From Self-Care to World-Care: Widening the Circle of Compassion
Lucy Draper-Clarke /Weekend / 26-28 May

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“When you cultivate love and compassion for all beings, that means every being, including yourself.” Chamtrul Rinpoche

Have you been feeling overwhelmed, disillusioned or fearful recently? You’re not alone. The first noble truth acknowledges the existence and inevitability of suffering in our lives. Yet, within every human heart is an innate and profoundly sustaining capacity for compassion. This capacity allows us to acknowledge the suffering of ourselves and others, and to respond with kindness and understanding rather than judgment or avoidance. Compassion is both an individual and collective practice that can transform the world around us.

Lucy Draper-Clarke PhD, author of "The Compassionate Activist" will walk beside you through the Four Immeasurable's of loving-kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. These ancient practices support us to expand our circle of compassion. Through experiential and interactive activities, you will learn how to apply these practices in your daily life. Join Lucy on this transformative retreat and learn how to cultivate an ever-widening circle of compassion that touches the lives of many.

Sacred Union: Integrate The Divine Masculine And Feminine Energies, And Shift Into Your Authentic True Self - Part 1
John Homewood and Michelle McClunan / 2-4 June

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This retreat continues with Part 2 GOING DEEPER - Sunday 04 June 2023 - Tuesday 06 June 2023

John Homewood and Michelle McClunan bring their combined thirty-seven years of facilitating experience to this retreat, providing you with a gentle, yet powerful process, that will awaken and nourish you. Relax, recharge, rejuvenate and reawaken through Sacred Presence, Nature and Art. Deepen your spiritual awakening by reuniting with the simple joy of being - open to the flow of creative abundance. The retreat will integrate the Masculine and Feminine energies, combining transformational spiritual teachings of presence, awakening and creative art processes. This integration will help you clear blockages that may have prevented you from living a healthy, peaceful and abundant life. All creative experiences are process-driven, as opposed to being outcome-based, so no artistic experience or skill is required. You will leave with a deeper sense of peace; a more focused sense of life purpose and rekindled joy.

Sacred Union: Integrate The Divine Masculine And Feminine Energies: Going Deeper into your authentic self - Part 2
John Homewood and Michelle McClunan / 4-6 June

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Part 2 is a continuation of Part 1 (2 – 4 May). John Homewood and Michelle McClunan take you even deeper into integrating the Masculine and Feminine energies, combining transformational spiritual teachings of Presence, Awakening and Creative Art Processes. This Going Deeper extension will further help you integrate the Masculine and Feminine, and clear blockages that may have prevented you from living a healthy, peaceful and abundant life. All creative experiences are process-driven, as opposed to being outcome-based, so no artistic experience or skill is required. You will leave with a deeper sense of peace; a more focused sense of life purpose and rekindled joy and with greater emotional and spiritual intelligence with practical tools to navigate life’s challenges.

John Homewood and Michelle McClunan bring their combined thirty-seven years of facilitating experience to this retreat, providing you with a gentle, yet powerful process, that will awaken and nourish you. Relax, recharge, rejuvenate and reawaken through Sacred Presence, Nature and Art. Deepen your spiritual awakening by reuniting with the simple joy of being - open to the flow of creative abundance Re-boot and shift your life to a new level and learn tools and life skills to help navigate the winds of change in a balanced and integrated way.

Mindfulness And Movement For Life
Kerri Martinaglia and Chrissi Preuss / Weekend / 9-11 June

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We often spend our lives trapped in a striving cycle of stress and anxiety, so taking time out to deliberately connect to our inner resources may help us navigate life’s challenges a little easier. Mindfulness offers the invitation to come into the freshness of the present moment: knowing what is happening, while it’s happening. The experience of this moment can include the thoughts and feelings in our heart-mind, awareness of the sensations in the body, and our connection with nature and the world around us. We will use the practices of meditation and vinyasa yoga, as well as the joy of being in nature as a way of learning to rest the mind in the present moment. This retreat is suitable for those completely new to mindfulness as well as those seeking to reconnect with it. We will also look at ways to establish a sustainable and gentle daily practice and the obstacles that can arise when trying to find time to meditate daily.

Cultivating Mind-Heart Resonance Through Emotional Intelligence And Mindfulness
Shanil Haricharan / 3 days / 15-18 June

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The past few years have highlighted the volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous and unequal world we live in. To understand this world and resolve its problems, we must understand ourselves and our relationships; after all, the world is a projection of ourselves. The Buddha, Aristotle, Krishnamurti, among other great thinkers, have claimed that understanding ourselves is the beginning of wisdom. Over this weekend, you are invited on a journey of really getting to know thyself, starting with confronting your conditioning which has created who you are today. As Jungian psychologist and author, James Hollis, observes: “What we have become is frequently the chief obstacle to our journey - an assemblage of defense mechanisms and anxiety management systems” or as Rumi, the 13th century Persian poet, wisely counselled: “You are the unconditioned Spirit trapped in conditions. You fill it with yourself, or it dies”. In this journey we will probe the state of our mind, heart, body and spirit towards finding balance and harmony, through understanding emotional intelligence and mindfulness, and applying these in our personal development journey in navigating our rapidly evolving world.

Come As You Are:
Secular Buddhism, Existential Philosophy And Psychotherapy. Can Buddhism effectively treat the struggles we face in life?

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It is often our personal struggles that bring us to a retreat setting. But, is Buddhism meant to serve as a form of therapy? This retreat will explore the potential meeting place between Secular Buddhist practices, Existential Philosophy and Psychotherapy. We will explore methods such as Vipassana and Korean Zen meditation as a means of better understanding the nature of our own minds and the relationships we have formed with the struggles we are facing. The retreat will include yoga, meditation, philosophical reflection, therapeutic discussion and short periods of essential noble silence.

Saying Yes To Life -Taking Refuge In The Three Jewels

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Refuge refers to a place of shelter and protection from danger. What danger? ‘Buddhists’ and ‘non-Buddhists’ alike seek shelter from the challenges of life – the passions that jerk us around, from feeling distressed and broken, from pain and suffering, from the fear of death. We seek shelter from the wheel of samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth. In our desperate search for shelter, we are inclined to erect barriers to the pain by resorting to false refuges such as material wealth and addictions to activities and substances. While distractions such as these may afford us some temporary relief, the gnawing pain and our sense of isolation persists.

To become a Buddhist is to take refuge in the Three Jewels – the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. In taking refuge in the Buddha, the depth of our awareness grows, enabling us to really savour the deeper dimensions available in every experience. Life then feels more “alive” making it possible for us to transform anger into compassion. Taking refuge in the Dharma, the true nature of reality, we learn to transform delusion into wisdom. Taking refuge in the Sangaha, the community of fellow seekers of the truth, our capacity to love grows and we learn to transform desire into generosity. By taking refuge in the Three Jewels, we can open up to and be with difficulties rather than erect barriers and in doing so close down.

In this weekend retreat we will have the opportunity to gently explore the rocky terrain of life, noticing with curiosity our reaction to the ups and downs we encounter. We will be invited to take a fresh look at the Three Jewels and in doing so, perhaps come to realise that the Jewels are none other than the enlightened Buddha nature that is already inside us. The retreat will be held in an atmosphere of silence and introspection.