This online retreat with Bridgette O’Neill and Karunavira provides a wonderful opportunity to practice in a supported and sustained way within community whilst taking practice into the heart of one’s home environment. The retreat structure, teaching process and learning community of fellow participants and teachers provide a scaffold to engage in an individual and collective exploration of human experience, supportive of a deepening understanding of mindfulness as a way of being in the world.

The retreat will be structured around perspectives on the four ways of establishing mindfulness from Buddhist psychology and an exploration of four heart qualities known as the Brahmaviharas (friendliness, compassion, appreciative joy, equanimity). These teachings will be offered as a framework to support first-person exploration of experience in formal and informal mindfulness practice – the core curriculum will be the immediacy of personal experience. Whilst having their roots in Buddhist psychology, the themes, teaching, practice guidance and explorations will be presented in terms of their application to mainstream mindfulness programmes such as MBSR and MBCT.

The retreat will include:

periods of both guided and self-directed practice including periods of mindful movement (Chi Kung based)
short talks
sustained periods of silence to enable participants to connect more fully with their inner experience
guidance for continuity of mindfulness practice between the scheduled sessions
opportunities for group inquiries with the teachers.
The teachers will also be available to talk to people individually as needed.

Who is the retreat for?

This retreat is suitable for people who have attended an eight-week MBSR/MBCT (or similar) course and who have a personal practice of mindfulness. It is open to anyone who meets these requirements and is particularly intended for people who teach or are training to teach Mindfulness Based Programmes and others who are integrating mindfulness into their professional work.

This retreat will enable mindfulness teachers who wish to be included on the BAMBA Listing of Mindfulness Teachers to fulfil the requirement to attend an annual mindfulness retreat. It is also an element of our Training Pathway, delivered in association with Bangor University’s Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice (CMRP).