New Year’s Online Retreat: Voices of Awakening – Poems of the First Free Women

The following message is from Insight Dialog, regarding an event to be hosted by Nicola Redfern and Ayya Anopama.

Using the poems from ‘The First Free Women’ which are based on the Therigatha, the world’s oldest collection of women’s literature, we will be exploring the struggles and moments of awakening of the very first nuns at the time of the Buddha. These women came from all walks of life and their realizations took many forms. Investigating these teachings connects us with the challenges and doubts, as well as with the perseverance and profound compassion embodied by these courageous women. Their lived experience and insights are deeply and immediately relevant to our own lives as practitioners today.

From the forward by Bhikkhuni Anandabodhi: “For me, these poems have been an invitation to bring light to the hidden corners and the broken parts, to the confused parts and the angry parts, to all the parts that have been pushed aside. Because it’s only when we bring everything onto the Path that the Path can truly transform us”

In this retreat, we will come together to practice silent meditation as well as Insight Dialogue, bringing together the wisdom teachings of the Early Buddhist Nuns and the power of meditation in relationship to support deep insight. This New Year’s retreat will be both similar to and different from the retreats Nic and Ayya offered  in the US and Europe in November.

We warmly welcome practitioners of all gender expressions to join us.

Click here for the full Online Retreat Schedule December 31, 2020 – January 3, 2021