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Detailed List of Retreats

Beginner's Mind, Quiet Mind: Meditation Instruction And Practice For Meaningful Daily Living

Teacher: Tsunma Tsondru
Cost: 4 days accommodation + R400 surcharge
Dates: Monday 08 April 2024 - Friday 12 April 2024

tsunma tsondruIt is important for us to take time out from the incessant demands and fast pace of daily life. The BRC gives us a space to step off the wheel and the time to come home to the quiet, strong refuge which lies at our centre. Cultivating the natural state of peace and ease that lies there reveals our true nature - which enables us to not only help ourselves, but to help the world of which we are part. Then daily living becomes meaningful. This mid-week retreat will bring out our Beginner’s Mind through the practice of meditation. The time will be silent, quiet, and slow. There will be meditation instruction and guidance, formal sitting, and time for walking, writing, or staring into the distance. The retreat is suitable for those with or without meditation experience and will be held in an atmosphere of introspection.

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Tsunma Tsondru is a nun ordained by Tai Situ Rinpoche in the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. She met Buddhism through Louis van Loon at the BRC in the 90's. After working as a lawyer and environmental scientist, she left for Spain for a traditional Kagyu three-and-a-half-year retreat, followed by a second retreat of four years. Returning to Cape Town, she  served on the Board of the Southern African Faith Communities Environmental Institute - a multi-faith NGO - for 6 years and as  its Executive Director. She later spent a 10-day intensive retreat with Joanna Macy, engaging with Macy’s “Work That Re-Connects”, which she teaches at the BRC and other places, Her particular interest is deep ecology, eco-philosophy and wilderness work, and the role that spirituality, ethics and connection/interdependence can play in transforming us and our economic and social systems in protection of the Earth.