Week retreat with Victor von der Heyde – 2024
The retreat is now fully booked out. Fill out the form below to be added to the waitlist. If a spot opens up, we will contact you and offer you the option to register and pay.
Pre-requisite: previous meditation retreat or MBSR Teacher: Victor von der Heyde
Friday 4 October – Friday 11 October
Arrive between 3 and 5pm on Friday 4th for 6pm dinner. Finishing after lunch on Friday 11th October.
This is a week-long meditation retreat held at our beautiful urban retreat centre, The Gathering Place.
Multi-day retreats are not recommended for absolute beginners. Experience with retreats and meditation is strongly recommended. This is because we take our duty of care to participants seriously. We want retreats to be appropriate and beneficial for each person and try to provide adequate support. Please contact us if you wish to discuss whether this program is appropriate for you.
Waitlist
Emptiness and the Mysteries of Imaginal Perception: 7 day silent Insight Meditation Retreat
This retreat is an introduction to imaginal practice, sometimes called soul-making dharma.
The practices and understandings will follow the teachings of the English meditation teacher Rob Burbea (1965 - 2020). He wrote the book Seeing That Frees and gave around two hundred talks on imaginal practice.
Soul-making is most likely a new area for many people. It starts with exploring aspects of our personal experience or images that may have some sense of sacredness, or meaning for us. Or where we feel some sense of reverence, or an unfathomable quality, or a sense of beauty. It uses the quietness and discernment that can happen in meditation to explore the realm of the soulful or meaningful. Many people find this realm enlivening and nourishing and find it broadens their understanding of what meditation can be about.
Imaginal practice is based in part on the Buddhist understanding of emptiness. Put very simply, emptiness is the understanding that what we think of as real or unreal is dependent on the way of looking.
The retreat will begin with mindfulness and samadhi meditations. We’ll spend time with practices that can help with an understanding of emptiness and feeling less bound up, and then we’ll move on to imaginal practices.
People will have the choice of spending more time with images or more time with practices they might be more familiar with, like those that lead to calmness and insight.
There will be talks giving an understanding of what we’re doing and what to look out for and periods for Q&A.
Accommodation
The Gathering Place has 12 simple, comfortable bedrooms and retreat facilities, a large beautiful garden and is close to the Dickson wetlands and bush walking areas of Mt Ainslie and Mt Majura. You can choose between residential or non-residential options (participate fully in the retreat and go home to sleep at night).
Each bedroom has a single bed, cupboard, desk, chair, lamp, mirror and sink. All beds have electric blankets, doonas, pillows and 2 spare blankets. There are shared unisex bathrooms and toilets.
Cost
There are limited spaces on this retreat due to the size of the retreat centre, so please book early to avoid disappointment. We will keep a wait list for anyone who misses out. Cancellations do occur, and we will contact anyone on the wait list as soon as possible.
Residential: for all meals, and accommodation $1140 (GST inclusive)
Non-residential: for all meals, sleeping at home or in Campervan at night $615 (GST inclusive)
Optional linen hire: $20 per person for the entire retreat (top and bottom sheets, pillow case, towel and face washer), or bring your own linen for no additional fee
Additional Cost: Dana
In keeping with a 2,500 year old tradition no fee has been charged for the teachings. At the end of the retreat you are invited to give a donation (dana) to express your appreciation and to support the teacher to continue their work.
Program
The retreat program consists of sitting, walking and guided meditations, meditation instruction and dharma talks, group and individual meetings with teachers and daily gentle yoga/exercise sessions and unscheduled time to meditate, rest, walk.
The retreat will be in silence apart from necessary communication.
There'll also be a 45 minute work period each day to help with food preparation, washing up and general cleaning.
Daily Schedule
In approximately two sitting periods each day there will be some instruction from Victor.
- Early morning yoga/exercise period, followed by silent sit
- Breakfast
- Work period (food prep, cleaning or gardening)
- Alternating sitting/walking
- Teacher interviews/groups on some days
- Lunch
- Rest/free time
- Alternating sitting/walking
- Possible short yoga before dinner
- Dinner & clean up
- Dharma talk and practice
The Teacher
Victor von der Heyde has been practising meditation for thirty five years. He's spent over two years in total in silent retreats and has taken dharma teaching roles since the mid 1990s. He was co-founder of Sydney Insight Meditators and of the Bodhgaya Development Association. He was a student, friend and supporter of Rob Burbea (1965 - 2020) from 2012 to 2020. Visit Dharma.org.au
Your health and Covid protocols
We follow ACT and federal Health Guidelines. Please consider the well being of other participants, and take a RAT test before coming if you experience covid/flu like symptoms or are in close contact with someone with COVID.
Cancellation policy
Cancellation prior to 4 September: full refund minus $75 admin fee)
Cancellation after 4 September: 50% refund (minus $75 admin fee) unless someone takes your place. This cancellation policy is applied because suppliers and caterers must be paid well in advance and it is often difficult to fill retreat places at short notice due to the time commitments involved.
Cancellation after 18 September: no refund unless someone takes your place
All cancellations incur an admin fee, this is a non refundable amount charged to partially cover admin costs.
Additional information
Retreat options | Residential + Bringing own linen, Residential + $20 linen charge, Non-residential – full participation in day + evening program, excludes overnight accommodation |
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Event Details
Start date: 4 October 2024
End date: 11 October 2024
Start time: 16:00 AEST
End time: 16:00 AEST
Venue: The Gathering Place, 4 Bancroft Street, Dickson 2602
Directions: Please see directions and parking information at https://simplymindful.com.au/directions-and-parking.
Phone: (+61) 0490 354 900