One of the most urgent challenges facing humanity in the modern world is to establish a respectful and sustainable relationship with the natural world. The nature-based spiritual tradition of animism offers both a mythical and a practical basis for such a relationship. Buddhism and animism have long been bedfellows, from when the Buddha roamed the forests of northeast India in the fifth century BCE to when Buddhism was introduced to Tibet in the eight century CE.

During this retreat we will be taking advantage of the natural setting that Tirylan House offers to engage with the myth of animism as a way of experiencing the world as alive. We will explore how this worldview can support insight into the central Buddhist teachings of emptiness, interconnection and universal compassion.

Through talks, discussion, meditation, chanting and ritual, in a natural setting (weather permitting), we will explore how we might cultivate an animist sensibility and integrate it with Buddhist practice. We will investigate how this fusion might liberate our energies and galvanise our practice.

Please go to the Costs and Bookings page to book this retreat. It is a Triratna-based retreat but open for booking.

Quotations …

‘While with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

We see into the life of things…’

Wordsworth, Some Lines Composed Above Tintern Abbey

‘We have somehow to hunt for a real feeling for the life of things.’ Sangharakshita, Living with Awareness

‘…it is important that the old myths and legends, beliefs and practices, should be studied… so that one can feel one’s way back into the old myths and legends of our native land. It is important that all of us, including Buddhists, should try to establish contact with our pre-Christian past. Indeed, I have sometimes thought that Buddhism will only become widespread in the West after a revival of paganism.’ Sangharakshita, The Bodhisattva Ideal