April 16 to 20, 2025  –  Hours: Wednesday check-in is from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm  End time: Sunday 12:00 pm

A dharma program with Matthew Brensilver, open to both beginners and experienced practitioners.
*5-day Retreat (in-person & online) + 6 week course*

We live in a web of mutuality; the interpersonal realm is where the rubber meets the road in our spiritual practice. Our relationships – personal and professional – act like a magnet, pulling both our goodness and our pain to the surface. How can we draw on dharma principles and practices to enrich our interpersonal lives? How can others serve as mirror for our inquiry into ourselves?

The Buddhist tradition provides ethical guidance: lives founded on goodness, sensitivity and respect give us the best chance for deep happiness. Love fuels our ethics and guides us to more rich, harmonious relationships. Self-understanding dramatically deepens our empathic capacities and through our practice, the circle of care widens. As Sri Nisargadatta says, ‘In love, there are no strangers.’

This dharma program will begin with a five-day retreat, offered both in-person at the Big Bear Retreat Center or available to participants online. Although oriented around interpersonal themes, the retreat will be held in silence rather than interactive in nature. Ordinarily, retreats end and we return to our lives to integrate the experiences of the silence on our own. Here, the teacher will be providing support beyond the retreat to further cultivate and digest the fruits of retreat practice. The retreat will be followed by six, hourlong, weekly online meetings that will integrate and explore the teachings offered in the retreat.

OnLand — Registration and more information at Big Bear OnLand Registration

OnLine — Registration and more information at Big Bear OnLine Registration