Oh man, I want to go to this weekend retreat!

“In one of her final teaching appearances in the San Francisco Bay Area, beloved teacher Ani Pema Chödrön will teach us how to work with our fear and anxiety using gentleness and inquisitiveness. We learn to do this through the practice of meditation which leads us to befriend our fear and helps us find peace in our lives.”

And this one woman show!  A review snippet:

“Rather than lose ourselves in lamenting the past or fearing for the future, hopelessness is a call to embrace the fullness of the present. To convey this, Helene recounts a tale of a woman who finds herself hanging over a cliff’s edge by a thin vine. Below and above are hungry tigers; then suddenly the woman notices a mouse gnawing at the vine. Hopelessness is this woman’s willingness, under these most dire circumstances, to savor the rich, sweet taste of a ripe strawberry plucked from a bush within her reach. “

The teachings are based on this book, which is more doable for me financially.  Here is a description:

“Many of us, without even realizing it, are dominated by fear. We might be aware of some of our fears—perhaps we are afraid of public speaking, financial hardship, or losing a loved one. But in this book meditation master Chögyam Trungpa shows us that most of us suffer from a far more pervasive form of fear: the fear of ourselves. We feel ashamed and embarrassed to look at our feelings or acknowledge our styles of thinking and behaving; we don’t want to face the reality of our moment-to-moment experience. It is this fear that keeps us trapped in cycles of suffering, despair, and distress.

Chögyam Trungpa offers us a vision of moving beyond fear to discover the innate bravery, trust, and delight in life that lies at the core of our being. Drawing on the Shambhala tradition and on Buddhist teachings, he explains how we can each become a spiritual warrior: a person who faces each moment of life with openness and fearlessness. “The ultimate definition of bravery is not being afraid of who you are,” writes Chögyam Trungpa.

In language that is fresh, accessible, and startlingly direct, this book explains:

* how the practice of sitting meditation can help us to uncover our inherent confidence and bravery,
* how fear and embarrassment about ourselves keep us trapped in cycles of suffering,
* the wisdom of loving-kindness and nonaggression,
* how true invincibility depends on becoming more open and vulnerable.

Here are the essential insights and strategies that will allow us to finally claim victory over fear.”

I love the idea that true invincibility requires us to be  more vulnerable. It is only by cracking our hearts wide open to every possibility  that we find we have nothing to fear.

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