A Modest Awakening
Wabi-sabi Retreat in the Netherlands
The Retreat Setting
This retreat is a special opportunity to be on a wabi-sabi long weekend in the Netherlands, in a smaller, more intimate group, just 10 people.
I’ve just been looking at the Boeddhawierde picture gallery and imagining a spacious and relaxed retreat. It’s summer and there’ll be time to lie in the garden soaking up the sun, or walk in the neighbourhood. There will be plenty of silence, also a few well-chosen movies. But don’t be fooled by all the relaxation. We’ll be going deeply into essential dharma teachings. In fact, it’s often in this atmosphere of relaxation that the truth of the teachings can really sink in.
The Retreat Themes
One theme of the retreat is wabi-sabi. Wabi-sabi is a Japanese aesthetic, which finds beauty and truth in our simple, ordinary experiences.
Another theme is the Buddha’s teaching on the 3 lakshanas. That everything changes, nothing is ever complete and real satisfaction seems always out of reach. These are the harsh truths of human life.
Bringing these two together, the beauty of wabi-sabi will help us as we look deeply into our experience of the 3 marks of existence (laksanas), impermanence, insubstantiality, and dissatisfaction.
When we go deeply into theses experiences, we find that each contains a doorway, an opening into freedom.
We’ll take a down-to-earth approach to Dharma practice. And draw widely on the Buddhist tradition and on contemporary art and culture, weaving them together to create an engaging and enjoyable retreat. You can expect a week of reflection and meditation, with some long periods of silence.
The title of the retreat, A Modest Awakening, comes from an article by Andrew Olendzki. It’s a reminder that transformation isn’t about moving away from life, but going more deeply into it. It’s here and now in our ordinary human life that we have the opportunity to wake up.
For more info and to book go to Boeddhawierde
“If the beautiful were not in us, how would we ever recognise it? ”