Retreats & Intensives
upcoming
Workshop:
Mindful Self Compassion
March 30-31
With Chris Germer and Kathleen Cator
The Contemplary is delighted to host Chris Germer on his first visit to Melbourne. This workshop is an introduction to Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC), an empirically-supported training program based on the clinical perspective of Chris Germer and the pioneering research of Kristin Neff.
MSC combines the skills of mindfulness and self-compassion to enhance our capacity for emotional wellbeing. Mindfulness is the first step—turning with loving awareness toward difficult experience (emotions, sensations, thoughts). Self-compassion comes next—bringing loving awareness to ourselves. Together, mindfulness and self-compassion comprise a state of warm, connected presence during difficult moments in our lives.
Course:
Mindful Self Compassion
Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) is an empirically-supported, eight-week training program designed to cultivate the skill of self-compassion. Developed by Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer, MSC enables participants to respond to difficult moments in their lives with kindness, care and understanding. In particular, MSC encourages participants to foster kindness for themselves as well as a sense of common humanity through the techniques of mindfulness meditation.
Self-compassion can be learned by anyone. It is a courageous attitude that stands up to harm, including the harm that we unwittingly inflict on ourselves through self-criticism, self-isolation, or self-absorption. Increasingly, research is demonstrating that self-compassion is strongly associated with emotional wellbeing, reduced anxiety and depression, maintenance of healthy habits, and improvements in personal relationships. No previous experience with self-compassion or other meditation practices is required.
Workshop:
The Art of Contemplation
The Contemplary is proud to be hosting Alma Ayon to run a 3-week course in contemplative art. The program, which requires no previous artistic training and is suitable for people of all ages and abilities, combines instruction in meditation practices (drawing heavily from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition) with exercises in drawing, painting and sculpture, as well as providing an overview of the history of contemplative art in the West and the East.
The course allows participants to discover for themselves the relationship between contemplative practice, inspiration and creativity, and offers guidance in entering the creative process as a meditation practice that can be used to cultivate attentional relaxation, stability and vividness. Alma will also give instruction in how afflictive emotions that tend to come to the fore in meditation can be tended to and released through creative expression. Finally, the course also offers participants methods of seeking and expressing contemplative insight through the combination of meditation and artistic practice.
Retreat:
The Four Close Applications of Mindfulness
with Alan Wallace
From July 27th to August 1st, Dr Alan Wallace, one of the foremost contemplatives and teachers of Tibetan Buddhism in the English-speaking world, will be holding a 6-day non-residential retreat on ‘The Four Close Applications of Mindfulness.’ These techniques, were developed to help people liberate themselves from mental affliction by cultivating and applying mindfulness to four different domains: the body, feelings, the mind, and phenomena generally.
It is proposed that fundamental misconceptions and misunderstandings in these domains are the sources of mental and emotional affliction, and that correcting these mistakes paves the way for genuine happiness and flourishing. As we investigate these features of our lived experience, we probe more deeply into the very nature of human identity and the possibilities of freedom. A central theme in these teachings will be the cultivation of the discerning mindfulness we need to distinguish between what is presented to our senses and what is conceptually imposed by our distorting minds.
This retreat is open to people from all backgrounds, religious and secular, Buddhist and non-Buddhist. The spirit of the event is one of curious, critical, non-dogmatic inquiry and self-discovery. It is suitable for anyone who wants to investigate for themselves the causes of suffering in their own lives and to discover what is of universal value in a Buddhist perspective on the means of attaining genuine happiness and flourishing.
Retreats & Intensives
Previously
In August 2016, The Contemplary hosted Alan Wallace for a 5-day urban retreat at the Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne and a public talk at the University of Melbourne.
This secular retreat was a rare opportunity for people of scientific, humanistic or religious persuasion to be led by one of the world’s most renowned meditation teachers.
The Attention Revolution: Cultivating Deeper Mindfulness
A 5 day residential retreat with Glen Svensson
January 20th to 25, 2017 Maitripa Centre Healesville.
In January 2017 We invited an experienced international Buddhist teacher to re-visit and build on the experience of the 2016 retreat. Originally from Australia, Glen Svensson has been a student and practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism since 1995 and graduated from the seven-year Masters Program in Advanced Buddhist Studies of Sutra and Tantra at the Lama Tzong Khapa Institute (Pomaia, Italy) in 2004. Since 2005 he has taught and led meditation retreats in India, Europe, North America and Australia with a teaching style emphasizing clarity. Glen has learned from many distinguished teachers and is also a senior student of Alan Wallace, with whom he recently worked to provide individual support to participants in Alan’s annual 8 week retreat.
Course:
Compassion Cultivation Training
Compassion Cultivation Training is a program designed to help individuals develop compassion, empathy, and kindness for others and for themselves. CCT integrates Buddhist contemplative practices with contemporary psychology and scientific research on compassion. The program was developed by a team of contemplative scholars, clinical psychologists, and researchers at the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University. The course runs for eight weeks.
As with Cultivating Emotional Balance, the skills and knowledge acquired through Compassion Cultivation Training are of universal benefit, and we recommend the program to anyone grappling with suffering in themselves or the world around them. Cultivating compassion has been found to be an effective means of alleviating empathic burnout, and as such may be of particular benefit to those working in the caring professions.
In October, 2016, The Contemplary had the privilege of hosting CCT at the Abbotsford Convent. This was the first time course was offered on the east coast of Australia. It was run by Petrina Barson, the only Stanford-qualified teacher residing full-time in Australia.
Course:
Cultivating Emotional Balance
CEB is the outcome of a collaboration between Dr Paul Ekman, pre-eminent psychologist and a pioneer in the study of emotion, and Dr Alan Wallace, a Buddhist contemplative, scholar and meditation teacher. The program draws on decades of psychological research as well as Buddhist meditative practices for stabilizing attention, enhancing skills in analytic thinking, and cultivating virtuous and compassionate states of mind. The purpose of CEB is to help participants discern, understand and exercise choice around emotions that may be destructive to themselves or to others.
CEB is of potential benefit to anyone and everyone looking to engage with their emotions in a more wholesome way. The course-length is 42 hours, but this may be offered in a variety of formats – from a six day intensive to series of classes spread over a longer period.
In 2017, The Contemplary will be offering courses in Cultivating Emotional Balance to the general public. We also see enormous potential in the application of the program to health, education and business sectors and are working to incorporate the program into these settings.
Bursaries and Fee Waivers
We try to make our programs accessible to those who are experiencing financial hardship by offering bursaries and discounts wherever possible. In return, we may ask you to volunteer your time helping out with the administration of one of our courses (hands on the ground are always needed).
If you are in need of financial assistance, please write to hello@thecontemplary.org, explaining your financial situation.
Bursaries are only made possible through the generous donations of others. If you’d like to sponsor someone else’s participation in a course, please write to us.