The River Underground by Paramananda

Click here to book via The Buddhist Centre [Live]

Seven days of meditation, soulful exploration, and strong, supportive friendship: a safe space to go deeper into experience and practice.

A Home Retreat led by Paramananda, in collaboration with The Buddhist Centre Live

“We heal through the imagination, through images and fictions.”
— James Hillman, ‘Healing Fiction’

At its best, meditation practice and Dharma reflection can be a means to help us gain access to the unseen underlying currents and forces that shape our lives. Yet, as practitioners in day to day life, many of us can still have an experience of somehow being ‘out of touch’ both with ourselves and with the world in all its fullness.

On this Home Retreat, Paramananda will bring his usual rich blend of meditation, magic, warmth, encouragement, challenge, poetry, authenticity and diamond-sharp clarity to help us contact something deeper that can transform this feeling of loss and restore our sense of agency with the mysterious reaches of our being.

We’ll share the space online together: listening internally; paying attention to what’s arising and passing away; sharing and questioning with a profound curiosity; and activating our imagination to try to connect and engage with whatever truly moves and sustains us. You never know what you’ll find under the surface of things! By learning to settle and rest in an experience of ‘soul’ we can begin to feel the flow of the ever-changing river that runs through it and mysteriously nourishes us in ways that are genuinely restoring for the heart.

Join us for an emergent space that will include meditation, poetry, reflections, small and large group discussions and enquiry, teaching input, drumming, guided practices, and creative Buddhist ritual.

This retreat is presented in collaboration with The Buddhist Centre Live. The second session each day will be broadcast live from the Melbourne Buddhist Centre shrine room. Come and practise in truly international community!

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Suggested donation for the whole retreat:

£175 / $350 AUD / $230 / €205 or drop in for £30 / $60 AUD / $40 / €35 per day.

Get one ticket and come to any session you wish throughout the week!

Like all our events, this retreat is offered by donation rather than charging a compulsory ticket price. We want to do this because we never want money to be an obstacle to taking part in a supportive community, and we know many people are struggling financially in the wake of the pandemic and cost of living crisis. The amount we suggest reflects the huge amount of work and love that goes into putting on events we hope will benefit everyone attending. If you can, please donate today to help us continue with our work and support others to attend who cannot afford to pay. Thank you!

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Session Times

First daily session (2 hrs): USA PST 00:00 | México 01:00 | USA EST 03:00 | IE & UK 08:00 | Europe CET 09:00 | India 12:30 | Australia AEST 17.00 | New Zealand NZST 19.00

Second daily session (1 hr): USA PST 03:00 | México 04:00 | USA EST 06:00 | IE & UK 11:00 | Europe CET 12:00 | India 15:30 | Australia AEST 20.00 | New Zealand NZST 22:00

Please note: Session 2 will be broadcast live from the MBC shrine room, and we encourage anyone who can attend to join us for a puja each evening at 8pm AEST.

Third daily session (2 hrs): USA PST 06:30 | México 07:30 | USA EST 09:30 | IE & UK 14:30 | Europe CET 17:30 | India 19:00 | Australia AEST 23.30 | New Zealand NZST 01.30 (next day)

Attend any or all conversations in Zoom.

This event will be recorded and may be published online for others to access. Only the leader’s video will be used except where users consent to appear spotlighted in a public conversation. Private conversations in breakout rooms will not be recorded.

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About Paramananda

Paramananda is an inspirational and much loved Buddhist teacher who has written a number of books on Buddhism and the craft of meditation, including ‘Change Your Mind’, ‘A Deeper Beauty’, and mostly recently ‘The Myth of Meditation: Restoring Imaginal Ground through Embodied Buddhist Practice’.

He worked for a number of years as a psychiatric social worker and did voluntary work in the community for the Samaritans, in drug detox, and in a hospice. Having co-founded the San Francisco Buddhist Center, Paramananda is now based in West London where is time is dedicated to teaching.