Compassionate Warrior

Online workshop - flowing with uncertainty

Buddha touching the earth with the sky above

In the midst of these challenging times – Covid, terrorism, climate change etc - we have a choice. We can be cowed by anxiety and overwhelm and turn away, or we can use these conditions to develop the strength and courage to be with change, which is, after all, a fundamental truth of life. We can use these times as a gateway to empathy and love.

Touch into and strengthen the compassionate warrior within on this day retreat, offered by Vidyamala, a senior Order member based in the UK.

Session times on Sunday 19 September:

  • 7am - 8.30am teaching session 1 with Vidyamala
  • 11am - 12pm meditation with Suvarnadhi
  • 7pm - 8.30pm teaching session 2 with Vidyamala

A Kiwi who has been living abroad for around 25 years, Vidyamala generously offered to lead an event for us as soon as we went into lockdown again in August 2021.

“I can think of no better person to help us contact the compassionate warrior within than Vidyamala. She has lived with chronic pain since she sustained a spinal injury as a teenager and developed the first mindfulness-based pain management programme in the world so she could share what she had discovered through Buddhist teachings with as many people as possible, whether Buddhist or not. She brings a wealth of practice of the Buddha’s early teachings on mindfulness, as well as the love and outward-focussed compassionate activity of lojong, or mind training, a much later development in the Buddhist world.” – Suvarnadhi

Across two 1.5 hour teaching sessions, we will develop our skills to turn towards body and vedana (feeling tone), loosen our habitual reactions to life and open to something much more fluid and boundless - open to love.

Zoom links will be emailed to you the afternoon before the event. Bookings essential. Suitable for all those who have learned and practised the metta bhavana and mindfulness of breathing meditations.

“Be fully present in our time. Find the courage to breathe in the suffering of the world. Allow peace and healing to breathe out through you in return.” - Akuppa

When

19 September 2021  7:00am-8:30pm

Cost

By koha / donation - bookings essential
Please give as generously as you can. Our income has dropped by around 75% during lockdown. We appreciate you might be in the same boat, so the invitation is simply to give what you can.

Location

Image of The Auckland Buddhist Centre - online
The Auckland Buddhist Centre - online

virtual meeting room

Led by

Portrait of Vidyamala
Vidyamala

My name, given to me at the time of my ordination into the Triratna Buddhist Order in 1995, means ‘Garland of Wisdom’. This is something I…

Portrait of Suvarnadhi
Suvarnadhi

Suvarnadhi became the chairperson of the Auckland Buddhist Centre in May 2021, having practised within the Triratna Buddhist Community for around 13…

Bookings for this event are now closed