One thing you’ll notice about compassion, lovingkindness, and sympathetic joy is that they have a preference for what’s good, and an understanding that pain and suffering is a misfortune we all face. And yet that preference for the good, and seeing what’s painful as a misfortune, will keep us in our reactivity. With deeper wisdom, as we become intimate with life, as we have lived long enough and felt into what an actual human life is like, we see that there is this up and down motion: there’s pleasure and good fortune, then states that are very difficult when we experience pain and loss. To be an open-hearted human means that we have to come to terms with the fact that there will be some pleasure, there will be some pain, and that we don’t have much control over that. And so equanimity grows over time, with perspective.
Tempel Smith
Residential Retreat Teacher
Tempel Smith teaches Mindfulness, Insight and Metta meditation with an emphasis on Buddhist psychology and mind-body awareness. He spent a year as a monk in Burma with Sayadaw U Pandita and Pa Auk Sayadaw. Tempel serves on the Spirit Rock Guiding Teachers Council, organizes the Dedicated Practitioners Program (DPP) and Living Dharma retreats for Spirit Rock, and teaches classes in the East Bay.
Tempel Smith's Upcoming Programs
Retreat | On-Land
August 18 - August 27, 2024 | Sunday - Tuesday | 9 nights
Summer Lovingkindness Retreat
The Buddha’s teachings on the four divine sanctuaries include meditations on universal friendliness, compassion, altruistic joy, and equanimity. Focusing on purification and concentration, these divine sanctuaries aid our ability to find inner peace and powerfully engage with the world. This retreat deepens our understanding of selfless love and how it ends suffering. Experienced retreatants are encouraged to combine this retreat with the previous Elements retreat to further develop concentration, purify the heart, and learn to integrate these two forms of meditation.
Tempel Smith
Tuere Sala
Anushka Fernandopulle
Bonnie Duran
John Martin
Kristina Baré
Rasika Link
Retreat | On-Land
February 1 - March 29, 2025 | Saturday - Saturday | 56 nights
2025 Insight Meditation 2-Month Retreat - Application
An extended period of retreat offers the rare opportunity for sustained, dedicated practice. This retreat emphasizes quieting the mind, opening the heart, and developing profound clarity and depth of Insight practice. Instruction will follow the traditional four foundations of mindfulness combined with training in lovingkindness and compassion, and practice will be structured around a daily schedule of silent sitting, walking, Dharma talks, and practice meetings with teachers.
Dawn Scott
Vance Pryor
Tuere Sala
Brian Lesage
devon hase
JD Doyle
Tara Mulay
Tempel Smith
Devin Berry
Anushka Fernandopulle
Kristina Baré
Francisco Morillo Gable
Marjolein Janssen
Rasika Link
Retreat | On-Land
March 1 - March 29, 2025 | Saturday - Saturday | 28 nights
2025 March Insight Meditation 1-Month Retreat - Application
An extended period of retreat offers the rare opportunity for sustained, dedicated practice. This retreat emphasizes quieting the mind, opening the heart, and developing profound clarity and depth of Insight practice. Instruction will follow the traditional four foundations of mindfulness combined with training in lovingkindness and compassion, and practice will be structured around a daily schedule of silent sitting, walking, Dharma talks, and practice meetings with teachers.
Tara Mulay
Tempel Smith
Tuere Sala
Devin Berry
Anushka Fernandopulle
Kristina Baré
Francisco Morillo Gable
Marjolein Janssen
Rasika Link
Dharma Library
Can't join us live online or on the land? Study and practice at your convenience with Tempel Smith through our new library of recordings, articles, and self-paced online courses.