Programs
Wake Up, Just Sit
With Rijumitra
"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 compulsive, deluded thinking, known […]
Vajraloka Spring Work Retreat
With Vajraloka Team
Experience living and working with others in beautiful North Wales this spring. We're looking for people to help us with some gardening, cleaning and decorating. A structure of daily work periods with meditation and ritual means you'll get to have a retreat, experience sangha and support Vajraloka. Anyone who has been on retreat at Vajraloka […]
Uncontrived Mindfulness & the Unreliable Witness
With Vajradevi and Tejananda
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 […]
Wisdom Energy
With Tejananda and Padmadrishti
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 […]
Emptiness and the Heart Sutra
With Tejananda
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 […]
Meditating on the Bahiya Sutta
With Padmasagara and Rijumitra
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 […]
The Radical Embrace
With Singhashri and Balajit
How can we learn to embrace ourselves, others and the world more deeply and radically, with awareness and compassion? Together we will meet ourselves where we are, with appreciation and curiosity, inviting all our disparate selves into a space of acceptance and presence. We will draw on resources like grounding, nature, simple mindful movements, neuroscience […]
Dhyana Through the Body
With Tejananda
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 […]
Relaxing into the Ground of Being
With Silabodhi and Tejapushpa
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 […]
The Other Side Of Insight
With Paramananda
Insight is often approached through various methods oriented to deconstructing our deep–rooted conceptions that support the idea of a fixed self. However, this approach may sometimes seem to neglect the importance of compassion, love and beauty in preparing the ground for insight to take root. On this meditation retreat, which will be conducted largely in […]
Illumined by the Limitless: Shinran and re-imagining ‘practice’ **Order Retreat**
With Maitrisiddhi
What if we re-imagine ‘world’ as sacred, as ‘Buddha’, as compassionate towards us? What if we meet ourselves with total honesty, as flawed, karmically conditioned beings? What if we allow ourselves to deeply realise the ego’s failure to ‘manufacture’ awakening, no matter how hard we try? What if, instead, we entrust ourselves to our connection […]
Compassion and Emptiness
With Tejananda
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 […]
Vajraloka Autumn Work Retreat
With Vajraloka Team
Experience living and working with others in beautiful North Wales this autumn. We're looking for people to help us with some gardening, cleaning and decorating. A structure of daily work periods with meditation and ritual means you'll get to have a retreat, experience sangha and support Vajraloka. Anyone who has been on retreat at Vajraloka […]
Looking at the Nature of Mind **Order Retreat**
With Prakasha
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 […]
The Awakening Heart and the Divine Abodes
With Rijumitra and Tejananda
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. […]
Practice Retreat 1
With Vajraloka Team
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 […]
Practice Retreat 2
With Vajraloka Team
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 […]