Focus & Flow: A Retreat for Concentration and Clarity

### The Teacher

We are delighted that Kadam Morten Clausen has accepted our invitation to come to KMC Colorado. He is the US Eastern National Spiritual Director and one of the most senior and globally respected teachers of Kadampa Buddhism. He has been teaching Buddhism for over 40 years and is a practical, engaging, humorous, and compelling speaker, invited to speak all over the world. He is also the Resident Teacher at Kadampa Meditation Center in New York City.

### What are the meditations on this retreat?

We will be training in concentration and mindfulness on the nature of the mind.

First we will spend time identifying the peaceful clarity of our own mind, and then we will train in mindfulness and concentration. This meditation, called “Mahamudra”, has been used for centuries as an enjoyable and effective way to overcome distractions (aka all those thoughts we don’t want to think but can’t help thinking!) It has many benefits, but its main one is helping us to hold our meditation objects single pointedly for longer and longer periods of time so that we can gain deep familiarity with them.

Mahamudra meditation also gives us an immediate, experiential understanding of Buddha's main teaching -- that all happiness and suffering come from the mind. Gaining experience of the nature of our mind also opens us up to a deep understanding of the true nature of reality and the practice of Tantra.