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Exploring Buddhism’s Animist Roots
In-person in Big Springs Retreat Center. With Karen Waconda-Lewis, Damchö (Diana Finnegan) & Adam Lobel
September 5 - 9, 2025
This retreat for invited teachers invites us to draw on Buddhism’s contemplative resources for living wisely amid ecological and social collapse, while also confronting the tradition’s entanglement with imperial, patriarchal, and anthropocentric forces. At the same time, we recognize how Buddhism has historically intertwined with indigenous and animist lifeways that honor the personhood of land and non-human kin. Today these legacies are further refracted through colonial, white supremacist, and neoliberal structures, even as they open toward a wild love for Earth and a reckoning with climate desecration. Our inquiry turns to animist relational worldviews as potential ground for an ecological Buddhism, listening for the whispers of its animist roots and imagining how they may support a deeper ethical response to the ecocidal crises of our time.
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PostNatural Meditation: The Four Fields of Meditation
In-Person: 6 Mondays from October 6th to November 10.
7pm-9pm
Center for Postnatural History, Pittsburgh
- An ongoing meditation session with 30 minutes of guided meditation instruction,
- 30 minutes of silent meditation,
- a short movement break and another period of meditation,
- followed by discussion about integrating our practice.
We will introduce a meditation ecosystem that integrates:
- Embodiment, senses, and our ecological niche
- Gentle psychological attunement
- Nonconceptual, effortless awareness
- Spacious, groundless openness
When these four areas cohere together, we have an integrated practice.
Mindfulness teachings often rely upon imagery of “Nature” as the basis of meditation practices. So, what happens in a post-natural world? What happens to meditation if we can no longer access a “pure Nature,” unaffected by humans? Do we need new metaphors for meditation in the anthropocene?
Recent Past Events
This Sacred Earth: An Engaged Eco-Dharma Gathering
As the climate crisis and ecological loss intensify, as the weight of social and political complexity continues to erupt globally, as human suffering persists and calls for justice amplify, what does it mean to practice in a way that genuinely meets the conditions of the world? How can we cultivate the skill, courage, wisdom and love that is needed to serve the Earth and all of us?
We will gather on retreat – as we did last year, and going forward annually – to face these questions, grounded in the abundance of this living Earth. Among the ancient trees and rolling meadows of rural France, join us for meditation, connection to nature, regenerative activism, and deep inquiry.
TENDING THE FIRES: Eros, Dharma, and Forging a Path in Destabilising Times
With Catherine McGee and Adam Lobel
Fire can be both gorgeous and terrible—a symbol for sacredness, yet also an image for the flames of greed, hatred, and delusion. While we see a world on fire and hear the call of the Buddha to extinguish the flames, we also know that the fires of love and of creative imagination are among our most incredible, compelling, and needed gifts.
An alchemical maxim says: She who masters the fire, masters the work.
What ways of practising can orient us to sanity while meeting the intensity of the times? What ways of being can draw upon the depths we know and intuit while doing justice to our love for the world?
What ways of looking can transmute fires of suffering into initiations?
This weekend Adam and Catherine will reflect on how they are grappling with these questions and invite us into practices to deepen our own inquiries. They will draw upon four ways of looking : 1. Early Buddhist teachings as articulated through the 'ways of looking' approaches of Rob Burbea. 2. Buddhist Tantra, a tradition that works with intensities alchemically. 3. Soulmaking Dharma in which our relationship with loving desire—‘Eros’—is seen as a key factor in restoring and expanding senses of sacredness. 4. The Four Fields, a contemporary ecological and social teaching on the embodiment of awakening. Together, these offer a multidimensional investigation drawing from the wellsprings of our traditions.
THIS IS NOT ABOUT ELON MUSK
This is a course making sense of the new forms of authority taking over our planet
Wednesdays. March 5-April 9, 2025.
7-9pm eastern.
We will be gathering to explore the new technologies and strategies of technofascism within climate crisis, and to support each other in response.
Discover your EcoDharma: Provocations and Possibilities for Dharma Leaders
Residential Program
Dates: August 30, 2024 - Sept 4, 2024
Durango Dharma Center: Monday Night Speaker Series with Adam Lobel
Online
7:30 Eastern/5:30 Mountain
Register
SURGING FORTH AT THE THRESHOLD
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE FOUR FIELDS
With Adam Lobel
In person at the Center for PostNatural History in Pittsburgh
5 Mondays from 7:00-9:00pm:
October 21, 28 and November 4, 11, 18.
Price: $120
No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
This Five-week course introduces a nimble approach to meditation and contemplative life, inseparable from a wild love of our damaged planet and our entangled socio-political impasses. What does it mean to cultivate a responsive spiritual life in these times, when our dominant stories are stale and our futures seem bleak? Let’s rediscover full-hearted, elemental, and playful forms of life beyond panic and bypassing, because the coming decades are going to be very interesting!
The Four Fields are:
- an ecological and embodied field
- a psychological and imaginal field
- a field of meditative awareness
- a field of being and emptiness
The fields cohere together in a contemplative ecosystem. We will practice meditation, inquiry, and explore the teachings of the Four Fields developed by Adam. Hosted at the Center for PostNatural History, this course is part of an ongoing reconsideration of spiritual practice on our metamorphosing planet.
PLEASE REGISTER IN ADVANCE HERE
THIS SACRED EARTH
An Eco-Dharma Gathering
July 15th-July 24th in person in France and Online Talk Series
Retreat led by Adam Lobel and Catherine McGee
Onsite Regenerative Activism workshop by the Ulex Project with Guhyapati
Online evening presentations by Dougald Hine, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Daniel Christian Wahl, and others!
Among the ancient trees and rolling meadows of rural France, join us for a lively retreat of meditation, Earth practices, community, inquiry, and wise action. Showcasing visionary ecological-spiritual communities throughout Europe, together we will transmute eco-anxiety and grief into responsiveness, explore land-based practices, skillful environmental protection, and discover the magic of our sacred world.
We will gather with a wide range of spiritual teachers across many traditions, thought leaders, land artists, farmers, and inspiring compassionate activists during this time of climate crisis and environmental loss.
Afternoons will feature onsite workshops such as:
- The Ulex Project with Guhyapati
- The Work That Reconnects
- Contemplative Land Art
SUMMER SOLSTICE MEDITATION AND EARTH PRACTICES RETREAT
In-Person at Eden Hall Farmin Gibsonia, PA
Join us for a contemplative retreat around this Summer Solstice on Thursday June 20th and Friday June 21st. We will gather on the beautiful, wooded land of Eden Hall for two days of meditation, guided silent practice, and land practices. Come for both days or one day, whichever works best for you.
We will focus on simple practice and the natural world as support and guidance within the ecological loss and climate change of our times. Come be in lively contemplative community, embedded in the natural world. Our first day of deep and nourishing practice will culminate in a ceremony to honor the Summer Solstice and a communal meal.
Learn More and Register
Environmental Justice Summit
In person in Pittsburgh May 9-11
Adam will be facilitating a Bearing Witness event for Awaken Pittsburgh at Clairton Coke Works from 1:00-3:00 on May 11
Register
Monthly River Meditation
In-Person: First Thursday of each month, 6PM ET
Point State Park, Pittsburgh
We are developing an ongoing relationship with the Ohio River—one of the most polluted rivers in the country. Through meditation and simple ritual we are listening to what the river is asking for from us, especially as a toxic petrochemical plant opens on its shores.
Gather at the fountain at the Point where the three rivers converge. Bring a cushion or camping chair.
Beyond Burnout and Bypass:
A Retreat for Activists in Western PA
with Adam Lobel
Hosted by Awaken Pittsburgh
Oct 14
In-person in Pittsburgh
It feels as if we have crossed a threshold, doesn't it? So much is on fire. And our own nervous systems, hearts, and bodies can become enflamed, too.
We hear a call to gather, reflect, nourish, heal, and deepen for the long road ahead.
For those protecting lands, for those working for justice, for those in service to a more beautiful world...it is time to gather and support each other in the Western PA region.
With trauma-informed mindfulness, collective conversations, and inquiry, we are offering this support in a day of practice.
This will be a free event, offered out of thanks for your service.
Please join us and spread the word.
Register Here
Waking Up in a World on Fire:
Beyond Burnout and Bypass
Nov 4, 2023
In Person in Boston
With Adam Lobel
Amidst the smoke, fires, floods, and heat waves, we will gather to explore our inner response to global warming and ecological mutation. We will explore the "middle way" between a guilt-driven and panicked approach that leads to burnout, and an ignorant, escapist approach that leads to bypassing.
This one-day retreat will provide unique opportunity for personal and communal inquiry into how we are holding our ecological reality. Through the power of self-reflection, open dialogue, and gentle embodiment exercises, we will support each other through the transformation from unsustainable paralysis, guilt, and overwhelm towards resilience and regenerative action.
Learn more and Register
Earth Based Practice: Teachings of Elemental Magic
Nov 5
In person in Boston
With Adam
This one-day retreat offers an opportunity to open the senses and re-establish our connection with the more-than-human-world.
Amidst ecological and spiritual challenges, nurturing a reciprocal relationship between humans and the living world is vital. Beneath the surface of our conscious awareness, there's an ongoing exchange with the living world. This retreat will equip you with tools to nurture this vital connection. We will work with slowing down, sensing, and sadness as part of our rich inner landscape as we attune to the elements.
In the teachings of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, and other contemplative methods, the living world offers ongoing communication. We will explore how such teachings of elemental magic can offer support and guidance amidst ecological crises.
Learn more and Register
Eco-Dharma Weekend with Adam
April 28-30
Online and In-person in Chicago
Friday April 28th
The Emotional Landscape of Ecological Loss
Saturday April 29
Earth Meditation, Earth Body: Elemental Mysticism in the Great Perfection
Sunday April 30
Open Awareness, Open Action
Learn More and RegisterTimeless: A Yearlong Journey
Online or In-Person: Begins October 2022 and gathers on solar holidays. Join us at any time throughout the cycle.
Join us for a course to support you in creating a grounded relationship with time.
Starting in October, we'll begin a year-long gathering to ritually celebrate the eight stations of the sun: solstices, equinoxes, and cross-quarter days. Along the way, we'll practice into the possibilities of a sacred relationship to time within climate chaos and time-compression.
More Information
Barrier 1:
Working through Self-Aggression
Two Tuesdays: May 9 and May 16, 5:00-8:00pm EST
A 2 part micro-intensive facilitated by Adam Lobel.
Live 3 hour workshops only. Sessions will not be recorded:
It's going be deep, vulnerable work.
Learn more and Register
Meditation and Earth Spirituality
April 23
A Half-Day of Deep Practice and Teachings Online
In our half-day retreat we will explore how meditation opens to include the ecosystems in which we are embedded. Often thought of as purely about mind or psyche, meditation is also an embodied practice that plays in resonance with the calls of Earth. Such practice might become a mere distraction or escape from ecological loss and global warming. In our retreat, we will discover an earthy practice that calls us deep into being part of our planet, instead of leaving it behind.
Register and Learn MorePATHWAYS
Engaging Sudden and Gradual Paths
Online Feb 28-April 4
An in-depth exploration of diverse paths to freedom. With Gaylon Ferguson and Adam Lobel.
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Sunday, March 19
EcoDharma Exploration: Love This World
Loving the full catastrophe and the many wonders of this world is a phenomenal source of joy and connection. It is also a deep well of grief and despair. We cannot avoid it.
What is an ecological spirituality that attends not only to the fantasy of a lost Garden of Eden, but is able to open to the actual planet of which we are a part?
Join Adam with One Earth Sangha
Register and Learn More
Spacious, Vibrant, and Responsive: A Dzogchen Ecology for the Anthropocene
At the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in Massachusetts
This in-person retreat will dive into the Dzogchen, or Great Perfection, exploring this tradition’s ecological practices and teachings. Integrating body, psychology, and awareness, we will practice meditation and inquire into an ecological contemplative life in the Anthropocene, our current epoch of environmental mutation, climate chaos, and loss.
Learn More and Register
Unregulation: A Monthlong Exploration
Online: Tuesdays, 7:00pm-8:30pm ET
October 25th-November 15th.
In this 4-week experiential course, we explore the relationship between open awareness practice and regulated nervous systems.
We will use meditation, somatic practices, dialogue, and information sharing as our primary means of engagement.
More InformationPostNatural Meditation
In-Person: Sunday, October 9th, 10AM
Center for Postnatural History, Pittsburgh
Mindfulness teachings often rely upon imagery of “Nature” as the basis of meditation practices. So, what happens in a post-natural world? What happens to meditation if we can no longer access a “pure Nature,” unaffected by humans? Where do we retreat that remains untouched by wildfire, climate chaos, deforestation, extinction of animal species, or the spread of plastics? Do we need new metaphors for meditation in the anthropocene?
More Information