[LIVE]

FORM IS EMPTY - IS IT?

A weekend exploring Suññata with Tejananda
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Day 1    Day 2    Day 3

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.

🌅🪷 A weekend exploring Suññata with Tejananda

You can access video recordings of all sessions below under each day’s resources. 

Earlier this year we explored how the Buddha’s teaching in the Shorter Suññata Sutta establishes emptiness in a very direct and experiential way, by noticing absence. Experience is empty of whatever isn’t right here in experience now. This seems obvious, but we delude ourselves into thinking that although something isn’t ‘here’, it’s still ‘there’ in some way, even when we don’t experience it.

Say you’ve been somewhere away from home (even just out shopping) – where is that place in experience now? Quite simply, it’s nowhere, other than in our imagination. This is not suggesting that the place ‘doesn’t exist’, it’s about directly knowing the distinction between what is experienced and what is imagined or mentally constructed. Once we gain clarity around this, the liberating path of insight (prajñā) can unfold.

We’ll use the Buddha’s method to explore areas of our experience of bodily form, space and consciousness – gaining clarity about what is actual experience, what is imagined or constructed and what the emptiness teachings are actually pointing to.


Home retreat leader

Tejananda has been teaching and leading retreats for many years at Vajraloka Retreat Centre in Wales, UK, one of Triratna’s earliest and foremost centres of in-depth meditation practice. He also teaches around the world, with a special connection to the Dharma community in and around San Francisco in the USA.

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 sliding scale donation for the whole retreat:
£90-50 | $120-65 | €105-60

Donate and support Dharma classes online


Welcome to the retreat


Day 1


watch the Live PRACTICE sessions

Tejananda begins the event by introducing the shorter sutta on emptiness and answering clarifying questions. He then leads a period of meditation, utilizing the basic building blocks of contemplating emptiness. Afterwards, there is a further session of feedback and Q&A, followed by a closing meditation.


Day 2

watch the Live PRACTICE sessions

This session delves into embodied emptiness, using the Shorter Sutta on Emptiness from the Majjhima Nikaya as a foundational text. Tejananda introduces the sutta and clarifies its teachings, emphasizing the experiential nature of emptiness beyond conceptual frameworks. Through guided meditation and reflections, participants explore the distinction between direct bodily experience and mental constructions, uncovering how views of the body can give rise to dukkha.

Key practices include grounding into the somatic body, contemplating the earth element, and recognizing the body’s emptiness of conceptual overlays. The session also offers space for Q&A, fostering deeper engagement with the sutta’s insights and practical applications in everyday life. A closing meditation ties the experience together, leaving participants with a grounded sense of embodied presence.

In this session, we continue our exploration of emptiness, focusing on the sense of space as described in the Shorter Sutta on Emptiness. Building on previous practices of grounding and awareness of the body, we open to the spaciousness within and around our direct experience. Participants engage in guided meditations that distinguish between the sensate body, mental overlays, and the space in which all experiences arise.

The session includes reflections on the interconnectedness of sensory fields, the absence of boundaries, and the dissolution of the dualistic sense of “me” and “other.” Through inquiry and meditation, participants explore how perceptions of form, space, and mental activity intersect in an undivided experiential field. Concluding with opportunities for shared reflections and questions, this session deepens our understanding of embodied emptiness as both a practice and a lived experience.

This session deepens our exploration of space and consciousness as framed by the Shorter Sutta on Emptiness. Participants begin with a period of just sitting, cultivating open awareness without judgment or direction. Through guided meditations, we investigate the sense of space in which bodily sensations, sounds, and mental activity arise.

The practice progresses to recognizing the boundless nature of space and its inseparability from consciousness. Participants are invited to notice that consciousness itself extends as far as the perceived space, dissolving boundaries between inner and outer experience. The session concludes with a reflection on forms re-arising within consciousness, grounding the exploration in the immediate experience of the six senses.


Day 3


watch the Live PRACTICE sessions

The session begins with a period of just sitting and coming into relationship with what is there. Tejananda encourages us to take the attitude that nothing wrong can be happening at this stage. He then leads us deeper into direct experience for a period of mediation which is then followed by questions from participants.

The session began with further clarification on the previous session, focusing on the nature of consciousness and space. This was followed by an extended meditation, guiding participants through the stages of the Culasunnata Sutta, culminating in an exploration of no-thingness as experienced through the somatic (sensory) body. The session concluded with additional clarifications and feedback, incorporating reflections and insights shared by retreatants.

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 sliding scale donation for the whole retreat:
£90-50 | $120-65 | €105-60

 

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If you would like to donate with another payment method (standing order, cheque, bank transfer, etc), please get in touch.

Stay connected to community

Subscribe now to get the Triratna Highlights newsletter and we’ll keep you posted by email on new resources as they become available.

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 images by Sean Sinclair, BoliviaInteligente and Jason Leung
Site designed and built by Dharmachakra.