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.
Deep wisdom teachings use the language of poetry, metaphor and simile to point to the timeless truths. In this talk Mark shares examples of wisdom teachings from Buddhist sources throughout the ages.
The Buddha's teaching on Papancha - the proliferating tendency of mind - obscures a natural freedom and peace. This talk explores how proliferation happens conditioned by desire, aversion, views and the sense of personal identity and how awareness is key in understanding this pattern and freeing it.
What is mindfulness - how can we develop it in our meditation and lives and how does awareness reveal freedom and its obstacles - i.e. the hindrances to meditate and how to to overcome them.
What is the self, how is it constructed - Who do you take yourself to be. This talk explains how to examine the nature of self - the attachment to self image/identity & how a mindful relationship to it can bring much clarity & peace.
How do you work with desire and attachment in the midst of daily life? Buddhist teachings give clear guidance on the power of exploring and understanding how the process of attachment arises and how we can cultivate a healthy relationship to desire and the sensory world. Mark gives many anecdotes from his personal journey with this theme.
