AWAKENING THE IMAGINATION

Connecting to creativity and the imagination through art, mindfulness and nature

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Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7

What is a Home Retreat? (click to read)

Home Retreats can be tailored to your needs.

We provide:

Live Home Retreat events daily
Specially curated Dharma resources
A chance to catch up each day on the event sessions by video if you missed them – so you can do the retreat in your own time
Share your own inspiration and reflections on the private retreat Padlet space (shared by email)
A chance to connect with the retreat leader to ask questions about your practice

Whether you have the time to engage with a full-on, urban-retreat style week at home – or are super occupied already with kids or work and just want some useful structure to book-end your days with a little calm and inspiration: this is for you.

Discover the Imagination as a source of deep enrichment and how it can be a path of awakening into an expansive, loving and insightful awareness.

During the retreat, we will approach the imagination as an intuitive means of knowing and understanding, and a reliable source of ‘inner guidance’. We’ll explore what the imagination means to us, discovering images and perspectives to resource both our everyday and ‘more-than-everyday’ lives. We’ll draw on Buddhist sources along with inspiration from western wisdom traditions, contemporary art, and poetry.

Expect a rich mix of:

Short presentations to introduce our themes
Guided meditations to inspire new approaches
Creative discoveries through art, nature connection and ritual
Community Space for shared reflection.

Your Retreat, Your Way
This retreat offers a supportive context for a full week of immersion or a flexible drop-in approach for creative input—all held within the framework of Buddhist teachings.

Who’s it for?

Artists and Mindfulness Practitioners wishing to explore Buddhist ideas in relation to the imagination.
Buddhist Practitioners seeking to deepen their understanding of these themes over a seven-day home retreat.
Beginners: Suitable for all levels of experience in meditation, drawing, or writing.

All our events are offered by donation. If you can, donate to allow others who can’t afford it to access these vital Dharma resources when they need them most. Thank you!

Suggested donation:
£175 / $230 / €205 for the whole retreat, or drop in for £30 / $40 / €35 per day.

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Vishvapani: Broadcaster and author of Gautama Buddha and Reimagining Buddhism has over four decades of practicing and reflecting on these themes

Amitajyoti (Clare Barton-Harvey) is a visual artist, mentor, and tutor of art, mindfulness and the imagination. She has 32 years of experience integrating Buddhist practice with the creative arts.

Welcome to the retreat

Day 1

watch the Live PRACTICE sessions

Vishvapani and Amitajyoti open the retreat by introducing its central theme, Awakening the Imagination, and situating imagination as a faculty that connects meditation, creativity, empathy, and insight. Amitajyoti sketches some of the traditions and figures that will inform the week—classical Greece and Rome, Neoplatonism, alchemy, William Blake, the Romantic poets, Celtic tradition, Carl Jung, and David Bohm’s On Creativity—while Vishvapani frames the retreat as an invitation to enter a more spacious, imaginative mode of practice rather than treating meditation as a narrow technique.

Vishvapani then leads a meditation using the breath as a way of making a connection: settling posture, softening the eyes and face, feeling the body breathing, especially in the chest, and arriving in the heart-centre. The session closes by returning to imagination as a way of hearing the voice of wisdom and compassion more deeply, with encouragement to continue practising through nature connection and creative exploration outside the formal sessions.

Amitajyoti leads a practical introduction to drawing as a way into the imagination, using simple materials such as pencil and paper, with optional chalk pastels or other media. The session begins with warm-up mark-making: exploring pressure, line, grain, darkness and lightness, working at times with the non-dominant hand or closed eyes, and letting spontaneous images or rhythms arise without trying to make “good art.”

She keeps returning to the body, breath, gravity, and trust as gateways to imagination, quoting Peter Abbs: “impulse is the pulse of art making.” The emphasis is on receptivity and resonance: noticing what feels alive on the page, letting imagery develop, and reflecting on what the process, materials, or emerging symbols begin to reveal.

Amitajyoti opens with a short meditation to help participants arrive: settling into posture, feeling the support of the ground, following the breath, and connecting with the heart through mettā, care, and loving-kindness. She then invites reflection on intentions for the retreat, asking people to name a “heart wish” or qualities they want to bring, and to place them in a simple sacred space at home with objects such as a candle, Buddha figure, flowers, or natural materials.

Vishvapani introduces mantra as sound-symbol and ritual imagination, explaining how mantras evoke the qualities of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas beyond intellectual meaning. He refers to Om Mani Padme Hum, then Amitajyoti introduces Mahasuka’s recording of the Shakyamuni Buddha mantra as an evocation of awakening, love, wisdom, and compassion. The session closes with Vishvapani leading a spacious meditation to absorb the day and return gently to the breath.

Everything we offer is by donation – give today and help us keep it free for everyone!

We hope you find the Home Retreat helpful. We are committed to providing excellent Dharma resources and spaces to connect with community online and go deeper in your practice. And to keeping this free to access for anyone who needs it! If you can, donate and help us reach more people like you.

Make a regular gift and you’ll be supporting Home Retreats through the years ahead.

Thank you from our team and from the online community around the world!

May you be well!

Suggested donation:
£175 / $230 / €205 for the whole retreat, or drop in for £30 / $40 / €35 per day.

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If you prefer to get your inspiration on social media, we’ll be there too: connect with us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

With deep thanks to Tejananda and the Dharmachakra team for their generosity in setting up the conditions for this retreat, as well as leading live events each day.

Event main image by Maria Louceiro
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