To attend this retreat you will need to have been regularly meditating for at least two years and regularly attend retreats, a centre or a group within the context of the Triratna Buddhist Community. You must also be comfortable with extended periods of sitting meditation, Buddhist devotional practice and spending most of the retreat in silence.
Sangharakshita has said that to practise we need to be aware of our minds at all times – but how do we do this? And what are the benefits to our practice? How do we really engage with mindfulness in a way that doesn’t feel contrived and ‘added on’, leaving us feeling stiff and unnatural? How can we connect with awareness that is completely natural, unfabricated and uncontrived? During the retreat we will explore mindfulness as a path to wisdom. We will work with awareness and right view to 'watch the mind' in all its guises. The focus will be on how we use mindfulness as a support to 'vipassana', or clear seeing, and the end of suffering. We will also look at the role of receptivity in mindfulness and the 'wise' or 'unwise' attention we bring to every aspect of our experience. We will be looking at how continuity of mindfulness can touch and transform our experience through simple presence and intelligent awareness, developing both steadiness of mind and heart and insight into the nature of all things. The retreat will mostly be in silence with input and meditation reviews.
Vajradevi has been meditating for over 30 years and was ordained in 1995. She regularly leads meditation workshops and retreats based around the Satipatthana Sutta and has explored approaches to awareness with the Burmese teacher, Sayadaw U Tejaniya and with Joseph Goldstein.
Prices for this event are: £360 - £330 (Conc)