Experienced Meditators

In the Bahiya Sutta of the Udana we not only find an inspiring story of one person’s spiritual quest and awakening, but also a simple yet profound guide to meditation. The Buddha instructs Bahiya: “…as regards things seen, heard, sensed or cognised, there will be in the seen only the seen, in the heard only […]

At any moment we can recognise, directly and viscerally, that we are alive and awake. With a settled and embodied awareness, this may open into an intuitive glimpse of what we truly are, beyond concepts. This might be evoked as a spacious yet embodied presence, a timeless awareness-emptiness, or unconditional love, compassion and pure energy. […]

Often when we begin meditating, we have a good practice, but after a few years, we struggle not to be caught up in our habitual thinking and find that our meditation seems to become more superficial. In the Zen tradition, it is said that we should always keep a “beginner’s mind.” On this silent meditation […]

Metta is seen as a great potential source of happiness in the Buddhist tradition – an openness to and love of life in all its forms – which spontaneously manifests as compassion and joy. Yet the cultivation of metta can sometimes seem very ‘heady’, at times forced and dry. How can our practice of kindly awareness gain fresh […]

Body, heart and mind are essential facets of our being. Mind is usually taken to mean all kinds of mental activity, but what we’re interested in here is ‘mind itself’ – the awake, aware quality of mind. Awakeness is here even when we feel sleepy and dull. How do we know that we're sleepy 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. […]

**Please note that this retreat runs from Monday to Monday** The main feature of these popular retreats is that they allow retreatants to follow the themes and rhythms emerging in their own meditation practice. In some ways they can be compared to going on solitary retreat while offering the support and structure that practising in […]

**Please note that this retreat runs from Monday to Monday** The main feature of these popular retreats is that they allow retreatants to follow the themes and rhythms emerging in their own meditation practice. In some ways they can be compared to going on solitary retreat while offering the support and structure that practising in […]

Retreats evolve, and I’ve been leading ‘Emptiness and the Heart Sutra’ for many years now. I love the Heart Sutra as a chant, a text to study and as an entryway into the wonderful territory of the Perfection of Wisdom sutras. However, I see it primarily as a pointer, a means, for transformative realisation. Realising […]

Do we dare to turn towards suffering or even the joy of the world? Do we dare to remain open to experience and see the truth of situations unfold? Do we dare to respond? Subtly, we turn away from life and dull down. This retreat will challenge this habitual response and give you the tools […]

Buddhism offers a radically different approach to happiness than most of the world around us. Rather than consume, polarize and fix samsara, it speaks of happiness as a different kind of freedom, openness and ease, arising out of love and insight. Yet, what does this actually mean in direct experience? This is what we will […]

The intriguing image of Indra’s Net depicts a vast net with a jewel woven into each knot. Every jewel reflects every other jewel in an infinite myriad of singular images. In our minds many images arise, but how do we engage with image in a way that is opening and creative rather than constricting and […]

+ Cittamoksa & Akshayapradipa "Just Sitting" is perhaps the most regal of all meditation practices. It could even be said that it goes beyond meditation. When asked how to practice "just sitting," Sangharakshita simply replied, "You just sit." This captures the essence. However, many find that "just sitting" often turns into endless mental chatter. This […]

Formless meditation invites us to discover the freedom that becomes available when the mind is no longer confined by habitual patterns of grasping and resistance. As awareness settles into its own natural spaciousness, qualities of presence, clarity and sensitive responsiveness begin to emerge with increasing ease. On this retreat we will explore formless meditation as […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

In the Bahiya Sutta of the Udana we not only find an inspiring story of one person’s spiritual quest and awakening, but also a simple yet profound guide to meditation. The Buddha instructs Bahiya: “…as regards things seen, heard, sensed or cognised, there will be in the seen only the seen, in the heard only […]

Dhyāna (jhāna) is far more than samatha, or mental calm. Recognising the liberative potential of the first dhyana was the key to the Buddha’s own awakening and he taught dhyāna as inseparable from insight. Only later did the tradition come to regard the dhyānas as ‘just’ states of concentration. The four dhyānas are, rather, states […]

In a world intent on keeping us constantly distracted, one of the most radical things we can do is develop a deeper and more authentic relationship with our direct experience. The authenticity we develop supports us to see ever more clearly both the arising of suffering and the ever present potential for deepening into freedom. […]

Deep emptiness is none other than deep compassion, leading to the end of suffering. In “Compassion and Emptiness” we explore the teachings that Bhikkhu Analayo highlights in his book of the same name. These combine the divine abodes with the progressive series of emptiness contemplatins found in the Shorter Suññata Sutta I’ve found that on […]

This formless ground is variously called mind-as-such, big mind, awareness, no-self, source, true nature, Self, sunyata, Buddha-nature. Drawing on Dzogchen and Mahamudra texts to guide us, our starting point will be grounding ourselves in embodied meditation. As Padmasambhava said "Relax - do not force your mind or body' and "Know this one thing and everything […]

Often when we begin meditating, we have a good practice, but after a few years, we struggle not to be caught up in our habitual thinking and find that our meditation seems to become more superficial. In the Zen tradition, it is said that we should always keep a “beginner’s mind.” On this silent meditation […]

Metta is seen as a great potential source of happiness in the Buddhist tradition – an openness to and love of life in all its forms – which spontaneously manifests as compassion and joy. Yet the cultivation of metta can sometimes seem very ‘heady’, at times forced and dry. How can our practice of kindly awareness gain fresh […]

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. […]

The main feature of these popular retreats is that they allow retreatants to follow the themes and rhythms emerging in their own meditation practice. In some ways they can be compared to going on solitary retreat while offering the support and structure that practising in the company of others can bring. While the practice retreats […]

The main feature of these popular retreats is that they allow retreatants to follow the themes and rhythms emerging in their own meditation practice. In some ways they can be compared to going on solitary retreat while offering the support and structure that practising in the company of others can bring. While the practice retreats […]