Love and Insight

Following on from his recent five-day retreat (“The Heart’s Awakening”) Bodhipaksa will guide us through a weekend of practices for developing insight through cultivating love, and deepening our capacity for love through developing insight.

• We’ll explore experientially how observing change and impermanence can help us bring more kindness, compassion, and appreciation into our lives.
• We’ll see how dukkha (suffering, unsatisfactoriness) can be regarded as a gift, because it shows us the need for love, which helps us overcome dukkha.
• We’ll reflect on how kindness and the other brahma-viharas are the result of letting go of the sense of self, and how they help us to let go of the sense of self — not just our own sense of self, but the sense we have that others have or are selves.

This won’t be done in an intellectual or theoretical way, but through the path of direct seeing and experience. This retreat is best for people who have at least a year’s consistent experience of lovingkindness practice.

What to expect

The sessions will be a mix of meditation, Dharma input, practice, interaction and inquiry.

Distinctive features of Bodhipaksa’s presentation of these key teachings include an emphasis on how:

• Connecting empathetically with ourselves and others naturally gives rise to kindness. Attempts to cultivate metta without empathy often lead, at best, to “niceness” rather than kindness

• Self-compassion and compassion for others rely on each other. Compassion can, because it meets deep needs for connection and meaning in our lives, be joyful and sustaining rather than heavy and draining.

• Mudita is not just “being happy because others are happy.” Instead it rests on a recognition of how peace and joy arise from skillful actions. If we want beings to be happy, we have to learn to see, rejoice in, and encourage the skillful in others.

• The peace of upekkha is not an end in itself, but is instead a step on the way to being more loving. Upekkha involves using insight to remove resentment and contempt, which are the two most stubborn and pernicious obstacles to love.

Session times

First daily session (2 hrs): USA & Canada PST 4:00 am | México CST 6:00 am | USA & Canada EST 7:00 am | IE & UK GMT 12:00 noon | Europe CET 1:00 pm | India IST 5:30 pm | Australia AEDT 11:00 pm | New Zealand NZDT 1:00 am (next day)

Second daily session (1.5 hrs): USA & Canada PST 8:30 am | México CST 10:30 am | USA & Canada EST 11:30 am | IE & UK GMT 4:30 pm | Europe CET 5:30 pm | India IST 10:00 pm | Australia AEDT 3:30 am (next day) | New Zealand NZDT 5:30 am (next day)

Third daily session (1.5 hrs): USA & Canada PST 11:30 am | México CST 1:30 pm | USA & Canada EST 2:30 pm | IE & UK GMT 7:30 pm | Europe CET 8:30 pm | India IST 1:00 am (next day) | Australia AEDT 6:30 am (next day) | New Zealand NZDT 8:30 am (next day

Attend any or all conversations in Zoom.

This event will be recorded and may be published online for others to access. Only the leader's video will be used except where users consent to appear spotlighted in a public conversation. Private conversations in breakout rooms will not be recorded.

Suggested donation:

£90-50 | $120-65 | €105-60

Get one ticket and come to any session you wish!

Like all our events, this retreat is offered by donation rather than charging a compulsory ticket price. We want to do this because we never want money to be an obstacle to taking part in a supportive community, and we know many people are struggling financially. The amount we suggest reflects the huge amount of work and love that goes into putting on events we hope will benefit everyone attending. If you can, please donate today. Thank you!

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About Bodhipakṣa

Bodhipakṣa is the founder of the online meditation center, Wildmind. He was ordained in 1993 and has taught meditation in Buddhist centers, universities, and prisons.

Since ordination he has spent most of his time teaching and writing. He’s the author of several books on Buddhist practice, including 'This Difficult Thing of Being Human', a book on self-compassion (Parallax, November, 2019), and 'The Heart’s Awakening', which will be published by Windhorse Publications in October 2025

You can find out more on bodhipaksa.com

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Get Bodhipakṣa's book 'The Heart’s Awakening: 108 Steps to a Life of Love'.