To be held in the Centre Room
Cost: £25 per workshop - or £60 for advance booking of all three
Three Sessions:
Sunday 3rd September 10am - 12:45pm The Deeper Meaning of Relationships
Saturday 21st October 2-4:45pm Uprooting the Source of Disharmony
Sunday 5th November 10am - 12:45pm Understanding True Love
Each workshop is stand-alone, but it's most beneficial to attend the whole series as the workshops complement each other.
In the first of the series – The Deeper Meaning of Relationships, you will discover that all your relationships have the potential to become deeper, more enjoyable and more rewarding. Kadampa Teachers Andrew and Emily will explain some of the beautiful Buddhist meditations of Training the Mind that will enable you to improve all your interactions with others and make them meaningful.
You will learn methods to:
• Help you keep a very positive and healthy view of all your relationships
• Enable you to maintain an inner equilibrium
• See that even the difficult relationships can be very meaningful
By design, we are social creatures, which is why our relationships are as important to us as the air we breathe. Yet all too often we find our interactions with others fall short of our hopes and expectations. In an effort to self-preserve we often draw boundaries, or silently pull away. And while this can remedy the experience of any acute pain in the moment, the longer-term consequence may be that we cut ourselves off from the joy and exuberance of life. If we're to find real fulfilment in our relationships, we need to learn how we can enjoy our connections with others in a way that enables us to feel empowered and connected while also feeling free.
The key to harmonious and meaningful relationships comes in understanding the deeper purpose of our relationships. Often we look to our interplay with family and friends to supply us with love and happiness. However, from the spiritual perspective we understand that happiness comes from the peaceful and positive minds of love, compassion, kindness, patience, generosity and so on. It is precisely in our relationships – both the joyful and the more challenging ones – that we are afforded the opportunity to train in these happiness-creating minds.
In this series, through talks, guided meditations and discussions, we will look at the profound set of practices known as ‘training the mind’, designed by Buddha to enable us to transform all of our relationships into wonderful opportunities for making great spiritual progress. Applying this training will enable us to develop harmonious and meaningful relationships; first of all, with ourselves, then with our family and friends, and eventually everyone!
