0 Items
Menu

Community Dharma Leaders Training Programme 2024 – 2025

Applications for the 2024-25 Community Dharma Leaders training have now CLOSED. Places will be offered by the end of September 2023.

Introduction

We live in an insecure, changing world and must navigate our lives through climate crisis while inequality, racism, misogyny, and oppression in all its forms generate untold suffering. For thousands of years, the Buddha’s teaching, and practice of the Dharma have been a source of guidance, refuge and joy for practitioners in meeting the personal, socio-political and environmental sufferings of their times. But we needn’t do this alone.

Community Dharma Leaders (CDLs) bring together local and community groups of people who seek refuge in Dharma, practising this in the heart of their daily lives. Gaia House is now inviting a second cohort of experienced practitioners to apply to train as CDLs, to empower them to serve their communities.

Programme description

The programme offers structured input over 18 months and is open to members of all communities. We wish to particularly encourage applications from practitioners currently under-represented in Insight Meditation leadership in the UK/Europe who identify, for example, as BAME / BIPOC mixed-ethnic heritage, disabled, from a working-class background, or as LGBTQIA+ .

Whatever your background, our vision is that this training programme will support you to deepen your practice, and that you may mature into a CDL who can offer refuge in ways that are more inclusive, relevant and accessible.

This focus will help shape the Insight Meditation movement into a more informed and sensitive culture that embraces the richness and perspectives of a greater diversity of practitioners.

While the programme is open to people from a range of traditions, training will draw primarily on early Buddhist teachings, interpreted and delivered to support a mindful and heartful life in modern society.

Those who graduate will be authorised by the Gaia House Teacher Council to:

  • Lead sitting groups
  • Offer instruction in meditation
  • Offer classes, courses and day-long retreats in their locality or community
  • Share their love and knowledge of Dharma with new and existing practitioners
  • Cultivate diverse, inclusive and culturally-sensitive sanghas

Towards the end of the training, CDL trainees will be supported to plan, lead, and reflect on a Dharma offering such as a short course, or series of classes.

We are confident that this service will be a valuable support for ongoing and deepening Dharma practice outside of retreats, and where access to Dharma teachers is limited.

CDLs who are not ready to graduate after 18 months, but have the potential to, may be supported by mentors to continue their journey.

Completing the training will support you to deepen your dharma practice, but does not guarantee you becoming a Community Dharma Leader. Those who the Gaia House Teacher Council are confident meet all the criteria will graduate as CDLs, and while active in their role, have this listed on the Gaia House website.

 

Core teachers

ANUSHKA FERNANDOPULLE trained in Buddhist meditation for over 30 years. After studying Buddhism at Harvard, she spent four years in full-time meditation training in the US, India and Sri Lanka. She was invited to teach Dharma in 1998 and later went through a four year meditation teacher training program with Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg and other leading teachers. Her teaching is informed by nature, creative arts, political engagement, and modern urban life. For more info visit: Anushkaf.org.

Listen to one of Anushka's talks on AudioDharma: Thirteen ways of looking at Dhamma practice (Duration 39:32)
ZOHAR LAVIE has been practising meditation in different traditions since 1995. This journey has taken her from the meditation cushion into exploring further ways of expressing truth and love and in 2004 she co-founded SanghaSeva. She now spends most of her time facilitating retreats that offer service as a spiritual path around the world. Since 2006 she has been teaching on silent retreats and Dharma gatherings in India, Europe and Israel.

Listen to one of Zohar Lavie’s Talks from the Meeting Uncertainty with Wisdom and Courage: Perennial Teachings for a Changing World retreat on 07.06/2021: Anicca Brings Possibilities (Duration 40:35)

RIVER WOLTON attended her first Insight Meditation retreat in 2000, and subsequently helped to establish Sheffield Insight Meditation. She is a Community Dharma Leader authorised by Gaia House Teacher Council, and has completed Dharma Teacher Training with Bodhi College. A former Derbyshire Poet Laureate, she has led writing and arts projects for many years, and is an activist in the LGBTQI+ community. For further information please visit her website.

Listen to one of River's talks on Dharma Seed: The Story of Ptolemy the Tortoise and Mettā (Duration 46:24)

The teaching and mentoring team will include Dharma teachers, and existing CDLs, including Martine Batchelor, Jenny Wilks, Juha Penttilä, Laura Bridgman, Bernat Font, Dene Donalds, Venerable Canda Theri, Antonia Sumbundu, James Blake, Ella Titman Tamari, Kathryn Tulip, Walter Young, Julia Wallond, Sari Markkanen and others to be confirmed.

 

Format/schedule

  • 26 February – 3 March 2024: Residential retreat at Gaia House
  • April 2024 —Sept 2025: Monthly small group online meetings with mentor (2-hour)
  • April 2024 — Sept 2025: Bi-monthly online group teaching sessions (half-day)
  • 12 – 18 September 2025: Residential retreat at Gaia House
  • Ongoing group and 1:1 mentor support toward graduation if necessary

If you are concerned about being able to physically attend the residential retreats at Gaia House, please contact us to discuss this.

We are looking for people with:
  • Significant residential (primarily silent) retreat experience; a minimum of around 30 days
  • Some years of Dharma practice
  • Familiarity with core Buddhist teachings
  • Regular meditation practice and confidence with it
  • Insight Meditation as a significant part of your spiritual practice
  • A keen interest in understanding and sharing the Buddha’s teachings
  • A clear wish to serve sangha
  • Interest in & willingness to learn more about issues related to diversity, equality & inclusion
  • Life circumstances that allow for CDL training and service at this point in your life

If disability, illness, or other life circumstances have prevented you from accessing residential retreats, please substitute online versions for the residential aspects of the criteria.

We are looking for people who are:
  • Trustworthy and ethical
  • Emotionally and relationally aware
  • Showing potential for leadership
You will also ideally (but not necessarily):
  • Be able to reach a population currently not served (or underserved) by the existing CDL and teacher community (this could be based, for example, on identity or geography)
  • Be connected to an established sangha
  • Have an existing/previous relationship with a recognised teacher, mentor or spiritual leader
  • Have experience of organising and leading groups
  • Have a sufficient personal support network
  • Have experience of work aimed at ending oppression, marginalisation or prejudice and promoting social healing, for instance focussed on race, class, gender, sexuality or any other characteristics
  • Identify as being from the following social locations/communities: young people and young adult, BIPOC / BAME, LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities, working class

We appreciate the service that many practitioners who love and feel a connection to Gaia House are already offering in their communities without any formal training, and we hope that this will continue. This training is for those who feel moved to deepen their practice and are able to lead and serve in our communities – those already in our community, and those who might wish to join and add another level of support for the flourishing of Dharma.

CDLs who graduate will offer Dharma support purely on a voluntary donation (dana) basis. We are therefore making every effort to keep training costs to a minimum.

Rates

To make this training as accessible as possible, significant volunteer time has been put into preparing the course to keep costs as low as possible. The rate is offered on a sliding scale from £1,200 to £2,400, and you are asked to assess your ability to pay and offer whatever you can. There will be a system for making payments in instalments.

This covers the two six-day residential retreats as well as administration costs for the whole programme. It does not cover any study materials that you may need, or travel to and from retreats.

It does not include any contribution to the mentors and teachers who are offering their time freely. Insight Meditation teachers and CDLs in our tradition make their offerings solely on the basis of dana (generosity). You will therefore be invited to offer your programme mentors and teachers dana in the form of financial support to contribute towards their livelihoods, as they will not receive any other financial compensation for their teaching or mentoring.

Scholarship fund application

This programme is open to all but was established with the particular purpose of addressing systemic inequality, which often manifests in financial inaccessibility of services. We warmly welcome your application to our Gaia House Scholarship Fund for up to 100% discount on the programme rate to ensure that this training is accessible to all people from backgrounds currently under-represented in Insight Meditation communities and leadership roles.

Enquiries

If you have any questions or would like to find out more before applying, please email Anshin Ashwood at director@gaiahouse.co.uk

We really look forward to talking to you!

Applications

Applications for this programme are now closed. Successful applicants will be offered a place by the beginning of October 2023 at the latest.

You may be invited for an informal chat as part of the application process.