There is a difference between werk and work. Both are practices of choosing freedom; however, werk is the practice of choosing freedom by channeling fierceness into the chaos and restoring clarity and fluidity. When we are told to werk, we are being reminded that we have agency to change our relationship to the chaos, manifesting as any form of violence. For my ancestors and community, werk is how we named the chaos and the violence and chose to be in a responsive relationship to them. To know and name the chaos is to find the ground to stabilize ourselves. 

~ From The New Saints by Lama Rod Owens

The “Werk” series is a seasonal offering dedicated to deepening our embodied experience of spiritual abolition rooted in Lama Rod’s lineage and diverse teachings. The theme and structure of these offerings will change with the seasons and the needs of practitioners.

Anyone who has previously participated in retreats, courses, events, or practice sessions with Lama Rod is welcome to join. 

The Winter Werk offering is a special opportunity to explore the relationships between rest, grief, and freedom through training in the practice of Mahamudra (“Great Seal”) meditation. As one of the most important gifts of the Indo-Tibetan tantric lineage, Mahamudra is an embodied, non-conceptual practice rooted in a fresh, unfabricated experience of the nature of our own minds.

Through guided contemplation and instructions of the tradition, Lama Rod will invite participants into direct relationship with the nature of their minds – a ground of spacious, fluid, and unbounded awareness. From this foundation of personal experience, we will train collectively in attuning to the qualities of Mahamudra as an unconditional support for resting amidst the waves of life, death and change. 

In addition, Lama Rod will emphasize:

• Learning how to relate with everything that emerges in practice without needing to rely on conceptual labels nor get caught in dualistic patterns of carceral thinking. This entails empowering our capacity to rest freely without clinging to any aspects of our experience, including heartbreak, grief, and despair as well as comfort, love, and joy.
• Strengthening clarity and awakened care through working directly with the realities of death, dying, and impermanence as vital expressions of freedom. In this way, Mahamudra invites greater intimacy with the spontaneous, non-conceptual clarity and awakened care of the entire phenomenal world.
• Engaging the Land as a trustworthy refuge throughout all seasons of change by relating to the Earth and other elements as guides and accomplices in spiritual abolition. This includes exploring Mahamudra as the open, creative ground of deity practices like Medicine Buddha, Ma Tara, and Chenrezig.
• Honoring “Old Saints” of the Mahamudra tradition like Milarepa, Padampa Sangye, Machig Labdron, and others who learned how to embody freedom and then worked to protect these precious teachings across time and space so they could be shared with future generations (see The New Saints, pg. 19).

Each Werk offering includes music, in-depth instruction, and attunement with Lama Rod; collective practice of the werk; Q and A; and opportunities for community connection.

Closed Captioning will be available. The recording of this offering will be shared with all registered participants.