Awakening the Buddha Within with Choden (Fully Booked)

January 5 - 7, 2024

Catered Camping – R 1,400.00
Farmhouse Restio – R 2,400.00
Cloister Inner – R 2,400.00
Cloister Outer – R 2,400.00
Cottage Heron – R 4,800.00
Courtyard Single Occupancy – R 3,700.00
Farmhouse Single Occupancy – R 3,700.00
Garden Room Single Occupancy – R 4,100.00
Courtyard Shared Double Occupancy – R 5,700.00
Farmhouse Double Occupancy – R 5,700.00
Garden Room Double Occupancy – R 6,300.00

Awakening the Buddha Within: The Practice of Wisdom and Compassion

The Buddha Within is our true nature that remains undamaged, whole and free despite all the ups and downs of our lives. One classic Buddhist text refers to it as a piece of gold that lies buried beneath the manure of our emotional afflictions and struggles.

The path to recovering the gold is through the practice of wisdom and compassion. We practice wisdom by cultivating the power of awareness that frees us from our limiting habits to reveal the full splendour of who we really are. We practice compassion by responding with kindness and understanding to the confusion and pain we experience within ourselves and by extending this compassion to others.

Choden will explore how we cultivate awareness in stages: first we disentangle awareness from our thoughts and emotions and negative mind states. This is the birth of mindfulness but it is only the first stage. Second, we realise that everything occurs within the space of awareness like clouds appear in the sky. Here, we learn to rest in an embodied awareness that gradually opens out to include more and more of our life experience. This is also the expression of compassion. Third, we recognise that everything that arises in the mind is itself an expression of awareness just like waves in the ocean never depart from the ocean itself. This is the birth of nondual awareness.

On this retreat Choden will offer some key teachings and practices for cultivating wisdom and compassion as a way of opening the door to the Buddha Within. The practices will be a combination of sitting meditation and visualisation. There will also be walking meditation outside and nature walks appreciating the natural beauty around Bodhi Khaya.

Includes:

Daily Sessions with Choden
3 Delicious Meals per day
Your Choice of Accommodation
Access to Walking Trails & Swimming Dams
Spring Water from the Taps
Locally-roasted coffee, teas, rusks and fruit

About Choden

A monk within the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, Choden (aka Sean Mc Govern) completed a three-year, three-month retreat in 1997 and has been a practising Buddhist since 1985. He is originally from South Africa where he trained as a lawyer and learned meditation under the guidance of Rob Nairn, an internationally renowned Buddhist teacher. He is now involved in developing secular mindfulness and compassion programmes drawing upon the wisdom and methods of the Buddhist tradition, as well as contemporary insights from psychology and neuroscience. He is an honorary fellow of the University of Aberdeen and teaches on their Postgraduate Study Programme in Mindfulness (MSc) that is the first of its kind to include compassion in its curriculum. He co-wrote a book with Paul Gilbert in 2013, entitled Mindful Compassion that explores the interface between Buddhist and Evolutionary approaches to compassion training. He is also the co-author of two other books: Mindfulness Based Living Course (2018) and From Mindfulness to Insight (2019). In 2016 he completed a one-year retreat focused on the foundation practices of Tibetan Buddhism.