The heart’s release: Cultivating the Spiritual Faculties
In Buddhist practice, confidence, energy, mindfulness, collectedness and insight are cultivated together as the five spiritual faculties (Indriya). These qualities exist naturally in the mind and have both a linear and dynamic interplay. By developing them in meditation practice, we more clearly understand what needs balancing in both our meditation and overall spiritual cultivation.
When all five faculties are brought to fulfilment they overflow in the heart’s release. A heart released from suffering and its causes has an embodied realisation of Nibbāna: freedom from the stress inherent in misunderstanding the world.
In this retreat, we will encourage you to develop an attuned approach to your meditation and to on-going experience – just as it is. This generates a safe holding for practice in an ethically sensitive environment. Noble silence will be a support to quieten the mind and deepen the enquiry.
Reflections on the Buddha’s teachings, Q&A sessions, individual practice meetings with the teachers and optional mindful movement will be offered each day.
The schedule will include structured periods of sitting and walking meditation, as well as the opportunity for less structured practice for more experienced practitioners.
There will also be some opportunities for relational practice in pairs or small groups, to support our sangha / community connections.