This meditation retreat explores the mandala of Buddhist heart practices, the four Brahma Viharas - metta, karuna, mudita and upekkha. Each of these has a meditation practice, and after a weekend grounding ourselves with mindfulness, we will spend a day with each of these practices and qualities.
Mettā bhāvanā is for loving kindness, karunā bhāvanā is for compassion, muditā bhāvanā is for sympathetic joy. Finally upekkhā bhāvanā is for serenity, that all-embracing insightful love. Along the way, we learn to distinguish between selfish love and pure metta, between sentimental pity and true compassion, between sympathetic joy and mere merriment, between cold indifference and the spacious loving serenity of upekkhā bhāvanā.
Practicing these meditations can help us to work skillfully with our emotional states, to move beyond fear into courage, beyond hatred into compassion, beyond habitual old views into insightful new perspectives.
The retreat is suitable for people who have been on retreat before and have a regular meditation practice. These retreat will be conducted mostly in silence, and will normally have between 5 and 7 hours a day of sitting meditation. For more information, read the retreat information sheet.
£100