What the world needs, and has always needed, are people dedicated to helping both themselves and others to overcome suffering. This is the essence of the Bodhisattva Ideal. With the ever-increasing population in the world there is more and more suffering, so there is an urgent need for us to extend an even larger hand of friendship to all beings.

We have our wonderful urban Buddhist and Retreat centres that help people find ways to deal with the fundamental problem of dukkha (suffering). But they only speak to those who take the initiative to step through their doors. Is this enough?

Vidyamala, Sona and Ratnaguna co-founded the Breathworks project in 2003 to reach out into the world. Their mission is to help people suffering with pain, illness or stress by introducing mindfulness has a health-care intervention. This has been part of the ‘mindfulness boom’ in our society. Tens of thousands of people have learned to meditate in these ‘secular’ contexts. It is now clear that many of them want to go further with their practice, and Vidyamala and Sona are keen to find ways to offer the full Dharmic life as practised in our Triratna Buddhist community to these people.

This workshop is intended to share our vision of how we can do this. It is will also provide an opportunity to learn some of the approaches, techniques and teaching methods that have been developed at Breathworks. These have been highly effective to support people in their practice of the meditation, mindfulness, compassion and insight.