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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260925T163000
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DTSTAMP:20260827T090750Z
CREATED:20250813T112018Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260827T090750Z
UID:2221-1790353800-1790937000@www.tejananda.net
SUMMARY:Dhyana and Insight - at Dhanakosa
DESCRIPTION:  \nOn 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. \nDhyāna 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. \nThe dhyānas are\, rather\, states of deep\, embodied mental unity\, integrated with awareness of the foundations of mindfulness (satipatthana) and the factors of awakening (bojjhanga). Dhyāna is where insight takes place. \nIn practice\, we’ll ask\, ‘what\, in our experience\, is actually helpful?’ By becoming alive to the energetic immediacy of body experience\, resources for entering dhyāna can be discovered as already present – just waiting to be noticed. We’ll explore this in direct experience and delve into the relationship between body\, dhyāna and liberative insight. \nThis retreat is suitable for people with at least six months regular meditation practice and who have attended at least one full week retreat before.
URL:https://www.tejananda.net/retreat/dhyana-and-insight-at-dhanakosa/
LOCATION:Dhanakosa\, DHANAKOSA Buddhist Retreat Centre\, Balquhidder\, Lochearnhead\, FK19 8PQ\, Scotland\, Balquhidder\, Scotland\, FK19 8PQ\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:In Person Retreat
ORGANIZER;CN="Dhanakosa":MAILTO:info@dhanakosa.com
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20261009T080000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20261011T203000
DTSTAMP:20251119T094221Z
CREATED:20250904T124845Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251119T094221Z
UID:2351-1791532800-1791750600@www.tejananda.net
SUMMARY:Dhyāna and the Wings to Awakening
DESCRIPTION:‘Wings to Awakening’ is a poetic rendering of ‘bojjhaṅgā’ – seven ‘limbs’ or factors that support bodhi – awakening. The bojjhaṅgās are highlighted in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta as crucial to the fourth contemplation\, that of dhammas. They are experiential qualities that we cultivate and are integral to entering and deepening into the four dhyānas – and to awakening itself. \nIn this three day retreat\, we’ll explore how the first three – awareness\, discrimination and energy – can support the conditions to enter into the dhyānas. And how the other four – wellbeing\, serenity\,  samādhi (full integration) and equanimity – successively come to fulfilment.  However far we get with this\, the exploration and play with possibilities on this retreat will enrich your meditation practice. \nThis retreat is a follow-up to ‘Dhyāna and Insight’ earlier in the year\, but these explorations stand in their own right and people who were not on the earlier retreat are welcome. \nNOW AVAILABLE FOR BOOKING – click on Website link below
URL:https://www.tejananda.net/retreat/dhyana-and-the-wings-to-awakening/
LOCATION:ONLINE
CATEGORIES:Online Retreats
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20261023T163000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20261030T100000
DTSTAMP:20260606T175057Z
CREATED:20260606T175057Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260606T175057Z
UID:2255-1792773000-1793354400@www.tejananda.net
SUMMARY:Body\, Heart\, Mind Awake - taking the backward step - at Vajraloka
DESCRIPTION:  \nBody Heart Mind Awake – taking the  backward step \nMind 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. \nAwakeness is here even when we feel sleepy and dull. How do we know that we’re sleepy and dull? We are awake to it. We’re even awake to our dreams\, despite the body being asleep. \nThis quality of wakefulness\, knowingness or clarity is intrinsic to all of our experience and yet it is mysteriously ungraspable and unfindable. To know it\, we need to discover what Zen Master Dogen was pointing to when he spoke of ‘taking the backward step’. \nThis is essentially a step ‘back’\, from identification with our everyday mind of thoughts and imaginings\, into the immediacy and presence of our body senses\, just as they are. \nOur body is not what we think it is – not at all! When we take the backward step\, body is not the rather solid\, rather weighty object we imagine it is. It’s more an unbounded\, living\, vibrating cloud of sensate energy. \nThis also opens the heart to rest in its own nature – limitless and boundless. Here\, the stream of love and compassion which is already implicitly active  becomes boundless and all-inclusive. Body\, heart and mind are naturally and undividedly awake. \nBooking can be made via the website link below \n 
URL:https://www.tejananda.net/retreat/body-heart-mind-awake-taking-the-backward-step-at-vajraloka/
LOCATION:Vajraloka\, Tyn Y Ddol\, Corwen\, Denbighshire\, LL21 0EN\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:In Person Retreat
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20261106T163000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20261115T093000
DTSTAMP:20250904T151502Z
CREATED:20250904T151136Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250904T151502Z
UID:2359-1793982600-1794735000@www.tejananda.net
SUMMARY:The Awakening Heart and the Divine Abodes - co-led with Rijumitra - Vajraloka
DESCRIPTION:  \nBodhicitta – 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. \nTo support this\, we’ll also introduce tonglen\, the ‘sending and receiving’ practice which opens the heart to universal compassion. \nThe divine abodes are also known as the ‘boundless states’ because they are inclusive of all living beings without exception. The practices that we’ll explore together on this retreat are all ways of opening our hearts and responding to the joys and sufferings of living beings – opening to the inseparable wisdom and compassion of the awakening heart itself.
URL:https://www.tejananda.net/retreat/the-awakening-heart-and-the-divine-abodes-co-led-with-rijumitra-vajraloka/
LOCATION:Vajraloka\, Tyn Y Ddol\, Corwen\, Denbighshire\, LL21 0EN\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:In Person Retreat
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20261127T170000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20261204T100000
DTSTAMP:20251030T174958Z
CREATED:20240907T115000Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251030T174958Z
UID:2044-1795798800-1796378400@www.tejananda.net
SUMMARY:Dhyana Through the Body — Reevaluating Dhyana — at Rivendell
DESCRIPTION:  \n \n  \n“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 \nOn this retreat\, we’ll be offering embodied approaches to dhyana (jhāna) that people have found to be helpful and effective. This may well involve questioning both our own views and approaches\, and a good deal of what the tradition has to say about dhyana. \nDhyana 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 dhyana as inseparable from insight. Only later tradition came to regard the dhyanas as ‘just’ states of concentration. \nThe dhyanas are\, rather\, states of deep\, embodied mental unity\, integrated with awareness of the foundations of mindfulness (satipatthana) and the factors of awakening (bojjhanga). \nIn practice\, the leading question is ‘what\, in our experience\, is actually helpful?’ We have found that by becoming alive to the energetic immediacy of body experience\, resources for entering dhyana can be discovered as already present – just waiting to be noticed. We’ll explore this in direct experience by delving into the relation between body and breath as well as between body\, awareness and insight. \nAbout the retreat:  \nEach day\, there will be two main input and practice sessions led by Tejananda. These will include opportunities for making observations on your practice and asking questions. There will also be plenty of time for ‘open practice’\, where you can use the shrine room\, do walking meditation or whatever else feels appropriate. Ten-minute practice reviews will be offered to everyone. From Saturday evening to Thursday after lunch we’ll observe complete silence\, excepting reviews and any discussion in the input sessions. \nEach day will end with some devotional activity – chanting\, recitation or puja – and then open practice. \nSUMMARY \nThis retreat explores embodied approaches to dhyana\, encouraging participants to question some traditional interpretations and personal assumptions. Rather than viewing dhyana as merely concentrated calm (samatha)\, we’ll explore it as a deeply unified\, embodied state integrated with mindfulness and the factors of awakening. Through experiential practices involving body\, breath\, and awareness\, participants will discover resources for dhyana already within their experience. \nThis retreat is now bookable on the Rivendell website\, link below \n  \n  \n  \n 
URL:https://www.tejananda.net/retreat/emptiness-and-the-heart-sutra-rivendell/
LOCATION:Rivendell\, Chillies Lane\, High Hurstwood\, East Sussex\, TN22 4AB\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:In Person Retreat
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20261218T073000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20261221T210000
DTSTAMP:20260826T123840Z
CREATED:20260826T113847Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260826T123840Z
UID:2496-1797579000-1797886800@www.tejananda.net
SUMMARY:Thoughts and the Mind
DESCRIPTION:  \nThis 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”. \nThinking\, 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. \nDilgo 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. \nThe 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”. \nIt 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. \nRealising 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”. \nAs 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”. \nWe’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. \nSuitable for people with at least three years of regular meditation practice. \n———— \nThe programme on each day will be (UK times): \n07.30 – 09.30 practice\, teaching and inquiry \n15.30 – 17.00 chanting\, meditation and the opportunity to join a breakout group to discuss your practice \n19.30 – 21.00 practice\, teaching and inquiry \n(I’ve adjusted the times slightly from usual to make it more accessible in Australia and New Zealand) \nI 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. \n———— \nThis 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. \nTo 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. \n 
URL:https://www.tejananda.net/retreat/thoughts-and-the-mind/
LOCATION:ONLINE
CATEGORIES:Online Retreats
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20270115T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20270124T093000
DTSTAMP:20260812T161314Z
CREATED:20260812T161314Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260812T161314Z
UID:2463-1800028800-1800783000@www.tejananda.net
SUMMARY:Realising the Heart Sutra
DESCRIPTION:  \nRetreats 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. \nRealising the Heart Sutra means awakening to Prajñāpāramitā\, which also means awakening from the delusions that underlie our unnecessary\, self-caused\, suffering.\nWe’ll approach that realisation by cultivating the three levels of wisdom: First we listen. \nThe sutra is expressed in concepts and we need to be mentally clear about the liberative import of concepts like emptiness\, the five skandhas and the various other Buddhist teachings and categories that are mentioned in the text. Then we bring this understanding into relationship with our immediate experience. \nThis is the heart of the retreat. Emptiness implies absence of something. What is it that we expect to find in our experience that cannot\, in fact\, be found? This means really\, deeply looking. Then we begin to intuit how emptiness lays bare the assumptions and delusions which bring us suffering. \nThis leaves us with simply what is\, as it is. Living as the stream of becoming yet ‘holding to nothing whatever’ – not even emptiness itself. This is the realisation of Prajñāpāramitā. For us this means to relax\, let-go\, just be. There is nothing to achieve or adorn our ego with\, ‘not even wisdom to attain’.
URL:https://www.tejananda.net/retreat/realising-the-heart-sutra/
LOCATION:Vajraloka\, Tyn Y Ddol\, Corwen\, Denbighshire\, LL21 0EN\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:In Person Retreat
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20270213T000000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20270218T000000
DTSTAMP:20260826T114939Z
CREATED:20260826T114939Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260826T114939Z
UID:2483-1802476800-1802908800@www.tejananda.net
SUMMARY:Waking from the dream - Online retreat
DESCRIPTION:  \nA ‘Buddha’ is one who has realised ‘bodhi’. Both of these words come from budh\, ‘to wake’\, to know’\, ‘to understand’. We already have a sense of what this analogy is getting at – after all\, we wake up\, often straight out of a dream\, every single day! \nWe’re asleep\, deeply enmeshed in a dream – maybe a nightmare – and then suddenly we’re awake. At that moment\, the world that seemed so real a moment ago is seen to be illusory\, not ‘real’. There is not the slightest doubt – we know. \nBut the Buddha didn’t just wake up from an ordinary dream\, he woke up to the illusory nature of this very ‘waking reality’. This is the illusion. \nAs the Diamond Sutra says: \nAs stars\, a fault of vision\, as a lamp\, \nA mock show\, dew drops\, or a bubble\, \nA dream\, a lightening flash\, or a cloud\, \nSo should one view what is conditioned. \nIt’s not ‘real’ in the way we believe it to be and\, in the dream we’re living in now\, we’re creating a lot of unnecessary suffering. \nThe Buddha saw through all layers of illusion in the course of a single night\, but the vast majority of people see through and wake up from illusion layer by layer. \nOn this retreat we’ll be exploring some of the dream-illusions implicit in our sense of identity\, particularly “I am separate” and “I am my thoughts / the thinker”.  How do we create a sense of ‘me’ as a separate entity\, and ‘other’ as an objective world ‘out there’?  And\, most importantly\, how can we genuinely wake up from the narrow confines of identification with the dream into an unfabricated space of openness\, clear-seeing and unconditional love? \nSuitable for people with at least three years of regular meditation practice. \n———— \nThe programme on each day will be (UK times): \n8.00 – 10.00 practice\, teaching and inquiry \n15.00 – 16.30 ritual\, chanting\, meditation and the opportunity to join a breakout group to discuss your practice \n19.00 – 20.30 – practice\, teaching and inquiry \nI 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. \n———— \nThis 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. \nTo 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 the zoom link\, a week or so before the retreat starts. \n 
URL:https://www.tejananda.net/retreat/waking-from-the-dream-online-retreat/
LOCATION:ONLINE
CATEGORIES:Online Retreats
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20270514T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20270523T090000
DTSTAMP:20260812T163311Z
CREATED:20260812T163311Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260812T163311Z
UID:2472-1810310400-1811062800@www.tejananda.net
SUMMARY:Satipaṭṭhāna – the Direct Path - Led by Tejananda and Prajnapriya
DESCRIPTION:  \nThe 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 and disembodiment which characterise life today\, it can restore a deep integrity of body\, heart\, mind and being. \nIn this retreat\, we’ll explore a number of practice approaches inspired by the original mindfulness teachings attributed to the Buddha that take awareness\, insight and compassion ever deeper. As such\, it will be helpful for all those wishing to deepen their mindfulness practice. \nIt is also suitable for for anyone qualified or training as teachers of mindfulness-based approaches such as MBSR\, MBCT and Breathworks.
URL:https://www.tejananda.net/retreat/satipa%e1%b9%ad%e1%b9%adhana-the-direct-path-led-by-tejananda-and-prajnapriya/
LOCATION:Vajraloka\, Tyn Y Ddol\, Corwen\, Denbighshire\, LL21 0EN\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:In Person Retreat
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20270528T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20270606T093000
DTSTAMP:20260812T165522Z
CREATED:20260812T165522Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260812T165522Z
UID:2478-1811520000-1812274200@www.tejananda.net
SUMMARY:Uncontrived Mindfulness & the Unreliable Witness - With Vajradevi and Tejananda
DESCRIPTION:  \nCentral 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 on-going way. We look through the distorted lens of our own views and assumptions\, making us an unreliable witness to our own inner experience. \nOn the retreat we’ll cultivate Awareness and Right View\, to become mindful of\, and curious about\, what is actually happening in our minds. Using the framework of the 5 skandhas to go to the heart of what we take to be ‘true’ we can come to see the process of construction and fabrication that is happening moment by moment. Relying on the dharma and our own direct experience wisdom perfumes deep knowing and the unreliable witness is seen for what it is. Each moment brings the possibility of release from clinging and therefore from suffering. \nThe retreat will mainly be in silence with input and meditation reviews. \n(I will mainly be supporting Vajradevi on this retreat and most of the teaching will be done by her.)
URL:https://www.tejananda.net/retreat/uncontrived-mindfulness-the-unreliable-witness-with-vajradevi-and-tejananda/
LOCATION:Vajraloka\, Tyn Y Ddol\, Corwen\, Denbighshire\, LL21 0EN\, United Kingdom
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20270618T163000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20270627T093000
DTSTAMP:20260826T122740Z
CREATED:20260826T121503Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260826T122740Z
UID:2509-1813336200-1814088600@www.tejananda.net
SUMMARY:Compassion and Emptiness
DESCRIPTION:  \nThe Buddha taught the divine abodes – unconditional love\, compassion\, joy and equanimity – not just as states of calm\, but as ways to liberate the mind. \nThe 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 so\, we’re already engaging with insightful perspectives. Sooner or later\, we’re likely to start glimpsing the uncultivated\, unlimited\, unconditional nature of these qualities\, free from afflictions. We’ll explore these possibilities in the first part of the retreat from a perspective of deep\, embodied awareness and in a spirit of openness and curiosity. \nThis will provide us with an excellent basis for our contemplations of emptiness. \nBased on the ‘Shorter Discourse on Emptiness’\, an early Buddhist text\, this approach to emptiness is less analytical and more experiential than many of those developed in later Mahayana schools. Starting with our everyday experience\, it enables us to realise emptiness progressively in relation to the four ‘formless attainments’ (also known as the arupa dhyanas). \nWe’ll see that experience is empty of whatever isn’t right here in experience now.\nThis may seem obvious\, but we constantly delude ourselves into believing that although something isn’t ‘here’\, it’s still really ‘out there’\, even when we don’t experience it. It’s easy to miss the main point – what we think we’re experiencing is just a mental fabrication. What we’re actually experiencing is empty of those fabrications. \nIt doesn’t matter how far through this progression we manage to get – emptiness is emptiness and discovering it in relation to our ordinary experience now can be quite profound enough!
URL:https://www.tejananda.net/retreat/compassion-and-emptiness/
LOCATION:Vajraloka\, Tyn Y Ddol\, Corwen\, Denbighshire\, LL21 0EN\, United Kingdom
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20270716T163000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20270725T093000
DTSTAMP:20260826T122407Z
CREATED:20260826T122407Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260826T122407Z
UID:2512-1815755400-1816507800@www.tejananda.net
SUMMARY:Dhyāna as Insight
DESCRIPTION:  \nDhyāna (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. \nThe four dhyānas are\, rather\, states of deep\, embodied mental unity\, integrated with awareness of the foundations of mindfulness (satipatthana) and the factors of awakening (bojjhanga). Insight emerges inseparably from dhyāna\, hence the title ‘Dhyāna as Insight’. \nOn this retreat\, I will be offering embodied approaches to dhyāna that people have found to be helpful and effective. This may involve questioning both our own views and approaches\, as well as some of what the later tradition has to say about dhyāna. \nIn practice\, we’ll ask\, ‘what\, in our experience\, is actually helpful?’ By becoming alive to the energetic immediacy of body experience\, resources for entering dhyāna can be discovered as already present – just waiting to be noticed. We’ll explore this in direct experience and delve into the relationship between body\, dhyāna and liberative insight.
URL:https://www.tejananda.net/retreat/dhyana-as-insight/
LOCATION:Vajraloka\, Tyn Y Ddol\, Corwen\, Denbighshire\, LL21 0EN\, United Kingdom
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20270820T163000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20270829T093000
DTSTAMP:20260827T090048Z
CREATED:20260826T123623Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260827T090048Z
UID:2517-1818779400-1819531800@www.tejananda.net
SUMMARY:Deep Emptiness
DESCRIPTION:  \nDeep emptiness is none other than deep compassion\, leading to the end of suffering. \nIn “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 these retreats we rarely have sufficient time to adequately explore all of the contemplations. It may seem audacious to suppose that we can even approach the emptiness of the formless attainments (ārupa dhyāna). But they are all pointing to ways in which we fabricate ‘self’ and ‘world’ and\, though subtle\, they relate to aspects of our everyday\, moment-to-moment experience. \nWe believe we’re experiencing separate forms or things ‘out there’\, arising in space (and time)\, that we have a quality that experiences this\, namely ‘consciousness\,’ in which really-existing ‘things’ arise\, including ‘my-self’. We also believe that whatever we perceive is objectively real\, along with ‘me’ the perceiver. All of this is mental fabrication and the sutta shows us the way to liberation by seeing and knowing directly that they are fabrications. \nThe contemplations will proceed from heartfelt kindness and compassion\, but the main focus will be on exploring the empty nature of space\, consciousness and ‘things’ – especially the ‘me thing’ as an independent\, lasting and potentially satisfactory self. We’ll follow the contemplations through to signlessness\, in which there are no reference points at all. Whether this leads to the final ‘stage’ – nibbana – remains to be seen! \nThis retreat stands in its own right – it would be helpful but is not necessary to have been on a Compassion and Emptiness retreat previously.
URL:https://www.tejananda.net/retreat/deep-emptiness/
LOCATION:Vajraloka\, Tyn Y Ddol\, Corwen\, Denbighshire\, LL21 0EN\, United Kingdom
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20270922T163000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20271001T100000
DTSTAMP:20260827T094557Z
CREATED:20260826T125850Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260827T094557Z
UID:2520-1821630600-1822384800@www.tejananda.net
SUMMARY:Beyond Separation - at Dhanakosa
DESCRIPTION:  \nEarly in life\, a deep\, unconscious view arises which comes to afflict our whole being. If we could put it in words\, it might be “I am separate”. It is a sense of being divided both from our own experience and from others. This sense of separation\, even alienation\, can be very painful in itself and underlies a great deal of our self-caused dukkha. Yet\, it an illusion – it is not what and how we really are. \nThe Buddhist tradition has addressed this self-construct\, its consequences and dissolution\, in many ways. But all reflect the Buddha ’s fundamental teaching of anatta\, ‘not-self’. This teaching isn’t suggesting that somehow we don’t really exist. Rather\, it is pointing us back to directly seeing and knowing our original undivided\nnature – what we are and always have been. \nKnowing directly that there is no separate self here opens us naturally to seeing that a separate other is not to be found either. Our reality is whole and undivided. With the collapse of this subject-object dichotomy\, a great deal of the suffering bound up in this belief dissolves. \nWe’ll explore non-separation directly on the basis of both integration and positive emotion: calm\, embodied\, aware presence and unconditional love. From here\, we’ll explore our immediate experience directly to see not only how we create and sustain the illusion of separation and a self-other divide but also how this illusion can dissolve\, like a mirage or a dream. \nThis retreat is suitable for people with at least six months regular meditation practice and who have attended at least one full week retreat before. For more information\, read the retreat information sheet. \nAt Dhanakosa retreats are by donation. The figures below are a suggested donation
URL:https://www.tejananda.net/retreat/beyond-separation/
LOCATION:Dhanakosa\, DHANAKOSA Buddhist Retreat Centre\, Balquhidder\, Lochearnhead\, FK19 8PQ\, Scotland\, Balquhidder\, Scotland\, FK19 8PQ\, United Kingdom
ORGANIZER;CN="Dhanakosa":MAILTO:info@dhanakosa.com
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20271210T163000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20271219T093000
DTSTAMP:20260826T132734Z
CREATED:20260826T132734Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260826T132734Z
UID:2528-1828456200-1829208600@www.tejananda.net
SUMMARY:The Awakening Heart and the Divine Abodes - co-led with Rijumitra
DESCRIPTION:  \nBodhicitta – 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. \nTo support this\, we’ll also introduce tonglen\, the ‘sending and receiving’ practice which opens the heart to universal compassion. \nThe divine abodes are also known as the ‘boundless states’\,¬ because they are inclusive of all living beings without exception. The practices that we’ll explore together on this retreat are all ways of opening our hearts and responding to the joys and sufferings of living beings – opening to the inseparable wisdom and compassion of the awakening heart itself.
URL:https://www.tejananda.net/retreat/the-awakening-heart-and-the-divine-abodes-co-led-with-rijumitra/
LOCATION:Vajraloka\, Tyn Y Ddol\, Corwen\, Denbighshire\, LL21 0EN\, United Kingdom
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