Venerable Aileen Barry (Thubten Chotso) became a Buddhist nun some 20 years ago. She served Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo and Venerable Robina Courtin in helping spread the dharma all over the world. She has been guiding meditation practitioners for many years across a wide variety of settings including: dharma centres, community centres, prisons, the corporate world, various online groups and as a lecturer within a Naturopathic College. Mingyur Rinpoche and Tsoknyi Rinpoche are her main meditation teachers and she has attended many retreats with both. She has also attended several retreats with Lama Alan Wallace. She draws from a broad range of teachers, across traditions, appreciating the different perspectives they have to offer, to help deepen her understanding and experience. Regular solitary and group retreats remain an essential underpinning to support her practice. 

Shamatha retreat is an excellent opportunity suitable for all levels – to learn and review the basic techniques of mindfulness meditation in a retreat environment. You will be guided step by step in how to focus and concentrate your mind. As the meditation practitioner engages in shamatha practice, they can improve the ability of having focused attention. This supports the capacity to simply be with whatever arises in the mind, thus reducing our craving and aversion to needing things to be any particular way. We cannot control what will happen in our lives but through the cultivation of awareness, we can choose how we respond to whatever happens to us. As a mindfulness-based program, it supports reducing anxiety and enhances our natural empathy and compassion – both towards ourselves and others. In order to develop such a mind, we need to strengthen the qualities of mindfulness and introspection. This supports our capacity to be ok, even when life is not ok.

During the retreat, participants will be introduced to the tools that are used to awaken these innate qualities. They will also learn about the obstacles that arise when practicing shamatha, and how we can loosen their grip on us, through first recognizing, accepting and then letting these hindrances go. The training includes mindfulness of breathing, of bodily sensations, observing mental events, and observing the nature of consciousness. We will also explore the important role of vipashyana or insight meditation as the two techniques, insight and shamatha/calm abiding meditation together form the path out of our self-created suffering. The cultivation of calm abiding creates the foundational support needed for insight to be developed.

During the sessions, sitting and walking meditation will be alternated. The meditations are guided by a Western nun in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. You will learn how to use meditation in your daily life in order to sustain your capacity to recognize and simply be with what is arising in your mind. With that awareness and insight, the path is open to respond to life with increasing calm, equanimity, contentment and joy.

Day 1
1:30 – 4:00 pm – Registration & Check-In
4:00 – 5:00 pm – Introduction Talk
5:00 – 6:00 pm – Dinner
6:30 – 8:00 pm – Session 1 BEGINNING OF NOBLE SILENCE

Day 2 – Day 6
 5:45 am – Wake up Gong
 6:00 am – Gompa Gong
 6:15 – 7:00 am – Session 1 Morning Meditation
 7:00 – 8:00 am – Breakfast
 9:00 – 10:00 am – Session 2
10:00 – 10:30 am – Break
10:30 – 11:30 am – Session 3
11:30 – 12:30 pm – Lunch Break
 2:00 – 3:00 pm – Session 4
 3:00 – 3:30 pm – Tea Break
 3:30 – 4:30 pm – Session 5
 5:00 – 6:00 pm – Dinner
 6:30 – 8:00 pm – Session 6 Dharma talk / video

Day 7
  5:45 am – Wake up Gong
  6:00 am – Gompa Gong
  6:15 – 7:00 am – Session 1 Morning Meditation
  7:00 – 8:00 am – Breakfast
  9:00 – 10:00 am – Session 2
10:00 – 10:30 am – Tea Break
10:30 – 11:30 am – Session 3, Feedback round, Group Photo, Organizing Gompa. END OF SILENCE
11:30 am -12:30 pm – Lunch
  1:00 – 3:00 pm – Check Out

Click here for upcoming dates of the Shamatha retreats.

For more information and registration, email us at [email protected] Before signing up, please read here what it means to stay at Thosamling Nunnery in a retreat environment.

Would you like to stay longer? We have noticed that many participants of our courses like to stay a few days after the course in order to deepen their practice before going back into the business of daily life. We like to give you the opportunity to do so if it doesn’t conflict with the schedule of Thosamling. If you are interested, please check with the office the possibility for staying longer.