Scheduled Retreats





Joining in a Guided Retreat

Longer retreats are usually suitable for more experienced practitioners. For beginners we recommend starting with a weekend. Unless otherwise stipulated guided retreats at Dharmagiri are held in complete silence which we ask retreatants to agree to and respect. During each retreat there are times for meeting individually with the teachers, group sharing circles and some discussion.  Before applying to attend one of these guided retreats please check the criteria below.

Our longer retreats are best suited for those who:

  • Have had some experience of meditation and are able to hold a sustained sitting up to and beyond 40 minutes per sitting.
  • Have psychological well being. Although the practice and context is a healing one, we are unable to offer rehabilitative or therapeutic care.
  • Are willing to enter into the communal life of the hermitage.
  • Are willing to engage in simple duties that enable the smooth daily running of the hermitage.
  • Are satisfied with simple, healthy food and accommodation
  • Are comfortable practicing in a Buddhist context. Respect for Buddhist precepts, (though not adherence to the Buddhist religion), is a requirement. This includes the observance of the 5 ethical precepts:

  1. To refrain from harming and the taking of life – to maintain respect for life.
  2. To refrain from taking what is not offered – to practice generosity.
  3. To refrain from misuse of the senses & sexuality – to practice renunciation.
  4. To refrain from harmful, deceptive and harsh speech – to practice speech that promotes truth, accord and clarity.
  5. To refrain from intoxicating drugs & alcohol – to respect the instrument of awakening which is consciousness




Retreat Schedule & Teacher Biographies.

Please note: All retreats begin at 5pm (supper) on the start day and finish at 12 noon on the finish day.


2010


July - Closed


August 13th – 15th
The Buddha’s Women & the Feminine in Spiritual life
Sister Chandasara

This retreat will explore different images of women in Buddhist scriptures. We will look at how the Buddha saw women with potential for enlightenment and as strong practitioners, while the conservative forces at the time also sought to control the ‘new religion’ by undermining the status the Buddha conferred on his female disciples. The consequences are still felt today. Women have mostly been sidelined in all institutional religions consequently finding themselves trying to fit into the masculine conceptions of religious form. But are women different?  What could an appropriate placement of the feminine look like spiritually, psychologically and in religious forms and how would that be for both women and men. All genders are invited to participate in this inquiry!

August 20th – 28th
Listening into the Heart
Thanissara

This silent retreat focuses on an integrated approach of meditation teachings and practices which deepen the embodiment of wisdom and compassion. While including calm and insight meditation, the retreat will also use practices associated with Kwan Yin Bodhisattva which generate a strong blessing energy that taps the mysterious connection with the Bodhisattvas heart intention. In this process, as self structures are released from grasping and aversion, the heart recognises the emptiness and peace of its original nature. This recognition facilitates authentic response and intuitive understanding of the non dual nature of emptiness and appearance. The retreat is in silence and includes ceremony, prayerful practice, inquiry exercises and use of mantra as well as Chan or Zen.


September 3rd - 8th
SMS3 Study-Practice Program Module 3

September 28th – October 3rd
The Road Home, Via Negatvia, Via Positivia
A Silent Meditation Retreat
Sister Chandasara / Peter Woods

A Christian-Buddhist exploration of these two currents in our approach to the transcendent: expanding inclusion and union with more and more of the manifest world (Everything, Fullness, the All) and progressive withdrawal from and emptying out of all identification and attachment with the manifest world (Nothing, Emptiness, the Void). With some readings from the mystics.


October 15th - 17th
Cultivating a Steady Heart
Marlene

This retreat offers an introduction to the practice of Mindfulness and looks at how we can integrate this practice into daily life, cultivating a steadiness of heart as we engage with the up's and down's of daily living. While this retreat is supportive for everyone interested in the cultivation of mindfulness and meditation, it will be of particular interest for beginners.

October 29th - 31st
Coaching from a Buddhist Perspective
Moyra Keane

Coaching is a process of being with someone so as to deepen their self-understanding, gain clarity on life's challenges, progress to living one's values and fulfilling one's life purpose. This all sounds grand and maybe 'faddy', yet coaching has sound principles of being with what is, finding freedom in knowing this, and being able to move on for the sake of a bigger picture. In this retreat we will explore how our meditation and mindfulness practice aligns with interactive coaching practice.

November - Closed

December 16th - 19th
Silent Meditation Retreat
Ajahn Sucitto

(Write up pending)

December 23rd - January 15th
Silent Meditation Retreat
Kittisaro & Thanissara

(Write up pending)


Teachers

Ajahn Sucitto
Ajahn Sucitto was born in London in 1949, and has a B.A. in English and American Literature and ordained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand in 1975. Ajahn Sucitto helped found 3 monasteries in the UK, helped train monks and guided the early years of the development of the nuns order. Currently he is abbot of Chithurst monastery and is held in high regard as an international meditation teacher and writer. Ajahn Sucitto has undertaken regular teaching visits to South Africa since 1987.

Sister Chandasara
Sister Chandasara (Louise Stack) was born in 1954 in Johannesburg, South Africa, and grew up in a Christian family. She was involved in revolutionary politics in exile in her twenties and later worked as a political researcher and analyst at the Centre for Policy Studies in Johannesburg for 14 years before coming to Amaravati in 2002, and ordaining as a siladhara in 2006. She has a BA (Hons) in African Politics and an MA in Linguistics (Semantics). Her lifelong quest has been, and continues to be, liberation and learning how to love unconditionally.


Marlene
Marlene is manager and director of Dharmagiri and has also spent some years working & living at the Buddhist Retreat Centre in Ixopo. She has been a Buddhist practitioner since the early 1990's and spent time as a novice Theravada nun in the Forest School of Ajahn Chah. She has studied Counselling and Communication through the College of Applied Psychology in Cape Town.

Moyra Keane
Moyra Keane and has been practicing meditation for many years and has taught courses in meditation, mindfulness, and Tai Chi at various centres in the past 15 years. She works as an academic advisor in the Science Faculty at Wits University where she also coaches staff and students using the Co-active Life Coaching model. Life Coaching is one way of integrating care, awareness and intention into skilful activity.

Rev Peter Woods
Peter has been a Methodist Minister for 29 years. For five years he taught Christian Spirituality at the John Wesley Seminary (Phase1). He is also a registered Conflict Mediator at the Unit for the Study and Resolution of Conflict at the Nelson Mandela Metropole University in Port Elizabeth, where he was heavily involved in South Africa's transition to Democracy in the 1990's. A mystic at heart, Peter is fed from the wells of John of the Cross, Thomas Merton, Julian of Norwich and the Cloud of Unknowing. He is also nourished by Buddhist and Hindu teachings and experiences of practice.
Peter is a regular retreatant and friend of Dharmagiri. He currently serves in Port Alfred, Eastern Cape.

Thanissara
Thanissara, originally from London ordained in 1979 and spent 12 years as a Buddhist nun. She helped found dharma retreats for families and children at Amaravati Monastery which later led to the establishment of the Dharma School in Brighton. Thanissara has an MA in Buddhist Psychotherapy from Middlesex University & the Karuna Institute, UK and has written a book of poetry, ‘Garden of the Midnight Rosary'. She is co-facilitator of the Community Dharma Leader Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Centre CA, USA which starts 2010.