James Reeves
There is a longing within each of us, asking us to return to the stillness and wholeness we’ve always known. This stillness comes and goes in our lives, yet having known it, we long to return to it and often look in the wrong places. We mistakenly believe by doing something different or changing in some way, we’ll find peace. Whilst we can find temporary relief, the real and lasting freedom we are looking for is rarely found by reorganising ourselves or our lives.
Retreat offers an opportunity to unplug, unwind and unravel, by providing a forum for stopping and resting. These 5 days offer the opportunity to rediscover the shared humanity of our underlying stillness. The quietness that lies beneath our worldly identities is easily accessed when we take away distraction, preoccupation, and identification with the various roles and responsibilities we hold as caregivers, workers, and partners. It allows for a slow stripping away of all the layers of who we believe we are. As we remember that at our core, we are still, full, content, and at ease, we recover our innate sense of wellbeing. Carrying this ease back into life reignites our love for the world and our ability to maintain and sustain all those roles with less friction and tension.
What To Expect
The structure of the retreat will explore themes from the teachings of Kashmir Shaivism, also known as The Pathless Path, or ‘non-dual’ philosophy. These teachings embrace simplicity and the proposition that to access deep stillness and presence we can explore a series of reductive inquiries that help to remove, rather than add to, the layers of our conditioned self.
These teachings exemplify the proposition that there is nothing that needs to be fixed, changed or adjusted, and as we learn to welcome ourselves and life just as it is, we uncover a deep ground of ease and well-being and recover a lasting sense of wholeness. We don’t have to get anywhere to find this, but by stopping, resting and befriending what’s within our experience, this groundless ground reveals itself.
Through a range of practices, discussions, and self-inquiry tools, you’ll learn how to get beyond any sense of there being something that you need to do to access your most rested self. The retreat will walk you, hand in hand, through stages of structured practices and then beyond frameworks toward this simple recognition, that at your core, you are already whole, healed, and healthy.
Come home to the beauty and simplicity of rest and let go of the idea that there is somewhere to get to. Be surprised and delighted by the simplicity of recovering your already-at-ease self. All that’s needed is to follow the signposts most aligned with your heart and trust in the deep yearning you have to rest, surrender and be still.
For the schedule, more details and booking, please visit James’ website.