Retreat Title: Emptiness and the Heart Sutra
Led by led by Tejananda
Form is emptiness, emptiness itself is form
Buddhist practice is aimed at fully awakening to the actual nature of things. One of the most important Mahayana schools, Prajnaparamita, calls this awakening ‘the perfection of wisdom’. Yet the Heart Sutra, a text from this school, makes the mind-boggling assertion that there is no wisdom, nor any attainment or even non-attainment of wisdom! What on earth can we make of this? Such paradoxes suggest that when it comes to things-as-they-are, words and concepts have their limitations and we have to ‘go beyond’ (paragate) them to truly realise what the Dharma is getting at.
We will explore all this on the retreat. As well as brief practical introductions to the main themes of the sutra, there will be led reflective meditations pointing to the emptiness of self in the five skandhas, plenty of time for personal practice, and recitations of the sutra itself.
This retreat is suitable for people who have been meditating for at least 3 years
Start Date: 24th Mar 2017
End Date: 4th Apr 2017
Deposit: £70
Price: £440 (Full Price) / £396 (Conc Price)