Holding Ourselves and the World in Kindness: A Queer Meditation Retreat on the Four Immeasurables
January 25, 10am — 4:30pm
Hosted by the Jamyang Buddhist Centre in London
The Four Immeasurables constitute a core Buddhist practice that is helpful for establishing attentional balance, transforming our relationships with others, and building healthy intentional communities for bringing change to the world. This retreat is being offered by the Jamyang Rainbow Sangha for all who identify as LGBTQ+ and are interested in Buddhism and meditation practice.
The methods for cultivating these attitudes are a contemplative technology of their own—a highly refined system of practice that brilliantly illustrates all the basic principles of Buddhist meditation and provides the practitioners with immediate benefits, affecting the overall quality of life and strengthening multiple habits related to inner wellbeing.
This retreat will be suitable for beginners as well as more experienced practitioners. We will draw upon traditional texts as well as some modern-day research on the benefits of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. In addition to that, we will touch upon the topic of mental states that underlie these attitudes: empathy, caring, and mental stability.
This retreat will be held in person at Jamyang and online, hosted by Buddhist translator and meditation instructor Michael Lobsang Tenpa. Please note that Michael Lobsang Tenpa will be joining us remotely on this occasion.
We will explore the four quintessential aspects of kindness, along with the two underlying qualities necessary for their cultivation: attentional balance, established through a certain amount of concentration practice, and the quality of tsewa, or tender affection that serves as a stem cell for the immeasurable mental states. You can also find further resources on the Four Immeasurables for this retreat here.