Amoghavira first encountered Buddhism in 1979 while struggling through a mathematics degree at Glasgow University. Ordained into the Western Buddhist Order in 1982 he then started working at the Glasgow Buddhist Centre. 

He worked for 2 years at the Sydney Buddhist Centre in Australia from 1988, and on his way back to Britain in 1990, spent 3 months in Kathmandu helping run meditation and Buddhism course there. Falling in love with Nepal, he’s been a regular visitor there ever since.

In 1996, he moved to Dhanakosa to help with retreat leading here, which he’s been doing ever since. He loves being in the mountains and this has led to a passion for landscape photography and he now lives in the village of Callander, about 15 miles from Dhanakosa.

Suryadarshini walked into a yoga class twelve years ago seeking balance and flexibility, but discovered yoga's greatest teaching is how to become aware of your heart. After joining the Triratna Buddhist Community in 2008, she began weaving her practice of yoga asana with the Buddha's teachings. She qualified with Bodhiyoga, a training developed by Sadhita and Sudaka that incorporates meditation, posture work and mindfulness skills.

The Buddha's teachings of mindfulness and metta (lovingkindness) explicitly inform Suryadarshini's approach; she values the clarity of his instructions in understanding the workings of her heart-mind. She infuses her yoga asana with these teachings, encouraging moments of stillness and ample time to rest. In these moments, she encourages reflection on the four foundations of mindfulness: the body, sensations in the body, emotions and mood, and thoughts. She invites observation of these things as they are, keeping an open, non-judgmental quality of awareness.

These retreats are for people who are currently practising within the context of the Triratna Buddhist Community. Previous experience of the Mindfulness of Breathing and Metta Bhavana meditations and of the Sevenfold Puja will be assumed.