Looking at the Nature of Mind **Order Retreat**

When your body is rightly poised, and your mind absorbed deep in meditation, you may feel that thought and mind both disappear. Yet this is but the surface experience of Dhyana. With constant practice, one feels radiant awareness shining like a brilliant lamp. It is pure and bright like a flower. It is like staring into the vast and empty sky. This spacious awareness is limpid and transparent, yet vivid.’ Milarepa

In the story of the Shepherd’s Search for Mind, a young boy meets the great yogin Milarepa at the entrance of a mountain cave. He is given a profound series of instructions relating to Mahamudra – the direct approach to looking at the nature of mind. On this retreat, we will use the simple practice of formless meditation to explore the perceptual situation directly. On the basis of calmness and tranquility, we will open to spacious and illumined awareness and presence. The retreat will have an emphasis on the songs and stories of Milarepa and there will be puja, chanting and ritual. The retreat will be mainly in silence with meditation reviews given by the team.