header12.jpg
Tuesday 31 December 2024
  • Three Wise Medicines For Living Your Life In The New Year

    Teacher: Tsunma Tsondru
    Cost: 4 days accommodation +R600 surcharge
    Dates:

    tsunma tsondruThe spiritual life is first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to be lived - Thomas Merton

    New Year is a good time of the year to take stock and contemplate our moment-to-moment, here-and-now reality in all its fullness. It’s a traditional time for clarifying our motivations, and for starting afresh with new intentions. A time, in other words, to reboot the system. Give yourself the gift of time over this New Year period to collect the Three Wise Medicines of gratitude, ahimsa and contentment, to reflect on the past year, and uncover how you can best live your life in the coming year. During this time together we will let our body, speech and mind fall silent through the practice of meditation and silence. In working with the Three Wise Medicines, there will also be time for writing and contemplation, walking and ceremony especially outside in nature. We will welcome the New Year with a lantern-lit ceremony in the Zendo, chanting, ringing out the old year with an ancient Chinese temple gong. The retreat will be held in an atmosphere of silence and introspection.

    View teacher details
    Tsunma Tsondru is a nun ordained by Tai Situ Rinpoche in the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. She met Buddhism through Louis van Loon at the BRC in the 90's. After working as a lawyer and environmental scientist, she left for Spain for a traditional Kagyu three-and-a-half-year retreat, followed by a second retreat of four years. Returning to Cape Town, she served on the Board of the Southern African Faith Communities Environmental Institute - a multi-faith NGO - for 6 years and as its Executive Director. She later spent a 10-day intensive retreat with Joanna Macy, engaging with Macy’s “Work That Re-Connects”, which she teaches at the BRC and other places, Her particular interest is deep ecology, eco-philosophy and wilderness work, and the role that spirituality, ethics and connection/interdependence can play in transforming us and our economic and social systems in protection of the Earth.

  • Doing Your Own Thing: A Personal Retreat

    Teacher: Krishia Schilz and Nelson Alvares
    Cost: Number of days' accommodation
    Dates:

    krishia schilznelson alvaresFind meaningful solitude on a Self-Retreat. These Retreats are unstructured: one does as much (or as little) reading, walking, meditation or resting as one chooses. Enjoy walks and bird watching in 300 acres of beautiful rolling hills, parklands, indigenous valleys and forests. Meditate, learn chi kung and yoga, savour our delicious vegetarian food, browse our well-stocked library. Visit the stupa and the raked Zen sand gardens; walk the labyrinth; reflect on the 8 trees associated with the Buddha’s life, enlightenment and death in the beautiful Buddha Boma; spend solitary time in our deer forest, stalk the light, cloud-gaze at the dam and tune into just being in the present moment. Self-Retreats are an ideal opportunity to be in a gentle, sympathetic space where one can be still and get in touch with oneself and reflect on the things that crowd one’s life. Self-Retreats are available on weekdays - between Conducted Retreats - and over structured retreats. Group or Corporate events can be arranged.

    Nelson Alvares is in situ to lead walks and sunrise meditation.

    For those who would like to book for a self retreat midweek, Krishia Schilz, a resident member of staff, is offering daily yoga, pranayama and meditation.

    Krishia Schilz is a qualified Bereavement Counsellor specialising in grief and loss, as well as Trauma Containment. Her spiritual path led her to yoga in which she is certified in various styles. She completed her training in beautiful Bali before travelling to Thailand to teach. Her practice includes yoga, pranayama (breath work), meditation and yoga philosophy.