The retreat will draw on the inspiration of Padmasambhava, Tantric Guru, who was invited to Tibet to transform the deeper, more unruly forces of the mind. Padmasambhava is seen to be both a historical and mythic figure within Buddhism. He was a renowned Yogi, Dharma Teacher, Shaman, and Healer. 

We will bring Padmasambhava to life through talks and Buddhist devotional practice. Through meditation, silence, and ritual we will explore both the energetic and receptive elements of his teaching. 

On the basis of mindfulness and metta, and with the support of silence and ritual, we will explore the practice of ‘just sitting’ where we open to direct experience and the heart of awareness.

For more information, read the retreat information sheet. 

Our human heart holds both our suffering and our joy. And our hearts are also universal, boundless and full of love.

On this retreat we will be invited to open to our hearts qualities and learn to sit with self-blessing, strengthening our capacity to meet ourselves and the world. We will focus on embodied meditations that will lead us into the hidden depths and treasures that lie in our hearts; and explore the heart opening potential of living for a week in spiritual community with like-minded people. The approach to teaching will be practical and direct, with meditation, poetry, simple ritual, movement and time in nature. We will have plenty of time to reflect and just to be, free from all the pressures and demands of our ordinary lives.

This retreat is suitable for complete beginners as well as being an ideal refresher for those who already have some experience.

For more information, read the retreat information sheet.

This meditation retreat explores the mandala of Buddhist heart practices, the four Brahma Viharas - metta, karuna, mudita and upekkha. Each of these has a meditation practice, and after a weekend grounding ourselves with mindfulness, we will spend a day with each of these practices and qualities.  

Mettā bhāvanā is for loving kindness, karunā bhāvanā is for compassion, muditā bhāvanā is for sympathetic joy. Finally upekkhā bhāvanā is for serenity, that all-embracing insightful love. Along the way, we learn to distinguish between selfish love and pure metta, between sentimental pity and true compassion, between sympathetic joy and mere merriment, between cold indifference and the spacious loving serenity of upekkhā bhāvanā. 

Practicing these meditations can help us to work skillfully with our emotional states, to move beyond fear into courage, beyond hatred into compassion, beyond habitual old views into insightful new perspectives.

The retreat is suitable for people who have been on retreat before and have a regular meditation practice. These retreat will be conducted mostly in silence, and will normally have between 5 and 7 hours a day of sitting meditation. For more information, read the retreat information sheet. 

Buddhism is not about beliefs, it’s about the way we live our lives. On these retreats we will explore traditional Buddhist teachings and meditation practices and see how they apply directly to our lives. We will cover an introduction to two traditional Buddhist meditations; the mindfulness of breathing and the development of loving kindness (Metta Bhavana) as well as a solid introduction to the principles of meditation. The approach to teaching is practical and direct, with plenty of time to reflect, and just to be, free from all the pressures and demands of our ordinary lives. 

These retreats are suitable for complete beginners as well as being an ideal refresher for those who already have some experience.

For more information read the retreat information sheet. 

On this retreat we will be exploring our relationship to the landscape and the world around us. There will be minimal technical teaching on this retreat with the emphasis being very much on photography coming out of meditative experience (whatever that turns out to be!).

We will focus on the importance of going beyond just looking, to really seeing with our whole heart, mind, and body. Using all our senses we will explore the world around us at Dhanakosa before we try to capture it photographically whether in big views or in more intimate details. Using inspiration from Buddhist tradition and meditation techniques, we will set a tone for the retreat where awareness can naturally feed into the creative process.

For more information read the retreat information sheet.

The retreat will draw on the inspiration of Padmasambhava, Tantric Guru, who was invited to Tibet to transform the deeper, more unruly forces of the mind. Padmasambhava is seen to be both a historical and mythic figure within Buddhism. He was a renowned Yogi, Dharma Teacher, Shaman, and Healer.

We will bring Padmasambhava to life through talks and Buddhist devotional practice through meditation, silence, and ritual we will explore both the energetic and receptive elements of his teaching.

On the basis of mindfulness and metta, and with the support of silence and ritual, we will explore the practice of ‘just sitting’ where we open to direct experience and the heart of awareness.

For more information read the retreat information sheet.

Our human heart holds both our suffering and our joy. And our hearts are also universal, boundless and full of love.

On this retreat we will be invited to open to our hearts qualities and learn to sit with self-blessing, strengthening our capacity to open and meet ourselves and the world. We will focus on embodied meditations that will lead us into the hidden depths and treasures that lie in our hearts; and explore the heart opening potential of living for a week in spiritual community with like-minded people. The approach to teaching will be practical and direct, with meditation, poetry, simple ritual, movement and time in nature. We will have plenty of time to reflect and just to be, free from all the pressures and demands of our ordinary lives.

This retreat is suitable for complete beginners as well as being an ideal refresher for those who already have some experience.

For more information read the retreat information sheet.