The Path of Mindfulness
A Seven-Day Silent Retreat
12th – 19th May 2012
Christina Feldman & John Peacock
Download Ammerdown 2012 Booking form 
(This retreat is now fully booked but please do get in touch with us so that we can inform you of any possible retreats we might hold in the near future)
Participating in an extended silent retreat is an invaluable way of deepening the personal practice of mindfulness meditation, and is viewed as an indispensable step to becoming an instructor in mindfulness-based approaches,
including Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT).
This 7-day silent retreat will be held in the tranquil rural setting of Ammerdown and led by two of the UK’s most experienced and best known meditation teachers. It represents an opportunity for practitioners with an established meditation practice to deepen their personal experience of mindfulness meditation, and to explore its roots in the Buddhist tradition, as a foundation for teaching others.
To be mindful is to see ‘what is’, not to search for what may be. With mindfulness, we see that all striving for attainment is a conflict between what is and the ideal, which is not. Mindfulness can be seen as an intelligent awareness without the conflict between ‘what is’ and the fantasy of an abiding self, beset with attachments, hopes and fears.
To be fully aware in all situations and conditions of life is what the Buddha meant when he said, in the Discourse on the Establishment of Mindfulness (Satipatthana Sutta), that we should be mindful in while sitting, standing, lying down, or walking. ‘Fully aware’ means being aware with our whole being of the ‘way things are’ and living accordingly.
To establish mindfulness four contemplations are used: body, feelings, mind and mind-objects. Through these, the Buddha believed we could learn to understand and take control of our lives.
In this silent retreat, we shall engage in a range of practices based on the Satipatthana Sutta. The retreat will include intensive meditation practice, both sitting and walking, as well as teaching, discussion, and interviews.
The Teachers
Christina Feldman is a co-founder of Gaia House and a member of the Teacher Council. She has been leading Insight Meditation retreats since 1976. She is a Guiding Teacher of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. She has written a number of books including Woman Awake, The Way of Meditation, Silence and Buddhist Path to Simplicity.
John Peacock has been a Buddhist meditation practitioner for over forty years, and has been teaching meditation for 27 years. He is an academic as well as a practitioner, and has lectured in Buddhist Studies at the University of Bristol for ten years. At present, he is a member of the Gaia House Teachers Council, Associate Director of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, and a tutor on Oxford University’s Master of Studies in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy.
