Retreats
Geshe Tashi: Summer Retreat Gradual Path to Enlightenment
with Geshe Tashi
Saturday 14 - Sunday 22 July
8am - 5pm
Suggested donation £240 (live out)
We ask you to please do a miminum of 3 days in a row to get the benefits of retreat. One day here and there doesn't really cut it and disturbs the group energy.
Over the nine days of the retreat Geshe Tashi will lead students through the meditations of the Gradual Path to Enlightenment cycle of meditations. These meditations are designed to produce a series of emotional responses that stimulate us to seek full enlightenment for the sake of helping all beings be free of suffering and introduce the mediations that bring full enlightenment about.
On the retreat Geshe Tashi will almost certainly offer the opportunity for retreatants to to take the set of 24 hour vows known as the Eight Mahayana Precepts. Geshe Tashi highly recommends these for lay people and tries as much as possible to encourage to take them as many times as possible.
These precepts require of participants:
No killing;
No sexual activity;
No stealing;
No taking of intoxicating substances:
No lying;
no activities that increase judgemental arrogance:
No activities that increase attachment and frivolous busy-ness;
No eating after noon (which according to the lineage Geshe Tashi follows means eating just one meal a day and that before noon).
Remember this and the series of evening meditation classes before it count to your completion of modules 3 and 14 in the FPMT Foundation of Buddhist Thought course. If you are doing the course and working towards a final certificate please remember to get a signed attendance certificate from one or other of the FPMT recognised teachers of Discovering Buddhism at the Centre (currently Steff Hill and Mike Murray)
Additional training for retreat
Depending on the style of retreat and the preferences of the retreat leader retreatants may be encouraged to try out three additional kinds of training in addition to the discipline of retreat.
The first is to keep silence for part or all of the day.
The second is to take the Eight Mahayana Precepts for a period of 24 hours. These precepts are taken in the morning, run for 24 hours, and require participants:
1) not to kill,
2) not to steal,
3) not to lie,
4) not to engage in sexual activity,
5) not to take intoxicants,
6) not to eat after noon,
7) not to act in a way that inceases arrogance, or
8) not to act in a way that increases attachment.
Third, as this set of trainings come from the Buddhist Kriya Tantras these are sometimes supplented by the dietary restrictions of the Krya Tantras. So in addition to the usual Jamyang restrictions - of food not containing fish, flesh, fowl or alcohol - the food also contains no onions, garlic, radish or eggs.
