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The Three Bodies of Belonging
Led by Singhashri, Viveka and Balajit Watch practice sessions & get resourcesDonate and support Home RetreatsWhat 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
- 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 Home Retreat Co-Led By Balajit, Singhashri and Viveka
🧘🏽♀️ 🧘🏽♂️ Seven days of meditation, soulful exploration, and strong, supportive friendship: a gently held space to go deeper into experience and practice.
About the retreat
Following on from last year’s successful Home Retreat ‘Forces for Good: Challenging Emotions as Portals to Liberation’, our friends Balajit, Singhashri and Viveka are back and joining forces again to offer another wonderful embodied opportunity to explore our system of meditation in depth and in community.
This year we’re all invited to draw inspiration from the Mahayana Trikaya (“three body”) teaching that points to who we actually are via three simultaneous dimensions of reality:
- Nirmanakaya: coming home to presence within this body, this world
- Sambhogakaya: befriending the dynamic flow of feeling and energy, and the relational dimension of being
- Dharmakaya: opening to the luminous, boundless dimension of awakened being
We will delve into poetic themes of “coming home” and “belonging” as an emotionally engaging and relational approach to insight that allows:
- Respect and appreciation of core human needs – belonging, safety and dignity
- Holding of the tension between our ideals and our current (often messy) experience
- Healing the illusion of separation and the habits of dualism
- Learning to feel sensations of belonging at the levels of self, community, place, world
and to express compassionately responsive activity - Deepening of mindfulness and metta as practices capable of helping us see the true nature of reality
This retreat will include meditation, movement (somatics), music, chanting and ritual, exercises and discussions, teacher input and practice reviews.
If friendship in community is the whole of the spiritual life, here’s your chance to go deeper in your own practice in the supportive company of others.
What to expect
Join us for a co-created, emergent space that includes meditation, community agreements, friendship, somatic exercises, movement, reflections, small and large group discussions and enquiry, teaching input, guided practices, and creative ritual!
Balajit (he/him) has been leading retreats and events across the UK for around 15 years. For several years he lived and worked at Vajraloka Retreat Centre in North Wales.
He is currently based in Birmingham, where he mixes Buddhist teaching responsibilities with work as a trauma therapist. He has studied the newly emerging psycho-biological approaches to trauma work- and is qualified in Somatic Experiencing, NARM therapy and SHEN Therapy.
In the past few years, Balajit has been exploring correspondences between these emerging approaches and the canonical Dharma, as aids to becoming more embodied and the arising of the bodhicitta.
Singhashri (she/her or they/them) is a queer, Latinx-American dharma teacher and writer. They teach mindfulness and compassion as means to awakening to love, beauty and truth and have committed their life to supporting collective liberation for all and the joy and freedom found there. They teach at various retreat and urban centres across the UK, Europe and the USA, and support a number of projects aimed at creating greater diversity and inclusion within Buddhist sanghas and the secular mindfulness field. They currently live in London with their partner.
Viveka (she/they) has worked for social, racial, economic, environmental and gender justice and civil rights for 30 years as a consultant, facilitator, trainer, coach and somatic coach. She specializes in guiding leaders and organizations through transformational processes: race equity and liberation culture change and strategy, team building and coaching, vision and strategy, leading innovation and change and working with conflict, leadership transition, and alliance building.
Viveka was chair of the San Francisco Buddhist Center for 16 years. They are a senior meditation and Dharma teacher in Triratna, who leads retreats internationally. Their teaching is healing and trauma informed and creates an atmosphere of welcoming that holds a diversity of peoples.
The child of Chinese immigrants, Viveka resides on Ohlone Land, San Francisco with her spouse.
Balajit, Singhashri and Viveka in conversation
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 for the whole retreat:
£175 / $220 / €205
or drop in for £30 / $38 / €35 per day.
A deeply affirming conversation about healing in body, heart and mind around, through and past trauma and suffering – in ourselves and in the world.
In this episode we dive into the the traditional Buddhist teaching / images / metaphors / experiences of the three kayas (‘bodies’): Dharmakaya, Samboghakaya and Nirmanakaya. These are correlated respectively, via Urygyen Sangharakshita’s reading of the Tibetan yogi and mystic Milarepa, with human mind, speech and physical body. The discussion that arises out of this takes in not just what it means to belong – but also questions of longing: what the heart yearns for, how we conceive of liberation itself via an embodied and relational approach to Awakening.
We explore what individuality and collectivity look and feel like in the light of the trikaya – how the whole of the teaching is pointing to human potential where we have the same faculties, senses, heart, body and mind as the Buddha and everyone else who has ever trodden this path. In that sense, like Buddhism at its best, it’s a profoundly hopeful, healing conversation requiring honesty, vulnerability and a new perspective on ‘self’, ‘other’ and our relationships in the face of the universe.
How do we change our stories to allow for genuine and profoundly transformative connection in a suffering world? How might we resource ourselves to blow open wide our own “window of tolerance” for whatever arises in life and become beings with a boundless heart?
Welcome to the retreat
Day 1
watch the Live PRACTICE sessions
The session starts with a warm welcome from the team. Then, the retreat leaders introduce themselves. Afterwards, there is a short grounding practice, followed by the retreat leaders exploring the theme of the retreat. Then, retreatants go into groups to connect and share what brought them to the retreat. The session ends by answering some short questions from the audience.
The session begins with Balajit leading a grounding exercise. Following this, Singhashri shares a quick reflection exercise to explore what qualities or ways of being and relating you would like to practice embodying this week, and what commitments you are making.
Day 2
watch the Live PRACTICE sessions
The session begins with Singhashri leading a short grounding exercise connecting body and breath, followed by a period of led reflection and journaling exploring the conditions necessary to support a felt sense of safety. This was followed by groups sharing reflections and thoughts on this theme. People shared their reflections as a whole group and the session ended with a six-sense body scan.
The session begins with an embodied arrival practice, exploring what safety feels like in the body. Next, Singhashri explores Nirmanakaya and attends to the need for safety. Viveka leads us in examining the community agreements and their importance during the home retreat. We then break into groups to discuss these questions:
- Where might you cultivate safety and a sense of safety in your life? How?
- What are you curious about in the community agreements? Which aspects are you more practiced in? What can you practice even more deeply this week?
The session concludes with Viveka leading a meditation that weaves in the theme of safety, encouraging retreatants to explore the sense of safety in their meditation.
The last session of the day begins with a short arrival practice led by Balajit. Then, Viveka engages with the group as participants share their experiences and learnings from the previous session’s small groups. Afterwards, Balajit guides us through an express body scan—a way to continue exploring the three bodies. The session concludes with a ritual, wishing that all beings may be well, and includes the chanting of the gatha “Sabbe Satta Sukhi Hontu.” Participants make offerings in the chat, sharing wishes for our world.
Day 3
watch the Live PRACTICE sessions
The first session today starts with an arrival practice led by Sanghashri that helps calm the central nervous system. Balajit then introduces the theme for today and leads an open awareness meditation to sit. Following this Balajit explores safety in connection with the three fear responses: Flight, Fight and Freeze making connections to the five hindrances: Anxiety and restlessness, sloth and torpor, ill-will, doubt and indecision, and sense desire. Balajit then explored the Dimensions of our body experience to allow us to go deeper into our experience and deconstruction of our responses. These were: Mental Activity, Emotional, Energetic or Prana dimension. The session ended with a 20-minute sit exploring these aspects of our experience.
Viveka begins the session with some somatic body awareness by exploring movement and grounding. She then moves into some teaching input around being present, talking about her own conditioning in this area. Pressure in life can pick up and out of the body. Life Can be challenging to be with sensations at all, and the full range of sensations that may be and can be expressed through us, and around us. Here we need to learn how to come home to the body.
The final session of the day begins with Balajit guiding us through an arrival practice. Afterwards, Viveka discusses with the retreatants what arose from the previous session’s group reflections—for example, our relationship with coming home to the body and experience. She then introduces the concept of the central channel, imagining and sensing the energy channel in front of the spine, and guides us through this practice, concluding the session with a poem.
Day 4
watch the Live PRACTICE sessions
Singhashri starts the session with one of her favourite somatic exercises to deepen your connection with your body and explore your energetic boundaries. Through a simple self-hug technique, learn how to support your heart, find the perfect pressure for containment, and tap into feelings that may arise—from spontaneous releases to unexpected emotions. Later we delve into the subtle energy body, discuss how to free up blockages, and explore practices that promote growth, balance, and harmony within.
The session begins with Balajit guiding us through an arrival practice. Then, Singhashri provides input on Resourcing and Dhyana Factors, followed by a guided meditation. We then break into groups to reflect on what we noticed during the meditation, our experiences of opening to joy, and what supports a deepening into more expansive experiences. The session concludes with a short meditation practice and a poem reading.
We begin this session with a soothing somatic practice that begins with gentle movements like shoulder rotations, head rolls, and self-massage to release tension. Experiencing the calming effects of cupping your eyes and connecting with your central energy channels through deep breathing and chakra-focused meditation.
We hear heartfelt insights from participants who share how these practices help them manage chronic pain, and transform discomfort. The session ends with a period of guided meditation to embrace the present moment with compassion and awareness.
Day 5
watch the Live PRACTICE sessions
The session begins with Balajit leading a neuro-sensory exercise aimed at calming the vagus nerve, followed by a few minutes to sit in that experience and feel the ground supporting us. Afterwards, Singhashri unpacks a useful acronym coined by Viveka: S.A.F.E. The session concludes with a Q&A involving both Balajit and Singhashri.
The session starts with an arrival practice focusing on panoramic vision and moving fingers, entering the territory of Just Sitting and Mahamudra practice. Viveka discusses distillation to bring nondual teachings into Triratna, exploring connections to Mahamudra and Dzogchen, and referencing Bhante’s path of regular steps with a concern for ethics, ordinariness, and caution against spiritual materialism.
We then engage in a meditation practice using the integrated body like a mountain, breath energy like ocean waves, and heart-mind like the sky, following SAFE meditation instructions. Afterwards, we break into small groups to explore these questions:
• What did you notice in the meditation practice?
• What is your experience of opening to “3-space” or the open dimension of being?
• How was it being aware of both the openness and the changing waves of experience at the same time?
The session concludes with a poem reading.
The session begins with Singhashri guiding an arrival practice. Then, Viveka invites retreatants to share their experiences from reflections in the previous session’s groups, asking what it would be like to be in relationship from a more open, softer body, and what their experiences have been in opening to an expansive dimension of being. We then engage in a practice of nondual teaching from the Nyingmapa tradition through Padmasambhava, followed by a short meditation and chanting of the Padmasambhava mantra. The session concludes with a poem.
Day 6
watch the Live PRACTICE sessions
After several days of rich input, in this session we slow things done and spend the the next two hours in what the zen traditions calls a seshin. Which refers to a period of focused meditation practice broken up with periods of silent walking. We also hear readings from Tsongkhapa, Matha Graham and Lama Govinda.
The second sesshin of the day begins with Balajit leading movement and neuro-sensory exercises. The session then follows a program similar to the first, including meditation and silent walking. We also hear readings from Ven. Lama Gendun Rinpoche and James Low.
The session begins with an arrival practice led by Balajit. Then, Viveka mentions that today we are marking the anniversary of Sangharakshita’s passing. This sesshin includes chanting the mantras that Sangharakshita requested to be chanted after his passing—Manjushri, Tara, Amitabha, Shakyamuni, and Padmasambhava—with a ten-minute meditation between each one.
Day 7
watch the Live PRACTICE sessions
The session begins with a period of somatic experience exercises to help us ground in the session led by Singhashri. This then is followed by Balajit giving some input on something he calls ‘the unlived’, referring to experiences where we didn’t have the capacity to feel the full energy of an emotion. Therefore the emotion is compressed and coiled, not given the space it needs to expand, display and release. It needs conscious awareness and the nervous system needs to be safe enough to allow the arise and live it in a way it wasn’t able to be lived until now. He also talks in some detail about how we might work with strong emotions like anger.
The session begins with an arrival practice led by Viveka, involving an oceanic hum and a shooting star hum. Then, Passanacitta talks about dana and generosity. After this, Viveka, Singhashri, and Balajit answer questions from the retreatants, followed by small breakout groups. The session concludes with a short meditation practice.
The session begins with an arrival practice led by Balajit. Following this, Viveka leads a meditation starting with a poem reading. She then guides us through reflections on the five slogans of Machig Labdrön concerning the theme of confession, followed by a ritual involving recitation of verses, Vajrasattva mantra chanting, and offerings. We then have a space for rejoicing in merits and share some final goodbyes.
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 for the whole retreat:
£175 / $220 / €205
or drop in for £30 / $38 / €35 per day.
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If you would like to donate with another payment method (standing order, cheque, bank transfer, etc), please get in touch.
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With deep thanks to Balajit, Singhashri, Viveka, 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 Nkululeko Mayiyane, Daniel Clay, Daniele Levis Pelusi, and Luke Pennystan.
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