Buddhist Centre Features
Buddhist Centre Features

Gratefully Stopping - Going on the Retreat for Mothers

By ElkeWeiss on Mon, 5 Oct, 2015 - 15:33

Gratefully Stopping - Going on the Retreat for Mothers

By ElkeWeiss on Mon, 5 Oct, 2015 - 15:33

On Friday last week I was running around. It was just a normal day at work: my new office is still not entirely sorted, and I don’t have a phone. This isn’t ideal when you are trying to chase up things for students. It’s even worse when you lose your own mobile phone on the way to work. Thank God for colleagues with mobiles with unlimited minutes. Oh, and here’s the head of department, wanting to organise what needs organising...

Buddhist Centre Features
Buddhist Centre Features

Meditation Workshop - Five Breaths

By Free Buddhist Audio on Thu, 1 Oct, 2015 - 23:28

Meditation Workshop - Five Breaths

By Free Buddhist Audio on Thu, 1 Oct, 2015 - 23:28

As a companion to her talk, The Possibility of Practice and her guided Meditation on the Three Bodies (physical, emotional, and mental) this workshop is indispensable. Amaragita explodes and expands notions around the practice of paying attention via awareness of the breath, using the deceptively simple exercise of taking just five breaths through the day. 

We hear how the practice relates to the theory of Buddhist meditation and are encouraged to choose and learn from our direct experience...

Buddhist Centre Features
Buddhist Centre Features

Amaragita - A Meditation On Our Three Bodies

By Free Buddhist Audio on Tue, 29 Sep, 2015 - 17:56

A helpful introduction from Amaragita to the subtler reaches of body-based awareness meditation, bringing in a sense of our physical, emotional and mental ‘bodies’ as the basis for deep relaxation and resting in our experience.

Led as part of the 2015 Mothers Retreat at Taraloka Retreat Centre.

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Buddhist Centre Features
Buddhist Centre Features

The Possibility Of Practice

By Free Buddhist Audio on Tue, 29 Sep, 2015 - 00:13

The Possibility Of Practice

By Free Buddhist Audio on Tue, 29 Sep, 2015 - 00:13

If a talk could ever be described as beautifully bracing, this is it! Amaragita brings a sharp-edged mind and a long-term perspective to the whole question of what practice is. 

As you might expect, she also brings humour, warmth and kindness too, qualities that more than balance out the penetrating clarity and sometimes challenging questioning underpinning this exploration of the possibility of practice - for all, and especially for those raising families at any stage of life.

Amaragita offers three principles for...

Buddhist Centre Features
Buddhist Centre Features

Stop, Look and See What Arises

By sheena on Sun, 27 Sep, 2015 - 15:30

Stop, Look and See What Arises

By sheena on Sun, 27 Sep, 2015 - 15:30

I really loved hearing Amaragita’s welcome to the retreat. I also found it painful. I experienced envy and jealousy. A hunger to ‘intervene in [my] life as usual’ and ‘untangle [my] existential knots’. I resonated with her description of a sense of needing to stop; of everything shouting ‘stop’!  

I have stopped a few times today. I woke early to meditate and check in to the retreat. Instead both my children woke early too. I...

Buddhist Centre Features
Buddhist Centre Features

At the Close of the First Full Day

By karunagita on Sun, 27 Sep, 2015 - 15:04

At the Close of the First Full Day

By karunagita on Sun, 27 Sep, 2015 - 15:04

It is a privilege to be able to support mothers on a retreat and inspiring to see how much impact a relatively short space of time in a place such as Taraloka can have. There is a huge amount of appreciation and the atmosphere on the retreat was warm and friendly from the Friday evening, as mothers connected easily with each other.

This afternoon people met in smaller groups to discuss whatever was arising for them at the time. One...

Buddhist Centre Features
Buddhist Centre Features

Karunagita - Lightening the Load

By Free Buddhist Audio on Sun, 27 Sep, 2015 - 00:39

Karunagita - Lightening the Load

By Free Buddhist Audio on Sun, 27 Sep, 2015 - 00:39

A great talk from Karunagita, author of A Path For Parents, with some key practical insights for anyone trying to figure out how to go deeper with their practice while raising children. We get a moving evocation of parenting as a distinct context for working with our conditioning, our views, and for learning to break our habits in order to cultivate ever deeper levels of awareness and love. 

And as you might expect, all the earned wisdom of this talk...

Buddhist Centre Features
Buddhist Centre Features

What have you brought with you?

By karunagita on Sat, 26 Sep, 2015 - 14:11

What have you brought with you?

By karunagita on Sat, 26 Sep, 2015 - 14:11

When people at the start of the retreat were asked what questions or musings this they brought with them, the main themes that emerged were:

  • finding more spaciousness in life that feels pressurised, busy or noisy
  • how to be more present and mindful with our children
  • how to share our spiritual life with our families
  • questioning whether we are good parents or doing okay, even if we sometimes loose our tempers…
  • Where do we end and our children begin
  • where are we, where are our hearts, within all that we
  • ...
Buddhist Centre Features
Buddhist Centre Features

A Morning Puja - Four Reminders, Three Terrible Oaths

By sheena on Sat, 26 Sep, 2015 - 13:52

A Morning Puja - Four Reminders, Three Terrible Oaths

By sheena on Sat, 26 Sep, 2015 - 13:52

The Terrible Oaths bit is something that Dayaka added for Buddhafield North to Vessantara’s Morning Puja! 

It’s very helpful and bracing if I pay attention to it…

The Four Reminders
Life has inevitable difficulties. No one can control it all.

This body is impermanent. Death is certain.

The karma I create shapes the course of my life.

This human birth is precious, an opportunity to awaken.

These four reminders

...
Buddhist Centre Features
Buddhist Centre Features

Introduction and Dedication Ceremony

By Free Buddhist Audio on Sat, 26 Sep, 2015 - 13:38

The retreat at Taraloka in Wales gets underway with a reassuring and encouraging message from Amaragita for all parents who need to stop from time to time, and then a lovely brief exercise led by Karunagita to ground everyone in the space. Dedicating the “sacred space” of the retreat follows, and we end with a beautiful chanting of the Green Tara mantra. A perfect way to begin…

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