The retreat will be held within a container of silence. Within this supportive environment, we will deepen our personal and experiential engagement with the core meditation practices taught in courses such as Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy, alongside offering an opportunity to explore theoretical understandings that underpin them. In particular, we will structure the retreat around the four ways of establishing mindfulness as expressed within Buddhist psychology. These teachings will be offered as a framework to support the 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
short talks
group exchanges with the teachers
sustained periods of silence to enable participants to connect more fully with their inner experience
time to practice mindfulness informally between the scheduled sessions
some interpersonal mindfulness practices in dyads may also be included to support us to bring compassionate awareness into our experience of interacting with another – and to deepen contemplation on the teaching themes
The teachers will be available to talk to people individually as needed.

A core teaching intention for this retreat is to offer a structure and atmosphere within which we can deeply look into experience with the freshness of beginner’s mind, enabling new insights and perspectives to emerge.

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 fulfill the requirement to attend an annual mindfulness retreat. It also fulfils the TTP retreat requirement at the Trained Teacher level.

Requirements to attend:

Attendance at an 8-week MBSR/MBCT (or similar). In addition, attendance of at least one day of guided silent mindfulness practice is recommended but not required.

Please ensure you are able to attend the entire event. If this is not possible, please contact us to discuss it before submitting an application.

Timings:

The retreat will start at 4pm on 11th January and finish at 12.30pm on 15th January 2024.

All times given are UK, GMT (Greenwich Mean Time). If you are attending from a different time zone, please check equivalent timings in your time zone.