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Detailed List of Retreats

Events for
Friday 31 January 2025
timeless

  • Mindful Compassion -Transforming Your Life Through The Power Of Compassion

    Teacher: Choden
    Cost: 2 day's accommodation + R350 surcharge
    Dates:

    chodenChoden, a South African born Buddhist monk, will offer a weekend workshop exploring compassion within the context of mindfulness practice. He currently resides in Edinburgh in Scotland and teaches on the University of Aberdeen Postgraduate Studies in Mindfulness MSc. During the workshop he will offer skills and practices for tapping into the compassionate potential within us. In so doing, we will discover source of inner vitality and well-being that can support us when we are down and help us respond to the inevitable difficulties of life. Choden will draw on the wealth of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, as well as insights from evolutionary psychology and neuroscience. In 2013, he co-authored a book with renowned British psychologist Paul Gilbert called Mindful Compassion (2013) which was a synthesis of psychology, science and Buddhism.

    He will focus on the cultivation of self-compassion as an antidote to self-criticism and the cultivation of compassion for others by drawing on the Buddhist model of the 4 Limitless Contemplations (loving-kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity). This will include the practice of tonglen or taking and sending. The workshop will be experiential and will include a combination of imagination and mindfulness-based practices.

    View teacher details
    Choden: A monk within the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, Choden (aka Sean Mc Govern) completed a three-year, three-month retreat in 1997 and has been a practicing Buddhist since 1985. He is originally from South Africa where he trained as a lawyer and learned meditation under the guidance of Rob Nairn, an internationally renowned Buddhist teacher. He is now involved in developing secular mindfulness and compassion programmes drawing upon the wisdom and methods of the Buddhist tradition, as well as contemporary insights from psychology and neuroscience. He is an honorary fellow of the University of Aberdeen and teaches on their Postgraduate Study Programme in Mindfulness (MSc) that is the first of its kind to include compassion in its curriculum. He co-wrote a book with Paul Gilbert in 2013, entitled Mindful Compassion that explores the interface between Buddhist and Evolutionary approaches to compassion training. He is also the co-author of two other books: Mindfulness Based Living Course (2018) and From Mindfulness to Insight (2019). In 2016 he completed a one-year retreat focused on the foundation practices of Tibetan Buddhism.

  • 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.