Triratna Intensive

“Form is only emptiness, emptiness only form” - The Heart Sutra is one of the most well-known and loved of all Buddhist texts. Whatever could practising this involve? Going deeper, we’ll open to our direct experience of the body, senses and skandhas. We’ll begin to discover how the emptiness teaching of the Heart Sutra can compassionately awaken us to our deepest nature, Prajñāpāramitā, from which we are never truly apart. TRIRATNA INTENSIVE for regular meditators with 2 years+ experience of retreats, centres or groups.

“This very body, the dharma body. The dharma body, the whole of the world”, Dogen. On this retreat, we will foster an intimate and loving relationship with our own moment to moment experience of ourselves, paying particular attention to noticing that our bodies are naturally extended into the world and can provide us with a direct experience of non-separation from this world. TRIRATNA INTENSIVE RETREAT for regular meditators with 2 years+ experience of retreats, centres or groups.

Before the Buddha’s awakening, he experienced a profound insight that led him to turn away from the unprofitable, wilful and harsh path that he had previously followed. He recollected a childhood memory of sitting beneath a Rose Apple tree where he experienced a deep contentment and spontaneous joy. We will explore this crucial episode in the Buddha’s journey together through experiencing being fully present and deeply connected to ourselves, others and the world around us through a vibrant contentment and the gift of the imagination. TRIRATNA RETREAT For regular meditators who attend retreats, a centre or group in Triratna community.

Focusing on the Root Verses of the Six Bardos, a Tibetan text believed to have been written by Padmasambhava. The Bardos are different modes in which the mind functions: the waking state, dreaming, dying, experiencing reality unmediated by the physical senses, and taking rebirth. Explore what this means and how we work with our experience here and now, and how we can prepare for death when it comes. Includes presentations, guided meditations, devotional practice, meditation reviews and some days of silence. TRIRATNA INTENSIVE FOR EXPERIENCED MEDITATORS.

Atula and the team will guide, with skill and kindness, us into an aware relationship with both ourselves and one another. Group work with honesty and sensitivity to explore our patterns of communicating and relating. A ritual context of meditation, devotional Vajrasattva practice and periods of silence. A profound retreat that has been known to help manifest lasting changes. TRIRATNA INTENSIVE for regular meditators with 2 years+ experience of retreats, centres or groups.

Meditation on breathing is used in many ways in Buddhist tradition: for developing awareness, relaxing deeply, healing the body, becoming sensitive to energy, opening the heart, and developing insight into how things are. During this week, we shall explore using the breath in all these ways, inviting ourselves to become more alive and awake. The retreat will be largely in silence, with presentations from Vessantara and Advayasiddhi, guided meditations, meditation reviews, ritual and puja. TRIRATNA INTENSIVE RETREAT FOR EXPERIENCED MEDITATORS

This 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. TRIRATNA INTENSIVE for regular meditators with 2 years+ experience of retreats, centres or groups.

In the West, the seat of consciousness has tended to be imagined in the head. More traditionally, it would be associated with either the belly or the heart. On this retreat, we will imagine our own bodies as both vessels containing psyche and as mandalas where the central or constellating archetype is the heart. We will playfully and imaginatively shift our attention from our thoughts to our direct experience, which is constantly manifesting as us through our own bodies and our extended awareness of the world around us. TRIRATNA INTENSIVE RETREAT for regular meditators with 2 years+ experience of retreats, centres or groups.

In the maelstrom of modern life we can easily lose a sense of what's most important to us - our heart’s longing to be free. On this meditation retreat, learn to listen more deeply to yourself by contacting and abiding in more authentic and meaningful states of being. These forces are calling. To help us respond to this calling, we will draw on the supportive qualities of the elements, guided personal inquiry, mindful movement, creative ritual and lots of quiet sitting. TRIRATNA RETREAT: For regular meditators who attend retreats, a centre or group in Triratna community.