Shadow Play: Transforming Our World from Inside Out

Shadow Play is an embodied, experiential deep dive in which you will explore the 5 energies of the 5 Buddha Families, a Mahayana Buddhist teaching of the 5 basic elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Space.  Each of the 5 elements corresponds with an emotional energy that can manifest as “wisdom” or positive emotional patterns, or as “confusion” or negative emotional patterns.  

Through Shadow Play, a combination of art, ritual, embodiment, play and mindfulness, you will learn how to transform your “confusion” or “shadow” energy into wisdom. 

What is keeping you from accessing our own inner wisdom? 

Due to social conditioning and ancestral trauma, we each have habits that influence our way of seeing and being in the world. We have blind spots and unresolved emotions that can lead us to cause harm to ourselves and others without even realizing we are doing it. In Buddhism, we call this “confusion”. This confusion keeps us from seeing our wisdom. 

How do we transform confusion into wisdom for the purpose of personal & collective liberation?  

According to the 5 Buddha Families teachings, the 5 different types of emotional energy can manifest in each of us individually and in our communities.  The energy can manifest in expansive or contracted ways. When we explore both aspects of the energies, we gain awareness and are able to transmute the energy to foster healing in ourselves and in our world.

What will we be doing?

We’ll learn different meditations, explore movement, use play, dialogue, story and ritual to explore confusion or “the shadow”—the repressed emotions and pain that tend to drive our behavior when we are not aware of them. Only by bringing these into the light of awareness can we release habits and patterns that no longer serve us. Remarkably, we find insights and energy right there in the messiness of our lives, just as the lotus grows out of the mud—revealing the buddha within. Together we will work with each element to help reveal the contracted aspects of ourselves and learn how to release them into wisdom. We will engage deeply into our own ancestral lineages to mine for the riches and reveal the recurring themes. Each of us will contribute our own insights to the collective and help to build a mindful and caring space.

Coffee, tea and a light breakfast will be served from 8am to 9am and the program begins at 9am.

Holly Gayley is a scholar and translator of Buddhist literature in contemporary Tibet and Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research areas include gender and sexuality in Buddhist tantra, ethical reform in contemporary Tibet, and theorizing translation, both literary and cultural, in the transmission of Buddhist teachings to North America. Her most recent book is Inseparable Across Lifetimes: The Lives and Love Letters of Namtrul Rinpoche and Khandro Tāre Lhamo, and her new edited volume, Voices from Larung Gar: Shaping Tibetan Buddhism for the Twenty-First Century, is coming out in April 2021. For two decades, she has regularly led meditation workshops and retreats and serves as a senior teacher in the Shambhala tradition.

Aarti Tejuja (she/they) is spiritual life coach, ritualist, sacred space facilitator, youth mentor, and social justice advocate . Aarti is trained in the Art of Hosting, Interplay, Restorative Justice, Reiki, Mindfulness, Ritual and Ancestral Medicine. Aarti's ancestors are from Sindh, Pakistan from pre-partition India. They grew up Hindu and became Buddhist in their 20s, working for Shambhala from 2009-2018.  Aarti is currently co-developing the Antara Network for contemplative facilitators and Moya, a contemplative community on Cherokee Lands in Appalachia (Boone, NC).  Aarti can be reached at http://www.aartitejuja.com

Our Generosity Policy

In order to make our programs accessible to everyone, we have a “pay what you can afford” policy. If the program price is an obstacle for you, please decide what works for you and offer whatever you can.

For those who can offer more than the program price, we have a “patron price”. Your generosity in offering the patron price helps cover the costs for others who are not able to pay the full price.