Liberating Insight into the Emptiness of Self and Experience

Online nine-week course 

With Juha Penttilä and Yahel Avigur

Wednesday evenings starting 13 March (6-8pm GMT, then BST)

Registrations for this course have now closed.

Thus should you think of all this fleeting world:

Like a drop of dew, or like a star at dawn;

A bubble in a stream,

a flash of lightning In a summer cloud,

A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream

~ The Diamond Sutra

Insight into emptiness is at the heart of the Buddha Dharma, and the emptiness of self is a central gateway into this wisdom. Yet amidst our daily lives, the experience of self may feel unquestionably real, with our whole life wrapped around this important and, at times, complex sense of self.

In this course, we will focus on meditative practices, which will support an experiential understanding of how the self is fabricated and how it can be compassionately loosened, liberated, and recreated differently.

In practising the anatta way of looking, we will become more familiar with the mind’s intuitive tendency to identify with the objects of experience; we habitually conceive of the bodily sensations, thoughts, mind states, emotions and moments of consciousness as either belonging to ourselves or as parts of our selves. In this meditation, we learn to compassionately and joyfully let go of this habitual identification and see all experience as neither self nor belonging to self.

We will also explore Chandrakirti’s seven-fold analytical reasoning, an intricate and radical practice in which one is looking for the self, wherever it may be and discovering its ultimate unfindability. These two meditative approaches will support the deepening of an experiential understanding of the empty, illusory nature of the self and all the aggregates that constitute experience, opening the door to the abundant compassion such understanding may bring.

Experience required

For experienced practioners.

Using Zoom

This online retreat will use the Zoom platform. For support with learning how to use Zoom, please click here to read the guidance we’ve put together on our website. Please read the first section, ‘Using Zoom’, before registering.

Enquiries

If you have any questions regarding the retreat, you can send an email to onlinecoordinator@gaiahouse.co.uk.

Dana/generosity

None of your registration fee goes to the teachers. Gaia House teachers rely on the generosity of students for their livelihood. There will be an opportunity to make a dana offering to the teachers at the end of the sessions/course.

Click here to read more about the practice of dana.

Dana can be offered to Juha and Yahel using PayPal:

• Juha
• Yahel

Or via the Gaia House website.  Please click on Teacher and then specify that your donation is for ‘liberating insight online’ in the notes section on the checkout page.

Dana can also be offered to Gaia House.   To make a donation please click here and specify that your donation is for as above, ‘liberating insight online’ in the notes section on the checkout page. Your support is greatly appreciated and helps us to continue offering the teachings of the Dharma from our centre in Devon and online.

With deep appreciation for your generosity.