Mark Coleman has been engaged in meditation practice since 1981, primarily within the Insight meditation tradition. He has been teaching meditation retreats since 1997. His teaching is also influenced by his studies with Advaita Vedanta and Tibetan teachers in Asia and the West, and through his teacher training with Jack Kornfield. Mark primarily teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California, though he also teaches nationally, in Europe and India.
He leads backpacking retreats, nature-based retreats, and teaches retreats for environmental activists in the wilderness at Vallecitos Mountain Refuge in New Mexico, and at Knoll Farm in Vermont. In the Bay Area, Mark has a counseling practice, where he integrates his studies of psychotherapy and meditative work. He is the author of “Awake in the Wild - Mindfulness in Nature as a path of Self-Discovery." Mark has been an avid hiker, and backpacker for most of his life and spends much of his time in the outdoors. He lives in the woods in Marin County, Northern California.
Immersion in nature, with a contemplative awareness, can support insight into the ephemerality of the sense of self. Dissolving of the habit / contraction of self can emerge effortlessly and in doing so reveal its intrinsic empty nature.
The natural world is a playground for the heart - where love/metta, compassion and joy can be experienced in abundance. Nature is a perfect environment to cultivate these innate heart qualities and where they can also arise effortlessly.
The natural world beautifully and eloquently sings the Dharma. there are countless wisdom teachings emanating from nature. In particular, we explore how nature teaches us about impermanence, dependent arising, perfection and imperfection and belonging.
This talk explores how the four foundations of mindfulness can be richly experienced and cultivated in nature meditation retreats. Nature provides in particular a rich arena to cultivate an embodied awareness and to explore vedana, citta and the nature of reality.
This talk explores the many dimensions of the heart that effortlessly arise with intimate connection with the natural world, including the four Brahma Viharas.
