Remembering Awareness – Nine-day retreat
with Patrick Kearney and Emma Pittaway
November 6 - 15, 2026
Our practice is based on mindfulness, which emerges from the continuity of awareness. How can we maintain continuous awareness? By remembering that we are already aware. We do not need to generate awareness. When we “try” to be aware, our effort is based on our desire to be someone different, to have something different. But if awareness is already available, 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.
Teachers
Patrick Kearney
Patrick Kearney has practised mindfulness meditation (satipaṭṭhāna vipassanā) since 1977. At that time there was little or no Buddhist meditation training available in Australia, so he spent years travelling in Asia and the USA working with teachers from different Buddhist traditions to learn the craft of meditation practice. Most of his training has been in the insight meditation lineage of Mahāsī Sayādaw of Burma, which included several years as a Buddhist monk. His main teachers were Sayādaw U Paṇḍita and John Hale. He has also trained in the Diamond Sangha lineage of Zen where his teachers have been Robert Aitken…
Learn more about Patrick Kearney
Patrick Kearney has practised mindfulness meditation (satipaṭṭhāna vipassanā) since 1977. At that time there was little or no Buddhist meditation training available in Australia, so he spent years travelling in Asia and the USA working with teachers from different Buddhist traditions to learn the craft of meditation practice. Most of his training has been in the insight meditation lineage of Mahāsī Sayādaw of Burma, which included several years as a Buddhist monk. His main teachers were Sayādaw U Paṇḍita and John Hale. He has also trained in the Diamond Sangha lineage of Zen where his teachers have been Robert Aitken…
Learn more about Patrick Kearney
Emma Pittaway
Emma Pittaway teaches an open ‘natural awareness’ approach that emphasises meditation as a way of being in the world. Her style is drawn from 25 years experience in the Burmese lineage of Mahāsī Sayādaw, via her primary teacher Patrick Kearney, and her training with Sayādaw U Tejaniya. These two influences combine relaxation and creativity with investigation and clarity. Inspired by the Buddha and his followers, who lived and meditated in the forest, Emma draws on the natural world to support her practice. She is the principal insight teacher at the Kuan Yin Meditation Centre in Lismore, NSW.
Learn more about Emma Pittaway
Emma Pittaway teaches an open ‘natural awareness’ approach that emphasises meditation as a way of being in the world. Her style is drawn from 25 years experience in the Burmese lineage of Mahāsī Sayādaw, via her primary teacher Patrick Kearney, and her training with Sayādaw U Tejaniya. These two influences combine relaxation and creativity with investigation and clarity. Inspired by the Buddha and his followers, who lived and meditated in the forest, Emma draws on the natural world to support her practice. She is the principal insight teacher at the Kuan Yin Meditation Centre in Lismore, NSW.
Learn more about Emma Pittaway