Weekend retreat in Scarborough with Fay Adams and Kristine Mackenzie-Janson, 30 May-1 June 2025
What if peace and fulfilment could be found within us, rather than in external pursuits?
There is something endearing, honourable and heartbreaking about the way us human beings seem to muddle our way through life. Each of us always attempting to belong, meet our human needs, find love, happiness, fulfilment. Endearing and honourable because there is dignity, tenacity and spirit in our ability to bounce back and find a way through against the odds to survive. Heartbreaking because often our strategies for finding peace and fulfilment are self-defeating and only serve to entrench our struggle – addictions, self-blame and blame of others, endlessly wanting more of this or that, overworking etc…
What if true refuge is not from it all but within it all? True refuge is not an escape from it all where we somehow transcend the vicissitudes of life in favour of another, better place. Rather, it’s an open space where we can deeply and softly rest within it all. From here, ‘it all’ can feel different – heartbreaking perhaps, but also peaceful, true, beautiful and full of love.
This may sound like a grand or maybe even impossible aim, but when we have a good map to guide us and a resolve to follow it over time, finding true refuge and coming home to ourselves becomes a real possibility. In this retreat weekend we’ll explore this possibility and do practices to nudge us towards experiencing it directly for ourselves.
Inspired by American meditation teacher and author Tara Brach’s book True Refuge, we’ll weave together mindfulness, compassion and mystical poetry throughout this weekend and we’ll settle into presence, heart and awareness. While poetry will speak its words of wisdom in ways that only poems can reaching the heart directly, practice will immerse us in our own experience of this.
The venue is a beautiful old building now converted into a Buddhist centre, positioned on a hill and overlooking the North sea in Scarborough, UK. You will need to book your own accommodation nearby in Scarborough.
This retreat weekend is open to people from all walks of life, of all faiths or none, and is for those with an existing meditation or self/spiritual development practice which they trust can support them. If you’re unsure whether this is you, please be in touch with Kristine or Fay.
When: 30 May – 1 June 2025
What time: Friday 30 May 7-8.30pm, Saturday 31 May 10am-5pm, Sunday 1 June 10am-3pm.
Where: Kagyu Samye Dzong Scarborough
How much: low income £100, standard £125, pay it forward £150 – to be transferred by BACS online, through PayPal or in cash on the day. Please don’t let the costs get in the way of coming, if they’re a problem just get in touch!
To book: please get in touch here.
Fay Adams stumbled across mindfulness and compassion training while searching for help with chronic pain in her 20s. These practices were the only thing that provided lasting healing and relief. Many years later she now lives in Herefordshire, UK and continues to teach, train and supervise (including on the University of Aberdeen Masters in Mindfulness Studies programme), while also offering 1:1 coaching. Coaching feels like a deepening of the meditation practice. When an experienced companion walks beside you offering presence and unconditional acceptance, alongside maps and tools to navigate by, changes that you have longed for, but which have seemed out of reach, can become real in your life.
Kristine Mackenzie-Janson came to being a mindfulness teacher, trainer and supervisor through her adventures in Tibetan Buddhism. She has worked as a tutor for the Mindfulness Association and as an honourary fellow of the University of Aberdeen on their MSc Studies in Mindfulness for over a decade, and loves to witness the unfolding transformation when people bring mindfulness, compassion and insight into the heart of their lives. In the last few years Kristine has become increasingly interested in how to support people in a 1:1 setting, alongside teaching groups.
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