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| Reopening January 2024 Hi there, friends of Tig-Le, It has been quite a while since our last newsletter. I have been very fortunate to take this year off for personal retreat and respite. It has been lovely to pause and rest. Thank you for all your kindness, understanding and messages of support. Tig-Le will reopen in January 2024, and we are very excited to reunite with friends, community and new people wishing to explore mindfulness and the dharma. We have lots of opportunities in the new year to join in regular mindfulness and meditation sessions, retreats, and to study the Buddha Dharma teachings. Whichever approach you are interested in, fostering greater personal and collective Refuge is what we are working on. We look forward to seeing you again soon. Please come and join us again to sit, chat, and enjoy nature, tea and loving company as we cultivate mindfulness and compassionate approaches to life. Sending Metta and well wishes to all. Ian Hackett and the Tig-Le family Here are next year’s planned sessions and retreats. Regular sessions Mindfulness group term 1: Tuesday mornings, 10am, 30th January to 19th March, @ Fair Harvest, 426 Carters Rd, Margaret River. Open to all people interested in learning and practising mindfulness. Weaving traditional and contemporary approaches into a practical practice applied to everyday life. You can find a short article, “Perspectives on mindfulness”, at the end of this newsletter. Bookings and details Mindfulness Group Term 1, 2024 | Tig-Le House (tiglehouse.org) Dharma group term 1: Wednesday evenings, 7pm, 31st January to 20th March, @ Tig-Le House, 11 Tingle Ave, Margaret River. Each year, the Dharma group covers a sequence of core Buddhist teachings and associated meditative techniques across three traditions, including Theravada dhamma, Mahayana teachings on the development of Bodhicitta, and the Tibetan Vajrayana. All are welcome. In this first eight-week series for the year, we explore the Theravada dharma teachings and associated contemplative meditations in the universalist Buddhist tradition. Bookings and details Dharma Group – Term 1, 2024 | Tig-Le House (tiglehouse.org) Mindful walking term 1: Thursday mornings, 9am, 1st February to 14th March. Various locations. We walk purposefully, with intent, together in silence. Following this, there is an opportunity to share and have meaningful dialogue. For up-to-date information, connect with us via Tig-Le mindful walking group | Facebook or Messenger chat group by sending a request to be added. This is a community walking group. If you would like to support Tig-Le’s community efforts, you can make a Dana contribution here at Dana contribution, gift or offering | Tig-Le House (tiglehouse.org). Many thanks.  Retreats at Fair Harvest We have more retreats planned with Fair Harvest next year!! 5-day mindfulness and nature retreat: 15th – 19th April 2024 @ Fair Harvest Explore traditional and contemporary mindfulness through an ecological lens. Retreat weaves together mindfulness, universalist Ecodharma, meditations on nature, and practices derived from indigenous knowledge systems, expanding and enriching awareness of the natural world. These practices have been passed to me directly and are shared with permission, acknowledging the sources of wisdom and teaching. Learn mindfulness in connection with nature, fostering calm and peacefulness with our own nature and the natural world. Booking link 5-day mindfulness and nature retreat April 2024 at Fair Harvest | Tig-Le House (tiglehouse.org) 5-day metta meditation retreat: 7th – 11th October 2024 @ Fair Harvest Mettā can be translated as “the ever-present possibility for friendship.” and is a natural extension of our mindfulness. Practice helps us find meaningful sources of love and kindness within our lives, enabling us to live with greater tenderness and goodwill. During this 5-day semi-silent retreat, we walk through the specific meditational stages that help recover our deep love and affection for life and living. A deeper friendship and friendliness with our own lives, others, society and planet Earth. Booking link 5-day Metta meditation retreat October 2024 at Fair Harvest | Tig-Le House (tiglehouse.org) Retreats at The Origins Centre We will be back running a 3-part series on mindfulness and meditations on nature weekend retreats at The Origins Centre in Balingup. Bookings are required to attend, whether staying onsite at the Centre or joining classes daily while staying offsite. Please follow the links below for further information. Mindfulness weekend: Friday 3rd to Sunday 5th of May The first weekend will be engaging in the foundations of practice and essential techniques for cultivating mindfulness. Mindfulness weekend retreat May 2024 at the Origins Centre | Tig-Le House (tiglehouse.org) Mindful walking weekend: Friday 16th to Sunday 18th of August On the second weekend, we focus on becoming familiar and comfortable with techniques of mindful walking. Mindful walking aids us in fostering a mindful relationship with the inner and outer nature of experience. Mindful walking weekend retreat August 2024 at the Origins Centre | Tig-Le House (tiglehouse.org) Meditations for enriched awareness of nature: Friday 1st to Sunday 3rd of November On the third weekend, learn techniques that incorporate features of mindfulness, universalist Ecodharma, meditations on nature and practices derived from indigenous knowledge systems. These practical training and teachings expand and enrich awareness of the natural world. These practices have been handed to me directly and are shared with permission, acknowledging the sources of wisdom and teaching. Meditations for enriched awareness of nature November 2024 at the Origins Centre | Tig-Le House (tiglehouse.org) Over the three weekends, these techniques will build and merge together into a fullness of practice.  Other news Thank you! to Julia Harper and Ben Robinson for continuing to make opportunities in the community for people to attend Puja and mindfulness. Throughout the terms, Julz ran Sunday morning sessions on Green Tara Puja practice. Thank you to those who attended in solidarity. Ben has continued to run groups using the Mindfulness of the Day program at CrossFit Margaret River. It takes deep interest and commitment to the practice to share space and support others to practice. May mindfulness ripple throughout community. The next Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course at Fair Harvest will be held for two weeks in January. This course is a unique opportunity to learn from a group of passionate and inspiring local permaculturalists. We will share knowledge and techniques for regenerating and restoring a healthy Earth and people based on life-affirming ecologies. Bookings can be made at Permaculture Design Certificate Sunday 14th January – Sunday 28th January 2024 – Fair Harvest Permaculture For the past few years, we have conducted walk-and-talk sessions on regenerative bushland management and forest ecologies for small groups. These sessions take place on Carolyn Gales’ property in Rosa Brook, which has native forests in various stages of regeneration. The property is next to a state forest that is now part of the Wooditjup National Park, making it an ideal location to observe and compare the outcomes of different management strategies. The next one is planned for May 2024. We will keep you informed. We have recently updated our resources page with more mindfulness and Buddha dharma texts and meditations that you can download. These resources are very practical and useful. If you are able to, please consider making a Dana contribution supporting Tig-Le: Resources and offerings | Tig-Le House (tiglehouse.org) We have started a media library on the website, which will grow over the coming years. There is a short video from the 2023 Dharma campout and a recording from the 5-day mindfulness and nature retreat on the ‘setting up of mindfulness’. You can view these here at Media Library | Tig-Le House (tiglehouse.org) There will be another dharma campout in June 2024. Joining is via an invitation to dedicated Sangha members. The retreat involves extended solo practice, direct teaching support, and self-sufficient camping out in challenging weather conditions. Well wishes everyone from the Tig-Le Family 😊  Short article “Perspectives on mindfulness” There are many different perspectives today on what mindfulness is. It can be difficult to define, as it encompasses a range of ideas, including but not limited to attention and thoughtfulness, observational awareness, non-judgementalism, and being kind and caring. Western culture often associates mindfulness with clinical psychology, well-being, and its role in promoting good mental health. While this is true, it is also restrictive. Some traditional approaches to defining mindfulness can also be narrow, and others offer a broader perspective. For example, some Tibetan teachers I have studied and practised with view mindfulness as an overview state of awareness of mind and life, combined with a compassionate motivation encompassing all things. They see mindfulness as the starting point, focal point, maintenance, and completion state of awakening. The late Nyanaponika Thera, a renowned Western scholar-practitioner, defined mindfulness as the master key to understanding the mind, enabling it to register experiences in their most accurate bare form without reactivity or self-referencing commentary. Much cherished Thich Nhat Hanh describes mindfulness as being aware of what is happening in our bodies, feelings, minds, and the world around us and avoiding harm to ourselves and others. American vipassana teacher Joseph Goldstein defines mindfulness as a particular way of paying attention to the present moment experience without clinging, condemning, or forgetting. Mon Burmese Sayadaw U Thila Wunta defined mindfulness as awareness of the present moment without judgment or distraction. Chogyam Trungpa talked of mindfulness as our capacity to stop, be patient and calm, and attend to and respond to experiences with sanity. My root teacher, Lama Chimē, talks of our capacity for calm and peacefulness with experience, and of being a good enough friend to oneself and others in amongst experiences. While there are many ways to define mindfulness, and despite any differences, all these definitions share common threads, including the mind’s ability to become aware (to see and become familiar with the wisdom of life’s intelligence and how to live a compassionate life) through paying attention to lived experience, our common humanity, fostering our ability to establish and maintain a calm, composed and peaceful nature in response to life and experiences, done with friendship, kindness, care and ethical integrity, for the health and Refuge of oneself, others and the world. At Tig-Le, we follow specific tried and tested mindfulness training techniques and methods that support a kind, caring, friendly state of awareness and engagement with experiences that help us recall our innate compassionate nature, developing personal and collective Refuge. |
