Download ‘Ditty of First Desire’ read by Paramananda

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As we set off together on this poetic journey through awareness, Paramananda begins with a session of exploration and meditation in which he encourages us to relax deeply in readiness.

– Introduction to the retreat (featuring a reading of ‘Ditty of First Desire’ by Federico García Lorca)
– Guided meditation
– Deep relaxation with drumming

As he continues to set the scene for the retreat, Paramananda calls on the figure of Green Tara whose mantra resounds throughout the worlds – and throughout this session! Then, a space to settle and find out what the deep work of freedom looks like, and feels like.

– Introduction to mantra as a practice on retreat 
– Green Tara mantra
– Just Sitting meditation
– Short Q & A

Paramananda leads a beautiful session of teaching, meditation and resting awareness all designed to open us into a more intimate relationship with self and world. A training in how relaxation can help soften and undo craving and aversion, and even ego clinging itself.

– Introduction around ‘Song of The Seven Hearted Boy’ by Frederico García Lorca
– Guided meditation then open sitting
– Resting with crow drum accompaniment
– Sitting still in the space of the heart

Paramananda builds on his theme for the day of opening to life with a meditation, in words and in silence, on what it is makes us who we (think we) are – and how we (think) we have an experience of consciousness. But this is no abstract matter – more the stuff of “through the green fuse drives the flower”. A beautiful challenge for beautiful dreamers everywhere…

– Teaching on the nature of life and experience (reality)
– Green Tara mantra with meditation
– Short Q & A

“To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be illumined by myriad things”.

Paramananda takes his lead from Zen master Dogen in encouraging us to let ourselves be open in meditation to what arises and learn to pay attention in light of the Dharma.

– Teaching on how we see our meditation practice
– Just sitting practice
– Crow drum relaxation and meditation

Continuing the retreat practice of calling forth the spirit and qualities of Green Tara, Paramananda moves further into exploring what awareness of reality is and could be when we relax deeply into a truly imaginative relationship with the world around us. The mantra shifts us into a non-rational space – and lights the way to what emerges in meditation.

– Introduction to the session
– Green Tara mantra in call and response
– Open sitting 
– Short Q & A

Taking his lead from the Greek idea that we have simply forgotten all knowledge and it can be recalled – as well as Sangharakshita’s interest in Karl Jaspers’ ‘Axial Age’ – Paramananda tells the story of the Buddha’s awakening through the lens of episodes involving memory: of being a boy sitting under the rose apple tree, and of his “previous lives”. This brings us to reflecting on meditation as something more profound than a maneuver to avoid suffering, but rather as a way to experience and love ourselves more deeply. Because, finally, being present is an act of love towards the world.

– Teaching around remembering, meditation and finding a loving voice equivalent to that of self-criticism (referencing ‘Out Beyond Ideas’ and ‘I Died As A Mineral’ by Rumi)
– Meditation, guided then silent, open sitting
– Relaxation session with the ouroboros drum
– Closing meditation

Today a new mantra emerges into the retreat, that of White Tara, traditionally associated with long life (and death), merit and wisdom. Paramananda and Candradasa chant her mantra together 108 times, followed by a longer quiet meditation. As usual, this space of deep, still practice is followed by a short question-and-answer session.

– Introduction and White Tara mantra
– Meditation
– Short Q & A

Paramananda introduces day five by evoking the urgent need to examine our involvement in the conflict between human desire (want and need) and the consequences for the world. This strong session encourages us to see ourselves instead as deeply supported by and embedded in reality: manifesting, arising, and passing away in intimate relationship with all of it, and with each other. In so releasing, we can let go of asserting ourselves as a principal mode of being, moving away from separateness towards connection.

– Introduction and thoughts on our relationship to reality (includes a reading of ‘Bird on the Wire’ by Leonard Cohen)
– Full guidance through meditation posture and its connection to the context in which we sit
– Open, silent meditation
– Relaxation session with drums
– Final silent meditation

Paramananda and Bodhilila join forces today to chant the White Tara mantra after some introductory remarks from Candradasa on his relationship to White Tara. As the mantra falls silent, a space of meditation opens up and is followed to close by a short question and answer session.

– Candradasa on White Tara
– White Tara mantra
– Silent meditation
– Short Q & A

“So come, my friends, be not afraid
We are so lightly here
It is in love that we are made
In love we disappear”

Leonard Cohen, ‘Boogie Street’

Paramananda introduces today’s practice by reflecting on the relationship between images and our direct experience. In considering how we hold ourselves in meditation and in the everyday moments, he defines freedom as being in the world based on love and a sense of kinship for all life. Which involves participating in something sacred as part of nature in contrast to our habit of trying to appropriate and manipulate the world. Overcoming our fear of this kind of letting go can be explored when we sit still and practice that mode of being. When you relax nothing bad happens…

– Introduction on living through love
– Guided meditation followed by silent sitting
– Rest and relaxation with drumming
– Silent sitting to close

As we continue to explore where liberation can find its seeds in experience, particularly in meditation, Paramananda evokes mantra chanting as a practice in its own right. He emphasizes the way mantras can help when things feel difficult and we move into the White Tara mantra again with that in mind. Followed as usual by an open, quiet meditation and a short question and answer session, focussed mainly on the breath as an “anchor”.

– Paramananda on mantra practice
– White Tara mantra
– Just Sitting
– Short Q & A

Parmananda introduces the final day of the retreat by evoking the foundation of meditation as a mode of being present to the world. He enjoins us to see posture as expressive, in that when we sit we make a gesture of reciprocal relationship with the world; we relax into ourselves and the world. The true nature of things is not separate from our own true nature. We are talking part in reality, opening our sense of self out to all of it.

His encouragement is to have patience with our practice, and remember the fundamentals both of practice and of existence: breath, body, being. Because we are always intimately involved in a relaxed way with love and awareness, practicing radical non-interference, letting things awaken to us and within us.

– Final teaching on meditation and being in reality (featuring a reading with drum of ‘The Black Image’ by Gunnar Ekelof)
– Guided meditation followed by open, silent sitting
–  Relaxation sessions with drums
– Just sitting

For this last mantra-centred session of the retreat, Paramananda and Bodhilila again turn to the figure of White Tara to encourage a non-cognitive, non-rational, but deeply experienced engagement with the retreat’s overarching theme of how to get a feel for liberation in our practice of the Dharma. White Tara’s presence is the perfect reference point for a session of meditation, and the subsequent. longer question and answer session.

– Silent meditation
– White Tara mantra
– Q & A session with the retreat