The FWBO Festival at Taraloka has just ended …. 400 people were here over the weekend. A few people are still here but that’s some of the Buddhafield crew who are still dismantling the tents and marquees.
I have to admit I was all for keeping a low profile on the assumption it would be very [...]
Category Archive for 'retreats'
My current theme of the Four Reminders continued in February on a retreat with Dhammadassin and Suchitta. I’ve uploaded some of the talks from that retreat - This Precious Human Life - into my Dharma Audio section. And you can get some study notes about them in the Dharma study section.
And ….
… you can do [...]
This is a video filmed on our New Year retreat… leading up to midnight we did a Vajrasattva puja and then left the shrine-room and walked over to where we had marked out a double spiral on the ground outside the Tara shrine-cabin. We then walked the spiral inwards and outwards at midnight on 31st [...]
These discourses came to light recently on a retreat at Taraloka…. I have translated them as best I could. The handwriting they were written in was almost indecipherable. Scholars may yet dispute their authenticity but everyone on the retreat thought they were jolly good!
The Longer Discourse on the Appearance of the Dessertspoon.
Thus is it written: [...]
Freedoms and Endowments..
Posted in buddhism, meditation, retreats on Jan 9th, 2008
I’ve just finished leading a meditation retreat here over the New Year period. I have to admit to having had a slight longing to be celebrating Hogmanay in Scotland instead of being on retreat! But it faded. And in any case we had a very good celebration of Hogmanay and the coming of the New [...]
Urban Retreat .. pt3
Posted in buddhism, everyday life .., meditation, retreats on Oct 23rd, 2007
I’m now back at Taraloka. Thinking about how things went over in Cambridge last week and musing on how I could happily live there, at least that is as it seems to me at present. Who would have thought it!
But mostly thinking about the Urban Retreat..
I’m very impressed by it as a means of helping [...]
Urban Retreat ..pt1
Posted in buddhism, everyday life .., meditation, retreats on Oct 15th, 2007
At the moment I am over in Cambridge being “Teacher in Residence” for a week at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre.
The train journey over on Sat was very relaxing. Last week I was co-leading an week’s intensive meditation retreat. That finished on Friday morning .. then I went out with the retreat team for coffee [...]
photos from Acalamayi’s ordination retreat
Posted in buddhism, everyday life .., retreats on Aug 27th, 2007
The two two previous posts about Dharma Day referred to a retreat at Tiratanaloka. I was there to ordain Fiona Doolan who hails from Leeds, well actually from Shipley. And she’d like me to tell you that she has Scottish ancestors!! Fiona is now Acalamayi - “She whose nature is steadfast, reliant, unswaying”. Here a [...]
ordinations in Spain ….
Posted in retreats on Jul 9th, 2007
I travelled out to the ordination retreat at Akashavana at the beginning of June. I was so very, very pleased to be there on the first occasion of its use as our Order/Ordination retreat centre. It’s going to be such an asset to us. Myself and seven other preceptors went out for a two [...]
post-script on pure awareness…
Posted in buddhism, meditation, retreats on May 7th, 2007
I’ve just finished leading a week’s retreat called “Practising Wisdom”. The programme was modelled after a Buddhist text called the Mulamadhyamakacarika, or “Verses from the Centre” in the particualr translation which I was using. It’s a translation by Stephen Batchelor and I highly recommed it. If you’re interested in exploring Madhyamaka teachings on [...]