Thoughts and the Mind

This four day online solstice retreat will explore the practical implications of a short teaching (one of my favourite retreat readings) by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, “Thoughts and the Mind”.

Thinking, reflecting and imagining is inseparable from our human nature. Yet while our exceptional mental capacity as a species has given rise to many wonderful literary, scientific and philosophical creations, it has also enabled us to conceive increasingly efficient and terrible killing machines and to severely injure the very ecosystems that sustain us and all life on the planet.

Dilgo Khyentse’s teaching focuses on this second aspect to the mind: recognising how the “deluded assumption that everything has some sort of true, substantial reality” gives rise to so much avoidable individual and collective suffering, and how this can be remedied.

The first, unavoidable, step is to acknowledge fully that our thinking capacity is under the sway of our basic delusions and to realise clearly that it is precisely this which increases “our confusion and dissatisfaction”.

It is essentially the thoughts that identify with ‘me’ and ‘mine’, that sustain the mind’s clinging. If, having seen this, we closely investigate and examine our mental contents, Dilgo Khyentse assures us we will discover that thoughts and all other appearances “are void, like the appearance of water in a mirage.

Realising the emptiness of thoughts, we can “ Sever the ties of hope and fear, attraction and revulsion, and remain in equanimity in the understanding that all phenomena are nothing more than projections of [our] own mind”.

As he concludes, “Once you have realised absolute truth, then you will see the whole, infinite display of relative phenomena … as no more than an illusion or a dream”. This insight opens up to an entirely equanimous simplicity (niśprapañca), a complete “freedom from conceptual limitations”.

We’ll be exploring the dharma perspectives and pointers Dilgo Khyentse offers in this teaching from – as ever – a basis of kindness, compassion, and full embodiment.

Suitable for people with at least three years of regular meditation practice.

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The programme on each day will be (UK times):

07.30 – 09.30 practice, teaching and inquiry

15.30 – 17.00 chanting, meditation and the opportunity to join a breakout group to discuss your practice

19.30 – 21.00 practice, teaching and inquiry

(I’ve adjusted the times slightly from usual to make it more accessible in Australia and New Zealand)

I won’t be able to offer one to one reviews during the retreat but if you would like to have one or more follow-up reviews (10 to 20 minutes), I’ll offer that possibility.

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This retreat and subsequent reviews or mentoring are offered on the principle of reciprocal generosity (dana). There is no charge, but your generosity in supporting my livelihood and work is greatly appreciated. If you are unable to afford anything at present, I would much prefer that you attend nevertheless.

To register interest in this online retreat, please email me at tejananda.online@proton.me I will acknowledge your booking and send out full details including zoom link a week or so before the retreat starts.