2026 - The Year ahead with Burgs & AoM
Dear Friends,
We have put this message together along with a video overview to help you navigate your way through our offerings for next year, and to decide what courses or programmes might be most supportive and suitable for where you are individually.
My hope is that I can offer each of you a supportive journey for you to explore meditation and wellbeing.
Starting in January 2026 - Spritual Self Care & Internal Alchemy Challenge 2026
For those getting established in meditation
Living Dharma & other Retreats
We hope you will be able to join us next year, either online, or in-person. If you have any questions then please do get in touch.
with much love
Burgs and the AoM team
Energetics of Spiritual Self Care Weekend 10th/11th January 2026
Open to all, Energetic self-care is fundamental to success in meditation and all of our spiritual practice. perhaps even more importantly, the state of our subtle energetic makeup absolutely determines the quality of our experience in daily life. It’s all too easy to only see things such as stress, anxiety and insomnia as psychological problems. But a large part of these conditions are a reflection of the fact that we are poorly organised energetically.
This weekend retreat is designed to supplement your meditation practice, to give you the tools to regulate and self-manage the health of your subtle energy body.
Open to all interested. Registration will open 1st January 2026. Weekend will be hosted 10th/11th January 2026.
Internal Alchemy 90 day Challenge
starts Wed 14th January 2026
In the first three months of 2026, Burgs will be curating an online journey that will look at developing the internal energetic capacity we each have, in preparation for meditation practice.
This will be an online programme with regular lessons that will explore the. variety of aspects to yogic endeavour (standing practices, breathwork, movement and meditation).
Open to all interested. Registration will open 1st January 2026. Programme starts Wednesday 14th January 2026.
For those getting established on the path of meditation -
Stage 1: In your first few years of practice / you are getting established in your practice.
Stillness Programme Online ( 8 weeks) - Setting up a meditation practice and introduction to Natural Awareness.
Level 1 Online : The Art of Meditation (12 weeks) - Developing direct perception.
For those of you who are relatively new to meditation or who may have previous practice but are interested in following Burgs' system of teaching we have two online self-paced courses which form the foundation and preliminary practices to everything else that we offer. We highly recommend that you follow these courses as your first steps with us if you haven't previously attended our 7 day Foundations in the Art of Meditation retreat.
Which course is right for you?
Please note that if you have previous experience with meditation but are new to working with Burgs, the Stillness Programme is a more appropriate starting point because it introduces to the skill of Direct Perception and Natural Awareness which is the basis of everything else he teaches.
If you have already received these teachings from Burgs on retreat or online then “The Foundations in the Art of Meditation” will help you to establish the fundamentals of both insight and concentration meditation practices with a slight leaning towards how to use these meditations for mental and physical health and healing.
Intermediate to Advanced level - You that have been on retreat at least once and /or have been practicing for three years or more
Stage 2: Exploring the path of Liberating Insight meditation: “Love as the Path” is Burgs' deep exploration of how the traditional development of the stages of Insight meditation ( Vipassana) can be incorporated into the path by which we take the maturing and cultivation of our capacity to experience and feel love and compassion as the antidotes to the root causes of suffering ( greed aversion and ignorance).
This year long curated online programme takes you on a deep journey of exploration into the heart of the Buddha's teachings on Suffering, it causes and the cessation of its causes, and presents the path within the context of transforming the root causes into 'Love and Compassion' AS the path.
Stage 3: The Art of Concentration. This year long curated online programme is a deep dive into the discipline and energetics of higher concentration practices. Gradually steering and preparing you for the experience of genuine absorption or jhana. We do this through exploring various meditations subjects as preparation and intermediate practices leading to the 4 elements and the kasina practices and the doorway into jhana/samadhi.
Which course is right for you?
This is a fascinating subject in its own right because some people will progress best learning insight before concentration and for others it will be the opposite. Regardless of which order we do this work, ultimately we need to learn and develop both of these two key areas of practice if we are to go on to develop genuine liberating insight and freedom from suffering.
My personal experience is that the majority of people find it easier to develop insight first as it performs the function of refining and diminishing many of the grosser hindrances of mind that make success in higher stages of concentration difficult to achieve. For this reason I would normally recommend doing 'Love as the Path' before 'The Art of Concentration.' That said, I do understand that some of you may wish to do it the other way around.
Registration for “Love as the Path” and “The Art of Concentration” online programmes will open March 2026.
Advanced Practice - You are well established in meditation and have been on numerous in-person retreats.
Advance Internal Alchemy programme
Heart Essence of the Awakened Mind in-person retreat (March 2026)
Once you have established yourselves well in both insight and concentration practice you may then want to go on to unify these two approaches in what is sometimes called "The Union of Bliss and Emptiness" or the "Union of Wisdom and Compassion".
These practices Burgs teaches almost exclusively on our in-person “Heart Essence of the Awakened Mind” retreat. Burgs also offers the “Advanced Stage Internal Alchemy” programme which runs along side the 'Heart essence' practice as the subtle energetic / yogic preparatory work that supports the practice of liberating insight through natural rest.
Those who have completed the preliminary practices of "Love as the Path" and "The Art of Concentration" may like to go on to explore this work on retreat. The Advanced Internal Alchemy program is also offered online.
Please note -
Many people may feel they will need to return to the "Love as the Path" and or "The Art of Concentration" to further deepen their insight and concentration practice in support of these more advanced practices. Others may reach the point where they can leave behind all of the gradual trainings and embark upon the direct approach of the “Heart Essence”.
It is highly recommended that at this stage of practice, you seek guidance from the teacher in making this decision as it will largely depend upon your previous penetration of the stages of insight and levels of concentration.
“Living Dharma” self-paced online programme for all levels
While there are many reasons why we might want to meditate, for those of you who are seeking to free yourself from suffering, we are ultimately meditating so that liberating insight may mature in us and help us cut off at the root the causes of our suffering. This is central to everything the Buddha taught us. To supplement your meditation practices of any level, we also offer our self-paced course, “Living Dharma”.
This programme follows roughly the structure of Burgs book of the same name, taking a deeper look into the four noble truths within the context of our modern lives and householders upon the path. Regardless of what level your meditation practice is personally at, you may like also to explore this self-paced programme as support to your own ongoing Dharma studies.
Available from March 2026.
The value of joining live intensive online weekend retreats
Besides the main online programme of developing concentration, I will be hosting a series of special weekend intensive online retreat experiences for those who like to work in a more focused way on specific areas of practices. These weekends can be seen as a series of masterclasses where we will do a deep dive into various themes with the intention of facilitating significant shifts and transformation in a contained online retreat environment.
This is the time where big breakthroughs in healing and shifts can occur, while a regular structured practice is where everything gets fully integrated and embedded in an accomplished stable practice.
I will be offering several of these intensive weekends over the coming year, looking at various threads to our meditation practice -
Energetics of Spiritual Self Care (Jan 2026)
Healing Meditation (March 2026)
The Art of Breathing (May 2026)
In-person Retreats in 2026
Currently our schedule for 2026 will be focused on smaller retreats hosted in North Portugal. This is where you may chose to come and explore longer periods of self-practice under the guidance of both myself and my assistants. And also where you may choose to come and do a much deeper dive into the neuro reset programme that I offer.
So that's all for now. Have a wonderful Christmas and see you somewhere in the new year.
Thank you everyone and please do get in touch if you have any questions.
Much love to you all
Burgs
