|
Click here to check out the Unfettered Mind network site Subscribe to our email newsletter: |
Unfettered Retreats
Podcasts & Audio Files
Every year, Ken McLeod teaches four or five retreats, some as short as three or four days, some as long as three weeks. Here you will find recordings of all Ken's teachings at these retreats.
These resources are free. Your support, through donations, will keep them available to everyone. To donate, please click here.
Below are links to the .mp3 files grouped by retreat. Select a grouping from the list below to see all the files from that retreat. When you click on a file title, a new window will open to play the sound file. You can put the window in the background and continue to browse while you listen.
To listen online now click on a title below.
To download the mp3, right-click the title (if you are a Windows user) or option-click the title (if you are a Mac user).
To subscribe to this series as podcasts go to iTunes Music Store.
- A Trackless Path II (Retreat, 1 file) August 2010, Des Moines, New Mexico
- Five Elements / Five Dakinis (Retreat, 10 files) July, 2007, Vancouver, BC
- A Trackless Path (Retreat, 16 files) August - September, 2009, Des Moines, New Mexico
- There is No Enemy (Retreat, 7 files) October, 2009, Mount Baldy, CA
- Death: Friend or Foe (Retreat, 7 files) May, 2009, Mount Baldy, CA
- Warrior’s Solution (Retreat, 8 files) February 2004, Los Angeles, California
- Chö (Retreat, 7 files) July 2003, Santa Fe, New Mexico
- Mind Training Santa Fe (Retreat, 15 files) July 2003, Santa Fe, New Mexico
- Presence and Power (Retreat, 10 files) October 2008, Mt. Baldy, CA
- Buddhahood Without Meditation (Retreat, 9 files) August, 2008, Des Moins, NM
- Pointing Out Instructions (Retreat, 9 files) August, 2008, Des Moins, NM
- Monsters Under The Bed (Retreat, 6 files) October 10 -14, 2007, Mt. Baldy, CA
- Mahamudra Retreat 2007 (Retreat, 9 files) September, 2007, Toronto
- Mahayana Mind Training (Retreat, 9 files) May, 2007, Mt. Baldy Zen Center
- The Unfettered Mind (Retreat, 4 files) October 2006, Mount Baldy CA
- Chaos and Clarity (Retreat, 7 files) January 2006
- Awakening from Belief (Retreat, 16 files) June 2005, St. Johnsbury VT
- Releasing Emotional Reactions (Retreat, 8 files) February 2005, Santa Fe NM
- Guru, Deity, Protector (Retreat, 11 files) October 2004, Mount Baldy CA
PAP01: Power and Presence (retreat)
Introduction
Introduction to retreat themes and practices. The relationship between power and presence: finding peace under pressure. Exercise: pushing, resisting, giving way. How quickly power accelerates and takes over. Instruction in the primary practice. Fairy tale: The Journey Begins
Duration 00:45:55
PAP02: Power and Presence (retreat)
The Four Steps of Standing Up
Staying present in the experience of acceleration. Receiving feedback from the environment and adjusting. The Four Steps of Standing Up: 1) Show up. 2) Open to what is. 3) Serve what is true. 4) Receive the results. Exercise: Showing up in your body. Story: The thief, the samurai, and the warlord. Do what is required, no more. Primary practice, revisted. Fairy tale: The Two Inns
Duration 01:16:40
PAP03: Power and Presence (retreat)
Forming a relationship with power
Forming a relationship with power. The ethics of power: the warrior’s sword vs. the predator’s sword. Exercise: Taking the sword. Four ways of working. Five mysteries associated with power: power, balance, presence, truth, freedom. Fairy tale: The Straw, the Egg, and the Book of Knowledge
Duration 00:42:23
PAP04: Power and Presence (retreat)
Power and opposition
Power and opposition. Engaging with power, you have no idea what you’re going to be called upon to do. In the experience of opposition: something in yourself that you’re not willing to admit or experience. Exercise: Walking the gauntlet. How training develops capacity to respond in complex situations. Fairy tale: The Sleeping Giants
Duration 01:11:02
PAP05: Power and Presence (retreat)
On Showing Up
On Showing Up. Revisiting the primary practice: not to ‘get it right’ but to experience what happens, the totality of your life. Balancing exercises: how slowly thinking happens, but the body knows how to maintain balance. Applications in meditation. Nothing undercuts a distracting story so well as returning to the body. Fairy tale: The Black Castle
Duration 01:25:41
PAP06: Power and Presence (retreat)
Opening to What Is
Opening to What Is. How familiar situations trigger old scripts, whose function is to dissipate attention. Exercise: Push hands, back-to-back. How triggered scripts corrupt intention. Power is the ability to implement intention, by staying present. Instead of focusing on what you want to do, include the entire situation. Fairy tale: The Old Witch and the White Bird
Duration 01:02:46
PAP07: Power and Presence (retreat)
On posture
On posture. How we hold ourselves carries/conveys meanings. Posture exercises: Advance-retreat; rise-lower; widen-narrow.
Duration 00:15:35
PAP08: Power and Presence (retreat)
Serving What is True
Serving What is True. Difficulties in serving what is true when it doesn’t accord with expectations and understanding. Fairy tale: The Old Man with Red Eyes How fairy tales describe internal realms of experience vs. the world of shared experience. Attention vs. Intention vs. Will. Exercise: 4-person flocks. Obstacles as simply features in the landscape to be negotiated.
Duration 01:12:03
PAP09: Power and Presence (retreat)
Artist and Critic
Exercise: Artist and Critic. If you live for respect, you give your life over to others. How the sense of urgency often accelerates things, and we get swallowed up in the acceleration. Evolutionary paradigms: providing the _conditions_ for certain things to evolve. Applications to meditation. Fairy tale: Black Sheep
Duration 00:11:43
PAP10: Power and Presence (retreat)
Receiving the Result
Receiving the Result. Whatever the outcome, work with that: The Four Steps of Standing Up as a way of living, continually cycling. Four stages of conflict: Pacification, Enrichment, Magnetization, Destruction. Balance, boundary, and the ethics of power. Obligation and the three bases of relationship. Courage. How power differs from other gestures (ecstasy, insight, compassion). Fairy tale: Ransom, Return, Recognition
Duration 01:03:16