Dhanakosa Buddhist Retreat Centre
Dhanakosa Buddhist Retreat Centre
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Centre Team
Centre Team

A special episode of the podcast to invite you to Alive In Nature! - a series of live meditations and Dharma adventures from the Scottish Highlands!

Find our more and reserve your space on Alive In Nature!

For three Saturdays in spring or autumn - whichever hemisphere you are in, whatever state of lockdown you're living through - you're invited to sit with us and the amazing team from the Dhanakosa community in the birch woods of the Scottish Highlands. And to find your own "micro-adventure" in nature - in your own way, at your own pace (even if it's looking out your window!). 

By way of introduction to this experience, in this episode we go on a walk over the hillside at Balquhidder in the beautiful Trossachs region. The burn (brook) runs down the mountain through cataracts and waterfalls to the loch (lake) below; the snow in the pine forest crunches underfoot as we climb with Nayaka to a place of owls and foxes and roe deer...

As he walks, Nayaka reflects on his own experience of a reciprocated relationship with nature, where our own being is invited in. A relationship in which our aliveness and the aliveness of the world around us are not two separate things; where letting go can happen, where emergence can arise.
The sense of love and sheer delight is so strong here - and you are invited in!

Come to Alive in Nature!

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Our longer form podcast, featuring great in-depth conversations with Buddhists from around the world. Inspiring stories that illuminate for modern times the Buddha's example of how to live and find true freedom.

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Sadayasihi
Sadayasihi

April 16-18

Exploring the Buddha’s relationship with nature: a study practice weekend with Dhivan

The teaching of the Buddha is practical and concerned with the ending of dukkha or suffering. But the life-story of the Buddha shows him becoming Awakened at the foot of the Bodhi tree, encouraged and sheltered by the nāgas or mythical snakes, and having defeated Māra with the help of the Earth Goddess. These symbols of tree, snake and goddess tell us something on the level of myth and story about the animistic context of Awakening.

This weekend will offer an opportunity to study Buddhism with Dhivan, an Order member and Buddhist scholar who works in the area of early Buddhism as well as Buddhism and ecology. We will be looking at discourses from the Pāli canon and extracts from the traditional life-stories of the Buddha that show the Buddha in an intimate relationship with nature. By entering into this story we start to understand how an imaginative relationship with nature as a living whole is an important condition for our own Dharma lives.

Session content to be confirmed but times as below:

Friday
7.30–9pm: Introductions, talk, meditation

Saturday
7.30–8.30am: Meditation
10.30am –12pm: Talk and discussion in groups
4.30–6pm: Talk and discussion in groups
7.30–8.30pm: Meditation and ritual

Sunday
7.30–8.30am: Meditation
10.30am: Talk and discussion in groups
4.30–5.30pm: Concluding session

Find out more about this event - including link to book

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Dhanakosa
Dhanakosa

Nature is for many of us an important source of spiritual nourishment in an increasingly busy world. On this retreat we combined traditional Buddhist teachings with the simple practice of spending time walking in the rich and beautiful landscapes that surround Dhanakosa.

Come on retreat at Dhanakosa: https://www.dhanakosa.com/retreats

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Centre Team
Centre Team
Triratna Day: Dhanakosa 2017

Dhanakosa shares a great compilation of highlights here from their 2017 celebration of Triratna Day, with scenes from the landscape, preparations, talks, and a wonderful view of a beautiful shrine beneath the tent.

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Yashobodhi
Yashobodhi
Last blog post of the 2014 This Being Retreat
Well all comes to an end. On the ceasing of this, that ceases. We've been using a round chant before some of the reflections and during some evenings. The evening events have been fairly simple. We have been chanting the Pali imasmim mantra, followed by a sutta that Dhivan had mentioned in the teaching session and then a period of meditation. After that we alternately did the Threefold puja and the Dhammapada puja, with some readings and a Shakyamuni mantra. Tonight will be doing another Dhammapada puja preceded by a short reporting out in the shrine room. I'm off tomorrow morning. Goodbye from us all here and thank you for tuning in.
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Yashobodhi
Yashobodhi
In the last session of the This Being retreat, Dhivan moves from the three marks of existence to the Middle Way and ends with Nibbana. The latter he beautifully translates as blowing out the flame of compulsion, hostility and confusion. He also addresses the issue of not-self. This is the last full day of the retreat and nearly the end of the uploads here from this retreat. I will hopefully post the This Being That Becomes round chant we have been using on the retreat later today.
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Yashobodhi
Yashobodhi
This being, led meditation 5
Yesterday afternoon Nayaka led a meditation on the spiral path. Most important fact is that it unfolds naturally. ie without wilfulness. In this recording Nayaka gently shows where there could be an opening to the spiral path in our experience.
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Yashobodhi
Yashobodhi
Shrine with 24 nidanas
Dhivan has added the spiral path to the shrine. It is complete. Only nirvana remains.
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Free Buddhist Audio
Free Buddhist Audio
This Being Day 6, How Everything Ties Together
Dhivan talks about the three marks of existence, the Middle Way and ends with Nibbana.
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Free Buddhist Audio
Free Buddhist Audio
This Being Led Meditation 5
In this led meditation Nayaka encourages us to find our footing on the spiral path.
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Yashobodhi
Yashobodhi
This Being retreat day 5, The Spiral Path
This session started with the word joy on the flipchart. After that Dhivan asked us to name something that had come up for us with the retreat as condition. As we went round, it was very moving to hear how the retreat was supporting people to work with past and current situations and helping them to set up more conducive conditions for the future.
In this sessioin Dhivan emphasised the natural unfolding of the different steps on the spiral path.
He also correlated the Noble Eightfold Path and the spiral path.
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Yashobodhi
Yashobodhi
This Being, led meditation 4
Yesterday afternoon, Nayaka led a beautiful reflection on the five kandhas (or skandhas in Sanskrit). I thought his exploration was very clear, interesting and insightful.. A particular interesting part for me was that he had us playing with the skandha of cogntion, saññā. Thoroughly recommended.
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Yashobodhi
Yashobodhi
Shrine with nidanas, complete
Dhivan has put the remaining nidana links on the shrine. We're onto the spiral path today. Swoosh.
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Free Buddhist Audio
Free Buddhist Audio
This Being Day 5, The Spiral Path
Dhivan talks about the spiral path and emphasises how it naturally unfolds.
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Free Buddhist Audio
Free Buddhist Audio
This Being Led Meditation 4
Nayaka leads a clear and skilful meditative exploration of the five skandhas.
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Yashobodhi
Yashobodhi
Today we're exploring the underlying tendencies that give shape to our experience. We're also going into the psychology of conceptual and perceptual proliferation and are presented with a model that explains how exactly we become a proverbial 'tangle of string covered in mould and matted like grass'.
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Yashobodhi
Yashobodhi
This Being, led meditation 3
In a led meditation Dhivan guides us along some aspects of the structure of our experience.
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Yashobodhi
Yashobodhi
On the third day we went into the structure of experience using the nidana chain as a model.
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Yashobodhi
Yashobodhi
This Being, led meditation 2
A meditation led by myself investigating body, the six senses, contact and feeling in our experience.
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Yashobodhi
Yashobodhi
We've moved into the territory of the creative and reactive mind, of the spiral path and samsara, and the pivotal role of feeling in the nidana chain. Here's Dhivan going into this and translating all this lingo into everyday English.
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