buddhist activities, serving at different times as editorial director of Wisdom Publications, editor of Mandala magazine, executive director of Liberation Prison Project, and as a touring teacher of Buddhism. Her life and work with prisoners have been featured in the documentary films Chasing Buddha and Key to Freedom.
She was born in Melbourne and educated by the Catholic nuns. She studied classical singing until the mid-1960s when, ripe and ready for revolution, she became involved in the radical left in London and eventually feminism. Wanting something spiritual again she met Tibetan lamas in 1976, in Australia, and received ordination as a monastic eighteen months later, in Kathmandu.