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returning to monchique

Jan 10, 2019
3 min

returning to monchique

It is with pleasure that I can announce the resumption of our silent meditation and yin yoga retreats at Karuna Center in Algarve, Portugal where we will be holding our week-long retreat from July 20th to the 27th, 2019. Some of you may know that we had to interrupt our retreats there due to the wildfires that swept across the Serra de Monchique last summer just after our last period of practice. The center has risen from its ashes and is able to host us again. This is a happ

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this practice has a lifeline of highs and lows

Dec 19, 2018
4 min

this practice has a lifeline of highs and lows

It is hard to put into words my experience of the past 6 days silent meditation and yoga retreat. This surprises me as this was my 3rd sesshin organised by Maitri Retreats and Hamid Ebadi. I met Hamid 3 years ago when completing my yoga teacher training in Canggu, Bali. Hamid was my meditation teacher and I began speaking to him via Skype sessions on a weekly basis and have done so ever since. This is where my spiritual journey or just ‘ journey’ began. My first silent retrea

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today, i hold myself

Oct 19, 2018
3 min

today, i hold myself

I write this as it is approaching three months since I spent six days on a silent meditation retreat in the hills of Monchique, Portugal. I regret not having written this sooner, when my thoughts and feelings would be fresh, having poured out of me and into my journal during those days. I also feel hesitant to return to that time, feeling so far removed from it in this moment. Those six days are now rendered so unreal, so unlike my current state that I must have been only so

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mujo, when the wind of impermanance howls

Oct 9, 2018
2 min

mujo, when the wind of impermanance howls

photo: lorelei loveridge For some reason, I came home from work, cooked dinner, fell asleep, and woke at 1 AM. Meditated after a bit and found myself remembering - daydreaming slightly as I was/am tired - in this meditation about our sits in the late afternoon as the Sierra de Monchique winds picked up. I remembered them howling as we sat. I remember looking across the floorboards in front of me aware of the sounds all around me. I remember the stillness of sitting there, shi

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the pathless one in you

Sep 25, 2018
1 min

the pathless one in you

on the anatolian plateau, september 2018 from my travels to where and nowhere . autrement dit the point of the journey is in the travel . travels are pointless . they have no start and no end they take us nowhere . who is the traveler . where is she . travels that take us nowhere and to nowhere . nowhere is a grand palace it is our home . its walls are made of air thin air . its doors are passageways of winds . its roof is the sky . where is this . where are we . we kee

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at home in heaven and hell

Sep 1, 2018
3 min

at home in heaven and hell

' In this world we walk on the roof of hell gazing at flowers. " Kobayashi Issa (1763 - 1827) This is heaven, call it home. This is hell, call it home. Whatever it is, become intimate with it. To become intimate with it is to own it. These lines by the Japanese haiku master and Buddhist priest Issa are consoling and speak to us in a direct way about our human condition. What is touching here is how the poet expresses the fundamentally ambiguous nature of the human conditi

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starting sesshin

Aug 2, 2018
1 min

starting sesshin

orientation talk on the first day of our july 2018 sesshin in sierra de monchique, algarve, portugal. a presentation of the practice of shikantaza, just sitting: to be simply aware of what arises and bringing one's full attention to it during meditation without seeking any reward as a result of it. zen meditation is about what manifests itself right in this moment, right in each moment, without trying to direct what is unfolding from moment to moment to some future goal. we

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those greater forces around us

Jun 26, 2018
2 min

those greater forces around us

Less than a month to our silent meditation retreat in the Serra de Monchique, Portugal. Some of you are making the journey from other parts of the planet just to come and share this week of intense practice with me. I feel gratitude and am humbled for your showing up. To sit still in silence for a week is a rare occasion to recollect body-mind and gather oneself in the presence of greater forces and to sense, at moments when the ripples on the mind calm down, the posture beco

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sesshin notes V / april 2018

May 27, 2018
1 min

sesshin notes V / april 2018

cold wind roaring through monchique hills down into the valley though silent we stand on your way are part of your voice with giant boulders young eucalipti we speak through you wind we are your pathway your voice as you unleash your music onto the world #zenpoetry #sesshin #zazen #dharma #meditation #shunyata

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silence teaches what is beyond words

May 24, 2018
1 min

silence teaches what is beyond words

one of the more impactful and profound experiences given to us to live is to recollect heart and mind in an intensive period of silent and still sitting. this is a moment when, while attending and caring for whatever unfolds outside, we begin to turn our light inwards, as the buddha encouraged us to do in his last recorded words. to turn our light inwards is another way of speaking of intamacy and homecoming. intimacy means, no one other than you, can take the steps, often st

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shikantaza, just sitting

Mar 10, 2018
3 min

shikantaza, just sitting

Zazen is at once a bare-bone form of meditation and at the same time it is not one. Historically it’s a twice millennial practice passed on through generations by the Buddha as the unique gateway to liberating us humans from the rounds of birth and death and the suffering that comes from being trapped in Samsara, the world of delusion and ignorance. But also it is not meditation in the sense we ordinarily understand it to be. This practice has no object and is not meant to be

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sensei ryotan tokuda

Mar 8, 2018
5 min

sensei ryotan tokuda

Today I would like to present you Master Tokuda Igarishi. The first time I met him was in a small Parisian apartment where he and a few of his students would gather twice a week to sit zazen. That was back in the Winter of 1997. Three years later he formally accepted me as his disciple, and ordained me monk and gave me the dharma name Tetsu_un which I would loosely translate, from the explanation I received from hims as: explore to the end what it is to be a cloud. Now that

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the art of meditation : when we sit in sesshin

Feb 19, 2018
1 min

the art of meditation : when we sit in sesshin

Sitting through a sesshin is something you need to come and experience for yourself as this is as personal an experience as it gets and no one can tell you beforehand what to expect or not to expect. It's above all about deepening your sense of intimacy with yourself, with the breath that fills your lungs, with the thoughts and emotions that disturb and unsettle you at times, with the walls surrounding you, with those sitting in silence next to you, with the roof that shelter

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is there someone called the teacher?

Dec 15, 2017
3 min

is there someone called the teacher?

in conversation with : Therese Lind Bjellder @thereselindbillie So basically a teacher's work is to reveal our hidden potential to us and yes, the inspiration he or she gives is this: take a step out of the fear that is restraining you. That step is letting ourselves fall into the unknown. -Hamid Ebadi @hamid.ebadi0 🗣🙏🏽💫🍀#myteacher #thankful I wish to one day again sit for hours and listen to your magical beautiful words describing the indescribable ---------------------

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psalm

Dec 4, 2017
1 min

psalm

here not to grasp here to bear earth upholds us universe motherly we can cry our fill cries heeded and heard stones hear us stars hear and entreat us god hears us god helps us stand upright as we cast our lament into his illumined night with us in every wail we could not have cried had he not wished to hear us we are the provider's sigh echoed back in the provider's ear we are your tear crystalline lord your eye blind a chaos adrift mirroring loneliness infinite go #vianegati

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things falling apart

Dec 4, 2017
2 min

things falling apart

when things start falling apart, hold on to your seat. albert camus puts it this way: there is no love of life without despair of life. but pain, sadness, grief and and despair are at odds with our deep-rooted belief in a life free from them, a life of permanent bliss and happiness. there is nothing wrong with us wanting this but an honest relationship with life soon makes us understand love and despair, happiness and pain, light and dark are not only inseparable but co

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passing through the gate

Dec 1, 2017
1 min

passing through the gate

we passed this gate to reach our place of practice, a towering ganesha greeting us. we sat through an intensive period of meditation knowing little of the tumult unfolding in the world outside. when we ended our retreat and broke silence we found out about the intensified activities of mount agung and its imminent eruption. when you meet the world, your mind quiet and still, you see events in their unfolding, favorable or unfavourable, as they just are: manifestations of impe

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and the rest is silence

Oct 7, 2017
3 min

and the rest is silence

and the rest is silence the sheer beauty of osho's words arrested me this morning: “ our existence is nothing but a sound in the immense ocean of silence.” as i sat with his words these ripples surfaced and began floating towards me: we emerge out of that ocean and return to that ocean. you can call that ocean the tao, the primal source, the universe, or any other name of your liking. any name will do as no name will do. no name will do as it is beyond names and naming. beyo

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to the broke and the broken

Oct 7, 2017
4 min

to the broke and the broken

Our sesshin (silent meditation retreat) in Monchique, South Portugal, is less than a month away. Some of you have written to express your interest but find it difficult to come for financial reasons. Some others feel you are not in a good enough space to get involved with intensive meditation practice, that it may become overwhelming. Whatever that may be, in the words of Jim Morrison of the Doors, what a lyricist: The time to hesitate is through! Reflecting on these obstacle

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to friends old and new on the path

Oct 7, 2017
2 min

to friends old and new on the path

over the past ten years, i have had the honor to share teachings with many students in india, bali and some other parts of the world. the setting of these teachings has primarily been at yoga teacher trainings, something rather uncommon for a zen teacher, this being the background i am coming from. what distinguishes the common from the uncommon is something you begin to lose sight of the more you follow your own deeper calling. your life has a mysterious way of unfolding the

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