Venerable’s Shamatha & Vipassana Retreat 2025

HELD AT KAMALASHILA TIBETAN BUDDHIST CENTRE
13-16 November 2025

The Shamatha and Vipassana Retreat led by Ayyas Jitindriyā and Jayasāra was a wonderful success. The retreat was full of beautiful Dharma teachings, guided and walking meditations. Participants came from nearly every state to be part of this special retreat. The Ayyas taught on the foundations of meditation, the five precepts as a guide to a happy and ethical life: using the contemplations on the Khandhas or five aggregates, as a method to arise wisdom in our minds. 

We thank the Ayyas for their precious teachings and warm presence, to all the attendees who were so sincere in their practice and learning, and our hard-working group of volunteering sangha. We look forward to next year’s retreat.

The Field - Mike Kelly
Poem by an attendee of the Shamatha and Vipassana Retreat

There can be no greater exhilaration nor grander ecstasy than frolicking in the field of quiet joy found where the innate sacredness of life meets the knowing that none of the particulars ever mattered.

That life exists – the very process of creation – is a miracle beyond the imagination of a mind. To understand creation is to see into the heart of things and realise that all things are of the heart.

From this place, every act, every expression, is meaningful and sacred simply because it is. Life is life and because it is life, it is love. And because it is love, it is worthy.

And yet, whatever arises shall also pass. Each experience will change as the seasons do and evolve as we have. Holding on will every time prove fruitless as we clutch for solidity in a flowing river. The passage of time has no equal and is yet conquered simply by simple folks who care not for nought but the now.

Right here. Right Now. See, that’s the ticket, my friends. Enjoy the comings and goings with all your heart though pay their seductive baying no heed. They are only coming to go. Remain firmly here, present to the miracles just waiting to astound you.

When you finally land yourself in this knowing; when you learn to bathe unfazed by temptation nor repulsion in the shimmering flow of creation, you might find yourself in the field an old poet named Rumi wrote of hundreds of years ago. 

A field beyond time where right and wrong have been long forgotten.

And here we are.