The Buddha’s teachings offer us an integrated vision of wisdom and compassion – we can’t be truly compassionate without wisdom, we can’t be truly wise without compassion. But how and where do they actually meet? What does the territory look like, feel like, taste like?
Our Big Sangha Retreat this year is devoted to exploring that meeting place by pointing to ‘wisdom beyond words’. Sangharakshita’s book of the same title will be our main reference point and we will also be linking the retreat with our summer Sangha Nights on the Heart Sutra and our overall theme for the year ‘Awakening the Heart in a Suffering World’.
If an image is helpful, we could borrow from the poet Rumi and say:
Out beyond words
there is a field –
we’ll meet you there
… We’ll live together as a community, meditate in the beautiful Adhisthana shrineroom, have workshops and walks, rituals and talks. There will be words – but words in the service of that place ‘beyond words’, where true wisdom and true compassion are (with practice) to be found.
Led by the Centre team: Bhadra, Khemajoti, Naravira and Satyalila.
Open to all (order members, mitras and those who have done an intro course) practising within the Bristol mandala. It would be great to have loads of you joining us! (You need to be over 18!)
