Conflict, Compassion, & Creativity

A Day-long Retreat with Brooke Teisui McNamara Sensei and Rob Daishin McNamara Sensei

Kelly’s Barn in Boulder, CO
1360 Sumac Ave

January 11th, 2025 9:00am - 5:00pm

For Young Adults ages 18-35

Every one of us as human beings experiences conflict; it is a dimension of life no one escapes.

You may notice that even reading the word conflict gives you a twinge of anxiety or a contraction in the belly. Conflict by its nature causes big physiological responses based on millennia of evolution designed to help us survive. There is an intelligence to the knot in your throat or the blood rush to your fist.

However, for most of us, the lived experiences of conflict, not just in the body but also in the way the mind makes sense and meaning of the sensations, can be overwhelming and/or disorienting. 

What if conflict could become something much more profound, enlivening and vital to us, and to our impact on others? What happens when we train together, in the embrace of wisdom and compassion, to slow down and befriend conflict? Might these roots of discord and potentials for destruction be transmuted into new capacities for care and creativity?

The retreat is run entirely by dāna / donation. Find out more about dāna here

  • Brooke Teisui McNamara Sensei is a Zen teacher, lineage holder, and poet. She has practiced as a student of Diane Musho Hamilton Roshi since 2010, receiving monk ordination in 2012 and Dharma Transmission in 2023. Prior to 2010, she was a student of nondual teacher and poet, Dorothy S. Hunt. Brooke has published two books of poems: Bury the Seed and Feed Your Vow, and has taught at Naropa University in Yoga Studies and CU Boulder in Dance. She holds an MFA, and teaches in-person and online courses and retreats to facilitate the awakening of innate wisdom, compassion, artistry, and play. She lives with her husband and two sons in Boulder, CO, where she is a founding teacher at Dragon Lake Zen.

Join Dharma Gates in collaboration with Dragon Lake Zen for a one day retreat to explore the essential tensions in all conflict and the territories of equanimity beyond all conflict. 

Together we’ll practice:

  • Zazen, the heart of Zen practice in which body, mind, and heart are stably harmonized in the here and now

  • Embodied awareness in stillness and movement

  • Working with breath and movement to meet, soothe or heighten sensations in the body

  • Interpersonal practices for experiencing titrated doses of discomfort and saying or doing something new in response

  • “Conflict revolution” versus conflict resolution: reframing conflict as an opportunity for creative response, compassion, growth, and intimacy 

  • Robert Daishin McNamara Sensei is a transmitted Zen teacher, advisor, consultant and executive coach. He is the author of three books, most recently Powerful Listening. He is a co-founder of the social impact innovation platform Y Solve. Rob serves on faculty at the Ivey School of Business’ LIFT Advanced Coaching Program, Real LIFE Programs and is a former Harvard University Teaching Fellow teaching adult development at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. McNamara currently advises, trains, and coaches executives and teams addressing organizational viability risks. Rob’s passion supports leaders to better navigate complex organizational and civilizational challenges vital to current and future institutional capabilities. Rob Daishin Sensei is a founding teacher at Dragon Lake Zen in Boulder, CO.

Logistics

Location : Kelly’s Barn in Boulder, CO 1360 Sumac Ave

Room: 25

Date: January 11th, 2025

Time : 9:00am - 5:00pm (Please arrive 10 minutes early at 8:50 am)

Meals: lunch (vegan) provided, option to go out to dinner together afterwards (not paid for by Dharma Gates)

Chairs, Cushions, and Yoga Mats will be provided. Please bring anything that will help you sit comfortably. You are welcome to bring your own cushion and sitting supports.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • No. All experience levels are welcome, including beginners.

  • No, you do not have to be Buddhist to participate in this retreat. Teisui and Daishin’s teachings are rooted in the Soto Zen White Plum tradition. The invitation is to encounter the teachings, to build confidence in the teachings as we verify in our experience, and to maintain a healthy, open, discerning, and inquisitive mind towards what cannot verify in our own experience.

  • The retreat is run on a donation basis in the spirit of dana. There is no required attendance fee.

    We ask you to donate the amount that feels appropriate and generous for you, given your situation and desire for Dharma Gates to continue to exist in the future.

  • Dharma Gates wholeheartedly welcomes people of all cultural, ethnic and racial backgrounds, sexual orientations, and gender identities. There will be gender neutral bathrooms available and we may be able to provide single rooms if that would make you more comfortable. Our aim is to make retreat practice accessible to all young people—if there’s something we can to do help you feel comfortable to attending, please do not hesitate to reach out to us (team@dharma-gates.org.)