Update June 2023: The gravel road from the Rietvaly turnoff 9 km after Groot Marico has been fixed and graded and is passable once more in a normal sedan car. A reminder to drive slowly and you will arrive with all 4 tyres intact! As you may have seen, we have started recommending that [...]
Drupon Rinpoche often teaches that the way to understand the Dharma is to look at yourself. He suggests looking at your ways of thinking, talking, and conducting yourself and seeing if your words and conduct are consistent with the Dharma. It has been an interesting week, I faced two difficult situations, one business, and one [...]
“What is this life, if full of care, We have no time to stand and stare?” Leisure, W.H. Davies Our Christmas/New Year retreat will be a chance to leave aside the stresses and busyness of city and town and spend time getting in touch with the natural world, the elements as well as our inner [...]
with Lucy Draper-Clarke and Mammatli Thakhuli-Nzuza At first glance, courage and care may seem like opposites: one tough and strong, the other soft and fluffy. Explore more deeply, though, and they intertwine as the mother archetype, offering us access to feminine wisdom. From the clarity that arises in the face of compassion, the greatest courage [...]
In this retreat, we will be learning to work with difficult emotions using a powerful strategy that will enable us to transform our negative emotions, relationships, fears, illnesses, and self-defeating patterns.
The countryside and our little valley look immaculate and very green. We have been blessed with a lot of rain in recent months leaving us with overflowing bridges and a very active waterfall. This has prepared the soil for our tree planting activities at the centre. With the assistance of Alhyrian from the permaculture site, [...]
It’s a soggy Sunday keeping me indoors. This has been one of the wettest January I have recorded since arriving here 18 years ago. Nearly 300mm of rain which is half of our annual rainfall! Greenery is abundant and the grass and weed growth is phenomenal. It feels as if things grow as you look [...]
with Alan Muller The Buddhist path emphasizes study, reflection, and meditation. But sometimes we neglect the study aspect. The study of Buddhist texts is somewhat different from how we normally approach the study of academic subjects. Study, in the spiritual context, is very necessary as it provides the view, the basis, the perspective needed in [...]
Back in the late 1900s, (I kid you not, it was 1997!) my now-husband and I spent just under a year travelling around America in a camper van. It was the most amazing adventure and something I have thought of often in the last few weeks as the Gabby Petito murder unfolds. At the same [...]
Join Martin for a weekend exploring photography as part of a contemplative practice. Develop strategies to express yourself with a camera and discover what it is you wish to express. From a cell phone to a large format film camera, any imaging device is welcome. The retreat will not be focused on the technical aspects [...]
