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. […]
On this retreat, I will be offering embodied approaches to dhyāna (jhāna) that people have found to be helpful and effective. This may well involve questioning both our own views and approaches, as well as some of what the tradition has to say about dhyāna. Dhyāna is far more than samatha, or mental calm. […]
Body Heart Mind Awake – taking the backward step 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 […]
“Quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states… one suffuses, fills, and permeates one’s entire body with rapture and pleasure born of seclusion, so that there is no part of one’s whole body that is not pervaded by it.” AN 5.28 On this retreat, we’ll be offering embodied approaches to dhyana (jhāna) […]
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. […]
The Satipaṭṭhāna 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 […]
