Our practice is based on mindfulness, which emerges from the continuity of awareness. How can we maintain continuous awareness? By recognising the fact that awareness is part of nature; it’s not something we need to generate. When we “try” to be aware, our effort is based on our desire to be someone different, to have something different. But if we are already aware, then what is there to try for? When we stop trying and allow ourselves to recognise what is already here, the continuity of awareness naturally emerges.

This retreat is co-taught with Emma Pittaway. Emma teaches an approach to satipaṭṭhāna based on her training in the lineage of Mahāsi Sayādaw and Shwe Oo Min Sayādaw, an early teacher at the Mahāsi Centre. Inspired by the Buddha and his followers, who lived and meditated in the forest, she draws on the natural world to support her practice. She is the principal insight teacher at the Kuan Yin Meditation Centre in Lismore, NSW.