Nature is a teacher. But can humanity learn enough to get through these difficult times? Just how are we to understand and integrate nature’s teachings? Exploring ecoDharma is a reconnaissance retreat, an exploratory dialogue, in which the ecoDharma team invite you to participate. We will scout our way amidst living ecology as it manifests in the land, in our own consciousness, and between us through interaction and communication.
What can we learn? Where can we find the resources to respond to the cries of the world with courageous compassion? Where can we find the power to overcome the alienation and exploitation which so characterise the current social and ecological crises? Where can we discover the deeper perspectives that help us to act authentically?
We will be scouting out the answers in nature. Not nature as a static vista from a picture window. Nor nature as something out there from which we humans are somehow separate. But nature as an unfolding phenomenon. We will be exploring nature as the indivisible totality of that evolving process – the human and the non-human, the personal and the collective, the introspective and the socially engaged – all woven into the web of life. This is nature as the ground of experience, mineral and organic, personal and political. This is nature as the ecology of becoming.
Exploring ecoDharma brings the methods and insights of the Buddhist tradition into association with an emerging ecological perspective – an association that is both augmenting and critical. Together they offer resistance to the destructive juggernaut of industrial growth society, and can renew ways of living that support a creative and life affirming future.
EcoDharma is all about connection. The way we treat the environment, the way we treat other species, and the way we treat each other – are all interlinked. What are the implications for our personal and collective ethics? We will explore how to make the shift from ways of living based on hierarchy, domination and control to those based on co-operation and partnership; thus moving from isolating assumptions about our nature to a life affirming connection in community with others and the living earth.
This inquiry will be a truly holistic practice. Grounded intimately in the elemental and wild landscape of the Serra de Carreau, our daily life will be simple, nourishing and connected. We will root ourselves in meditation and the insights stemming from it. We will use study and dialogue, workshops which engage our emotional, visceral and creative energies. The event will pass through the stages of study, into deepening reflection & meditation, and finally explore how we will carry our learning into the world. The programme will be punctuated by a number of solo days in silence amidst the wild.
Places are limited.
• To discover how to recognise and learn from the truth-teachings nature has to offer us; opening ourselves to insight into the nature of reality.
• To intensify our meditation practice and become fully integrated with our deepest nature.
• To gain wisdom from our experience of ecological consciousness, realising its implications for our own lives in terms of personal and collective ethics.
• To feel ourselves deeply embedded in nature, so as to draw nourishment, strength and understanding from it.
• To equip ourselves spiritually and practically as actors in the world; to find our power as part of a growing movement of people acting out of courageous compassion; and connect with each other as collaborators in creative engagement.
• To live simply and sustainably amidst the wild natural ecology of the Serra de Carreau in a way that helps us enter into an intimate dialogue with the non-human world.
• To explore the ecology of community, learning the lessons of the ecological world in terms of social systems and community, modelling these during the event.
• To learn to relate to nature in non-dualistic terms, healing the alienation of our industrial growth society: from nature, from each other, from the wild!
• To use holistic learning methods to engage the whole self and the emergent qualities of community.
Guhyapati is the founder of the ecodharma project. Living in the wilds for the last decade his background includes radical activism, mountaineering and committed Buddhist scholarship and practice.
Kamalashila is a respected meditation teacher and study leader. His book Meditation: The Buddhist Way to Tranquility and Insight was received as one of the most complete manuals of meditation currently in print. He is working on a new book about the Six Elements.
Maitrisara is the secretary of the Network of Engaged Buddhists. Her background is in community organising, learning and engagement working mostly with charities and community organisations. As a highly experienced facilitator, she is fascinated by ways of creating positive learning communities.
A resource and reading list will be added here soon.