These short courses and retreats are ideal for getting some positive inspiration, gathering your thoughts and seeing things in perspective.
Suitable for all levels of experience.
£15 incl. refreshments (free for Members)
2023 Courses
Developing Inner Strength Through Meditation
Sat 1 Apr
This course will explain:
- How we can learn to use meditation to develop resilience, confidence and mental strength
- How we can live more confidently and peacefully in the face of adversity
- How we can find inner refuge from our daily struggles
In his book, The New Eight Steps to Happiness, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso says,
‘We need to transform whatever circumstances we meet, whether good or bad, into the spiritual path by channelling all our actions in a virtuous direction. This practice is extremely important. Those who engage in it successfully will never have to experience anxiety or discouragement but will be able to remain calm and peaceful in all situations.’
Now, more than ever, we need this ability!
Exploring the Nature of Reality
Sat 13 May
How do things really exist? Are things as solid and real as they seem?
Of all Buddha’s teachings, none are as far-reaching and transformative as the teachings on emptiness, the true nature of reality. Emptiness is the way things really are. It is the way things exist as opposed to the way they appear. It is through our understanding of emptiness – in particular the freedom we experience as a result – that we come to solve all our own problems and be of greatest benefit to others.
If we dream of an elephant, the elephant appears vividly in all its detail – we can see it, hear it, smell it, and touch it – but when we wake up we realize that it was just an appearance to mind. We do not wonder `Where is the elephant now?’, because we understand that it was simply a projection of our mind and had no existence outside our mind … Buddha said that the same is true for all phenomena; they are mere appearances to mind, totally dependent upon the minds that cognize them.
– Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche
A Buddhist Perspective on Death & Rebirth
Sat 8 July
Although we know we are going to die one day, most of us prefer to ignore this undeniable truth and live our life as if the only things that matter are the things that we will have to leave behind when we die, things like possessions, reputation, friends and sense pleasures.
However, as Geshe Kelsang Gyatso says in Living Meaningfully Dying Joyfully:
“The fact of the matter is that this world is not our home. We are travelers, passing through. We came from our previous life, and in a few years, or a few days, we shall move on to our next life. We entered this world empty handed and alone, and we shall leave empty handed and alone. Everything we have accumulated in this life, including our body, will be left behind. All we can take with us into our next life are the imprints of the positive and negative actions we have created.”
On this day course we will look at the process of dying and reincarnation, and also at the law of karma which describes how the quality of our thoughts and actions in this life determine the quality of our life after death. Understanding death and what happens afterwards depends on understanding the nature of consciousness and the various levels of consciousness, so we will learn some meditations to help us recognise the non-physical nature of our own mind through personal experience rather than just theoretically.
In this course we will explore the Buddhist understanding of what happens when we die, how we can meet death with a calm and fearless mind and, having come to terms with our own mortality, how we will be in a position to help and support others who are close to dying.