To attend this retreat you will need to have been regularly meditating for at least two years and regularly attend retreats, a centre or a group within the context of the Triratna Buddhist Community. You must also be comfortable with extended periods of sitting meditation, Buddhist devotional practice and spending most of the retreat in silence.
In many myth and fairy tales the appearance of a white animal leads the hero or heroine to leave home and begin their adventure. This is the ‘call’ to leave the narrow confines of the familiar and marks the beginning of a spiritual journey towards a deeper experience of ourselves and our relationship with the world. The White Deer can therefore symbolise the start of the individual’s movement from a naive egocentric position to one of more maturity and aware connection with others. On this retreat we will take this journey together through meditation and ritual and the conscious cultivation of a sense of community and mutual support.
“...your body might reveal its self to you, as a home for the world, a glimpse that you, are entirely beyond yourself, like the white deer at the beginning of a fable, and if without hesitation you follow, you will find yourself gloriously lost, in the rise and fall of your seasons” – From the poem ‘If you are lucky in this life’ by Paramananda
Paramananda has been teaching meditation and leading retreats around the world for over 30 years and is also a poet and author of four books on meditation: Change Your Mind, A Deeper Beauty, The Body and The Myth of Meditation.
Prices for this event are: £360 - £330 (Conc)