The Satipatthana Sutta, one of the most influential of the Buddha’s discourses, shows how wakeful, insightful attention to body, feelings and mind can enable us to wake up to our true nature. This radically transformative teaching is described as a ‘direct path’ to the cessation of suffering. Offering effective approaches that address the alienation and disembodiment which characterise life today, it can restore a deep integrity of body, heart, mind and being. In this retreat, we’ll explore a number of practice approaches inspired by the original mindfulness teachings attributed to the Buddha that take awareness, insight and compassion ever deeper.…

In Zen, a sesshin is a period of especially intense all-the-time formal practice. For three days on this retreat, we will adopt – and adapt – this approach. Each day, there will be several two-hour periods of sitting and walking, and we’ll be opening to the presence of awareness in all of our activities throughout the day. This will be preceded by two days for us to arrive in our bodies, our senses and the beauty of Vajraloka’s environment. The main practice will emphasise undivided mental calm (shamatha) and clear-seeing (vipashyana) – or ‘silent illumination’. During the ‘sesshin’, there will…

Central to our dharma life is a simple yet profound distinction; between our direct experience mediated through the senses, and the thoughts and ideas we have about those experiences. We are usually unaware that the concepts we base our sense of self on and navigate our world by, are frequently flawed in a deep and on-going way. We look through the distorted lens of our own views and assumptions, making us an unreliable witness to our own inner experience. On the retreat we’ll cultivate Awareness and Right View, to become mindful of, and curious about, what is actually happening in…

Our ‘precious human body’ is the first and most important foundation not just of mindfulness, but of meditation and Dharma practice as a whole. The teaching of the Buddha’s ‘Three Bodies’ (trikaya) suggests that there is far, far more to the body than meets the eye. These could be summarised as the bodies of truth (dharmakaya), of living energy (sambhogakaya) and of manifestation (nirmanakaya). While they are fully realised with awakening, we can attune and open to them right now through meditation and Dharma practice, especially body and heart-based practice. Tejananda and Padmadrishti will guide explorations into the extraordinary nature of…

The Heart Sutra is one of the most familiar of all Buddhist texts and, inevitably, there are innumerable takes on ‘what it means’. How do we square the opening statement that the skandhas (our psycho–physical constituents) are ‘empty’ with the following one that ‘in emptiness’ there are no skandhas, no senses, no conditioned–arising? Early western commentators saw the sutra as full of paradox – but what if it is not an attempt to bamboozle our minds, but a hands–on method of practice and realisation? These are some of the questions that we’ll be exploring on this retreat. We’ll see how…

Accessing dhyana (jhana), or absorption, seems to be very natural for some people, and a complete mystery to others. Dhyana is well worth cultivating as a way of deepening shamatha (mental tranquillity) as well as for the sheer psycho-somatic pleasure that some of these states afford. On this retreat, we’ll be suggesting approaches that people have found to be helpful and effective for entering into dhyana. This may well involve questioning both our own views and approaches, and some of what the tradition has to say about dhyana. We’ll proceed on the basis of asking ‘What, in our experience, is…

The Buddha taught the divine abodes – unconditional love, compassion, joy and equanimity – not just as states of calm, but as ways to liberate the mind. The Brahmavihara practices enable us to cultivate these qualities and to engage with our afflictive emotions – craving, hatred and ‘ignoring’ – in relation to them. In doing so, we’re already engaging with insightful perspectives. Sooner or later, we’re likely to start glimpsing the uncultivated, unlimited, unconditional nature of these qualities, free from afflictions. We’ll explore these possibilities in the first part of the retreat from a perspective of deep, embodied awareness and…

Bodhicitta – the awakening heart – is both the heart–response of wisdom to the suffering of living beings everywhere and the urge to realise full awakening for the benefit of all. This retreat will focus on love, compassion, joy and equanimity – the four ‘divine abodes’ or brahmaviharas – in the context of cultivating bodhicitta. To support this, we’ll also introduce tonglen, the ‘sending and receiving’ practice which opens the heart to universal compassion. The divine abodes are also known as the ‘boundless states’,¬ because they are inclusive of all living beings without exception. The practices that we’ll explore together…