Detailed Information about Short Retreats

The Foundation in Serenity and Insight Silent Retreat Programmes

The day begins at 6am every day and finishes at 9pm and consists of the following schedule

• 7 or 8 formal meditation sessions with instructions (40 mins each).
• 2 discourses each day. One explaining the mechanics and techniques of meditation and mental development, the other explaining in stages the Buddha’s teachings. The focus will vary from retreat to retreat covering the disciplines of both serenity and insight meditation as well as the powerful ways in which you can develop meditation as a healing practice.
• Chi Kung or Yoga sessions daily to help open the body structurally and energetically. These classes can greatly accelerate the progress made in formal meditation.
• Burgs and an assistant are always present to give help and guidance about your meditation that may arise during the retreat.
• There are two hours of free time in the early afternoon for walking or relaxing.

All food will be vegetarian and the group will eat together at 7.30 and 12.30. There will be a light evening meal of soup and fruit at 6.30 pm. The retreat will be held in noble silence for the first 6 days. We will be collecting mobile phones in at the beginning of the week except for special circumstances. Smoking is prohibited.

Testimonies

Working with Burgs completely re-writes the rule books as far as traditional therapy is concerned. It allows one to reach beyond the conscious mind to effect healing: here anything is possible. While the effect is faster than anything that I have witnessed it is no quick fix and still requires hard won character refinement to allow one to access such profoundly healing states, and deep acceptance and surrender in allowing them to re-structure one’s being.
Adrianna Irvine - MA MBACP Psychotherapist.

The Vipassana retreat

The requirements for this retreat are at least one of our Foundation to Serenity and Insight retreats, or previous vipassana experience (please contact us individually for assesment).

Vipassana is the direct seeing into the true nature of things and our experience of them. We meditate on  Anicca (Impermanance of condition states), Dukkha (Suffering or instability of conditioned states), and Anatta (No-self/impersonal nature of all things) to see things as they are. This lies at the heart of the Buddhas teachings as it swiftly allows us to relinquish our attachment which is the root cause of our suffering. Previous experience is required.

The Heart Essence of Awakened Mind

The aim of meditation that has liberation as its goal is to become more unconditioned in our approach to life, and ultimately let go of all conditioning. To do so we investigate the conditioned states that make up our egos and the world that we live in, penetrating through to the essences of all condition things: impermanance and suffering.  Many yogis can get lost in the minutia of this process, and in doing so miss the wood from the trees. The ultimate goal of the noble eightfold path is to get fully beyond self, to do so we need to understand the noble truth of Anatta, no self. Being introduced to and familiarizing oneself with an inherent state of awareness ( sometimes called our Buddha Nature) that is already and always has been beyond the entanglement of conditioned states, is a huge refuge while walking the path, and allows yogis’ insight into the Noble truth of Anatta to quickly mature. During the retreat we will also be focusing on internal energy work to help open the internal channels, and deepen your minds capacity for concentration and insight.

PLEASE NOTE REQUIREMENTS: you must have sat at least one of our Introductory retreat, or have substantial past of experience as a yogi.

The 10 day Introduction to Jhana

This is a retreat for old students or practiced meditators who wish to develop their Serenity practice further.

The retreat is designed to help people to deepen their understanding of the Jhanas and develop them according to their capacity. You will also have the opportunity to stay at Beacon Bank for the rest of the month to practice and mature what you have learnt. What a wonderful way to spend your early summer.

Dream Yoga and Journeying retreat

This retreat will be held in rural Staffordshire, at our yogic center. There will be nights spent around fires in historic local parkland as part of our journeying work.

The first aspect of dream yoga is to bring more awareness into our dreams. Following this we will learn to consciously enter sleep and guide the subtle energies of our body in ways that bring specific healing responses and allow multi-dimensional journeying. The final goal to remain conscious during sleeping so that we might in time come to recognize the pure state of clear consciousness that the mind rests in whilst sleeping. This is a very profound practice which gives us direct access to the highest of meditative states.

Different aspects of the mind reveal themselves at different stages of the night, and we will be keeping dreaming journals and waking regularly to recall our dreams and enter directly into meditation from them. We will take rest in the day to sleep and continue this process.

Our meditation practice will revolve around our nightly dream activities as well as our waking consciousness.

The hidden aspects of our psyche reveal themselves more freely in the unhindered state of dreaming when we are freed of our self consciousness and the bounds of temporal and spatial reality. Whilst this can be unsettling at times it affords us tremendous insight into what may lie hidden and unexpressed within us, giving an the opportunity to process things which we may not consciously choose to, and yet impact us daily. This will be done in group session and with dream interpretation which can be very healing for the group as well as individuals. You do not have to share anything that you are not comfortable with.

Processing this information takes a certain courage and maturity: a willingness to embrace, integrate and work with the dark and the light aspects of our being: and reconnect with deeper intelligence beyond our selves. You will also be asked to start the practice of recalling your dreams some time before the retreat commences.