This session will focus on important ways that Buddhism & the Enneagram can complement and strengthen each other. A Buddhist understanding of “spirituality” focuses on transformation towards selflessness. Both Enneagram & Buddhism have powerful insights into the concocting of “I” and how we cling to it, causing selfishness and suffering. Buddhist perspectives on Liberation and BuddhaNature and Enneagram perspectives on Essence point to life’s highest resources and potential. Buddhism teaches tools of liberation essential to “deconstruction of type”: mindfulness, compassionate motivation, mental stability and integration, deeper levels of insight

(vipassana), antidotes to the passions and fixations, and moral underpinnings. Enneagram unmasks the pitfalls of ego-habits that confuse the path.

Santikaro Bhikkhu was ordained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand after serving in the Peace Corps there. After 20 years in Thailand, where he pioneered Enneagram studies, he recently returned to the Chicago area to nurture a new monastic community. He teaches meditation & Buddhism, translates, writes, leads workshops, and practices socially engaged Buddhism. www.liberationpark.org,