This workshop will explore the theory and practice of ‘dependent arising’ (paṭiccasamuppāda), and its application to life in our contemporary world.  Dependent arising is the foundational insight underlying the Buddha’s teaching. Its examination gets us to the essence of the Buddha’s understanding of how the world works. It serves as a secular and naturalistic foundation for the practice of both ethics and meditation.

Experienced meditation teacher and scholar, Patrick Kearney, will lead an exploration of the:

• Buddha’s teaching as a natural system of phenomenology that requires no ontological or metaphysical faith commitments.

• Fundamental principles of natural causation as understood by the Buddha.

• Role of “insight meditation” (vipassanā bhāvanā) or “mindfulness meditation” (satipaṭṭhāna) as a means of realising these fundamental principles and applying them to our everyday lives.

• Buddha’s understanding of ethics (sīla) as the path to human flourishing, and its intimate connection with meditation.

This workshop is designed for people interested in understanding the Buddha’s approach to meditation and ethics. No commitment to any Buddhist tradition is assumed.

Participants will be introduced to the foundational principles of the Buddha’s teaching, and how these may be applied to meditation practice and to an approach to ethical living in the contemporary world. The workshop will contain a mix of theoretical teaching, group discussion and practical meditation exercises. The Buddha will be treated as a teacher of ethics in the classical sense, but one who also taught systems of attention training, or meditation, designed to bring his theoretical ideas into the lived experience of practitioners.